Preceptories

Preceptories (or Commanderies) are estates or benefices anciently possessed by the Knight Templars. On these lands they erected churches for religious service and convenient houses for habitation, ant placed some of their fraternity, under the government of one of those more eminent Templars who had been by the grand-master created preceptores templi, to take care of the lands and rents in that neighborhood. All the preceptories of a province were subject to a provincial superior, called Grand Preceptor; and there were three of these who held rank above all the rest-the grand preceptors of Jerusalem, Tripolis, and Antioch. Other houses of the order were usually called commanderies.