tionibus sibi factis, quibus credidit, se ex legato prædicto non habere jus ad sepulturam prætensam prædictam, licet in testamento prædicto expresse contineatur, quod dictus dominus Lucas ad sepeliendum corpus suum in ecclesia prioratus prædicti legaverat. Præsentibus venerabilibus et discretis viris, Magistro Willielmo Loryng Canonico Sarum; Domino Waltero Rectore Ecclesiæ de Chauton Wyntou' Diocesis; Fratre Guillermo Dagenet, monacho dictæ domus de Boxgrave; et aliis in multitudine copiosa."
The testator's gift of his body to be buried in the Priory Church was probably regarded as a beneficial legacy to the Prior and convent, in consequence of the offerings and presents which were made on such occasions; and the subsequent direction, that he should be buried elsewhere, was deemed a revocation of it. The proof of this verbal direction may have been a little difficult, and therefore, probably, the Prior was induced, for the better security of the executors, to make the above renunciation.
Luke de Ponynges was succeeded in the Barony of St. John, by his son Thomas,[1] at whose death, in 1428, the honour fell into abeyance between his granddaughters, the children of Hugh, commonly supposed to have been the only son of the said Thomas, by his wife, Johanna Strange. In this will, however, mention is made of another son called Luke, who was living, though still underage, in 1381; for in that year his father was authorised to receive the legacy bequeathed to him by the will of his grandfather, and to dispose of the money for his benefit, while under age, and to pay it over to him in due time.[2] Constance, the eldest daughter of Hugh de Ponynges was married to Sir John Paulet, from whom the present Marquis of Winchester, Baron St. John of Basing, is descended.
In regard to the singular relique bequeathed to St. Paul's by the lord St. John, it may suffice to observe that the remains of St. Gamaliel, the Pharisee and doctor of the law at whose feet St. Paul was brought up, were discovered, according to the legend, in the year 415, at a spot distant from Jerusalem about twenty miles, and called Caphargamala, or "the borough of Gamaliel," supposed to have been his residence. To Lucian, an aged priest of the church at that place, a revelation had been made by Gamaliel in the visions of the night, that his reliques lay there with those of the Proto- martyr, preserved by him on the morrow of the martyrdom, and deposited in the sepulchre prepared for himself; as also that the body of Nicodemus, who had taken refuge with Gamaliel when cast out of the synagogue, was there to be found. The vision having been thrice repeated, with menaces in case of neglect and the assurance that the discovery of these reliques would be accompanied by the cessation of a long-continued drought, Lucian at length repaired to the Bishop of Jerusalem, who directed him to search under a heap of stones nigh to his church. The cairn, however, was examined in vain, but at an adjacent spot three cists were brought to light inscribed with the names of Stephen, Gamaliel, and Nicodemus. The reliques of the Protomartyr were quickly dispersed, with great devotion, and were brought by Orosius, as we learn from Bede, to Western Europe. It is
