LETTER XII.
The ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were not the only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne; for, in the year 1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses to be performed for her soul’s health; and the prior entered into an engagement that one of the convent should every day say a special mass for ever for the said benefactress, whether living or dead. She also engaged within five years to pay to the said convent one hundred marks of silver for the support of a chantry and chantry chaplain, who should perform his masses daily in the parish church of Selborne.* In the east end of the south aisle there are two sharp-pointed Gothic niches; one of these probably was the place under which these masses were performed; and there is the more reason to suppose as much, because, till within these thirty years, this space was fenced off with Gothic wooden railing, and was known by the name of the south chancel,†
—preceptorii sive magisterii patronas. Vacavit dicta preceptoria seu magisterium—ad preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospitalis—Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus.
Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably mean the master’s lodgings, or at least the preceptor’s apartment, whatsoever may have been the office or employment of the said preceptor.
A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis, or History of Leeds, p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain before dates were inserted.—Du Fresne’s Supplement: Preceptorise, prædia preceptoribus assignata. Cowel, in his Law Dictionary, enumerates sixteen preceptoriæ, or preceptories, in England; but Sudington is not among them.—It is remarkable that Gurtlerus, in his Historia Templariorum, Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the words preceptor or preceptorium.
* A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church, and endowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests to sing mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others.
† For what is said more respecting this chantry see Letter III. of these Antiquities.—Mention is made of a Nicholas Langrish, capellanus de Selborne, in the time of Henry VIII. Was he chantry-chaplain to Ela Longspee, whose masses were probably continued to the time of the Reformation? More will be said of this person hereafter.
