A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



and two of 2 each, which would not seem to fit a duodecimal system. 

 Yet the Rutland evidence, thanks to Domesday's introductory note 

 (fo. 293/^), enables us to see how such figures could be, and were, com- 

 bined in twelves. 



In the Hundred of Corby, which bordered on Leicestershire, we 

 may trace the same influence as in those of Nassaburgh and Willibrook. 

 Blatherwick, for instance, had 6 ploughlands ; Carlton, 18 ; Corby, 9 ; 

 Dingley, 9 ; Stoke Albany, 6 ; Wakerley, 6 ; and Weekley, 6. Nor 

 should we forget that in that portion of Rutland which was then in 

 Northamptonshire, North and South LufFenham together are assigned 

 24 ploughlands. Enough has now been said to prove that in the north- 

 east of our county the ploughlands show traces of a reckoning as 

 artificial as in its south-west, and that this arrangement was duodecimal 

 in the former district and decimal in the latter. Tedious as may have 

 seemed the process by which we reach this conclusion, the result is well 

 worth it ; for we learn from these figures that the Danish element from 

 the north must have established a strong footing in a good part of 

 Northamptonshire, although, as the Domesday assessment shows, it was 

 so far driven back that not only the whole county, but one of the Rut- 

 land ' wapentakes ' — a name which implies a Danish district, — was 

 eventually assessed in hides, like the counties to the south.* It is, how- 

 ever, worth noting that a ' bovate ' (which was alien to the ' hide ' 

 system) does occasionally appear, as if a stray survival. We may, there- 

 fore, compare this evidence, afforded by the local assessments, with that 

 derived from the county place-names, in its bearing on the character and 

 limits of Scandinavian settlement within the borders of the shire. '^ 



The Hundred of Nassaburgh itself is said to derive its name, ' the 

 Nass or Ness of Burgh', from its situation, stretching out in the form of 

 a promontory between the Welland and the Nene ;' and within it we 

 find such significant names as Northolm, Gunthorp, Worthorp, Dosthorp, 

 and Southorp. It is, moreover, very remarkable that, in the Peterborough 

 Survey, we find an entry (under Henry I.) that ' Gilbert owes 45 shil- 

 lings from the two Hundreds " de Wapentach [sic) de Burch." ' * This 

 was the double 'Hundred' of Nassaburgh. Thus, although described 

 as a ' Hundred' in Domesday, the Scandinavian name here survived, just 

 as in Rutland, to its north-west, ' Wiceslea ' — the Northamptonshire 

 portion — is styled a ' Hundred ' three times,* and a ' Wapentake ' five 



' It is possible that the even numbers of the hides in the local Hundreds, as shown in the 

 Northamptonshire geld-roll, may be due to the comparatively late date of this assessment. 



^ On the duodecimal system of the ' Danish ' districts see my Feudal England, pp. 69-82, 

 86-90, 196, 573. It is only right, however, to add that my theory of ' the six-carucate unit,' 

 while it has not been challenged, has not been endorsed, so far as I know, by historians. As 

 yet, therefore, it represents my own view alone. 



^ Bridges' Northamptonshire, II. 483. This suggestion is confirmed by the fact that the 

 adjacent (south-western) angle of Lincolnshire was called ' Nesse ' wapentake (D. B., fo. 



376A). 



* Chronicon Petroburgeme, p. 167. 



* In one of these cases ' Wap ' is written in the margin. 



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