THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



is ' Mideltone ' (fo. 227). Mollington lies in the extreme north of 

 Oxfordshire, in an angle formed by Warwickshire and Northampton- 

 shire, and is surveyed partly in Warwickshire as ' Mollitone,' partly in 

 Oxfordshire as ' Mollitone,' and partly in Northamptonshire as ' Moli- 

 tone.' ' 



From such peculiarities as these in this and adjoining counties, 

 Mr. Eyton argued not only that Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and Staf- 

 fordshire must have been surveyed by the same group of Domesday 

 commissioners, but also that ' Northamptonshire belonged to the same 

 Domesday circuit.' ^ This suggestion might account for much of the 

 above confusion ; but all conclusions on Domesday circuits have to be 

 accepted with great caution. 



In addition to the difficulty caused, as we have seen, by the entry, 

 under Northamptonshire, of manors lying in other counties, questions 

 have arisen as to the identity of manors in Northamptonshire itself. 

 ' Haselbeech,' for instance, has been strangely confused with Cold Ashby, 

 and Addington with Elton, as I have explained in the notes to the text 

 (fos. 221, 223). It was most natural that confusion should arise between 

 Luddington and Lutton on the eastern border of the county. ' Lidin- 

 tone ' and ' LuUintone ' are found close together among the Peterborough 

 manors in Domesday (fo. 221b) ; and Mr. Stuart Moore notes that 

 ' there appears to be some doubt as to the proper identification of these 

 two places.' Not only did they both belong to Peterborough Abbey ; 

 their bounds actually touched. We can, however, clearly discern 

 that one of them had ' Lullington ' for its medieval form. Now a 

 perambulation of the Huntingdonshire border, executed in 1244, and 

 entered in the Ramsey Cartulary, shows that the vills of Winwick, 

 Thurning, ' Lullington,' ' Lodington^ and Elton, follow one another in this 

 position.^ This decisively identifies ' Lullington ' as Luddington (' in 

 the brook '), and ' Lodington ' as Lutton. This conclusion, moreover, 

 is confirmed by the ' Northamptonshire Survey,' which places ' Lil- 

 lington ' in Polebrook Hundred, in which Luddington is situate, while 

 it assigns ' Lodington ' to Willibrook Hundred, in which still is Lutton. 

 So unlikely, however, might this seem, that Mr. Stuart Moore adopted 

 the opposite identification in his edition of the local Domesday. Bridges, 

 however, had rightly identified the ' LuUintone ' of Domesday (the 

 mediaeval Lullington) with Luddington,* and its ' Lidintone ' or ' Ludi- 

 tone ' with Lutton.^ 



' See "Notei on the Oxfordshire Domesday, pp. 14, 20, where it is acutely pointed out that 

 the I hide, under Northants, makes, with the 4 hides in Oxfordshire, the normal 5 hides, 

 which group therefore must be older than the county boundary. The 5 hides entered under 

 Warwickshire raise the total to 10 hides. 



* Domesday Studies, Staffordshire, pp. 1—6. 



' Cartularium de Rameseia (Rolls Series), II. 40. Oddly enough, Mr. Kirk, in the 

 index, identifies both as Luddington. 



^ History of Northamptonshire, II. 402. 



* Ibid., p. 462. ' Luditone ' (fo. 222) was the portion of Lutton which Peterborough 

 Abbey had made over to Ramsey Abbey, which held the rest of the vill, as ' Lodintune,' in 



271 



