A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



yet that borough can hardly be Northampton, of which the survey is 

 separate and complete (fo. 219). If the 'port,' from which 'Portland' 

 was named,' had indeed been Northampton, the entry should clearly 

 have been found in the survey of that town. So far back, I discovered, 

 as the beginning of the last century, this difficulty had been felt by Mr. 

 Morton, who first printed the Northamptonshire Domesday. In his un- 

 published notes thereon * he ingeniously suggested that, as following 

 Casterton, this entry might refer, not to Northampton, but to Stamford ; 

 and he induced Peck, in his Annals of Stamford to adopt this view. 

 Unfortunately, neither of these writers tried to identify at Stamford any 

 locality of the name ; and, by ill luck, the churches named (All Saints' 

 and St. Peter's) are found both at Stamford and at Northampton. It seems 

 to be clear that no ' portland ' has been met with hitherto at Northamp- 

 ton, but I have also searched the histories of Stamford in vain for such a 

 name.^ The difficulty is greatly increased by the fact that Stamford 

 stood in three counties, and that its Rutland portion was then in North- 

 amptonshire. We shall see below that its own survey includes a piece 

 of Northamptonshire supposed to have been unsurveyed.* 



The only suggestion one can offer is that, as this ' Portland ' is 

 measured in ' carucates ' {carucatas), it would probably be found in that 

 ' Danish ' district where land was so measured. Now when we turn to 

 the survey of the Lincolnshire boroughs in Domesday (fos. 336—7), we 

 find ' carucates ' of land mentioned under Lincoln, Stamford, and Tork- 

 sey. Moreover, under Lincoln we actually find one carucate belonging 

 to a church of All Saints and half a carucate to St. Mary's (now the 

 cathedral) in like fashion as with ' Portland.' ° It would seem, there- 

 fore, most probable that the ' Portland ' of which we are in search was 

 not connected with Northampton, but was a portion of Stamford field 

 appurtenant to the king's manor of Casterton, and carrying with it cer- 

 tain dues from Stamford town. 



Leaving now the Crown revenues and the survey of Northampton 

 itself, let us turn to the rural districts, with their primitive agriculture, 

 their struggling industries, and their great tracts of woodland. 



As we might expect, the proportion of ' serfs,' ^ which is highest in 

 the west and south-west of England, is lower in Northamptonshire (ten 

 per cent.) than in the counties to its west and south, where it ranges 

 from thirteen to fifteen per cent., though it is substantially higher than 



we read that ' It is not known where the demenses of Portland were situated, but they were 

 probably part of the adjoining meadows' (I. 7). Dr. Cox, who edited Vol. II., succeeded in 

 identifying a 'Port meadow' (pp. 164, 166) and has shown its position on his map. 



* Port-reeve, Port-way, Port-soken, and the well-known Port-meadow at Oxford were 

 similarly derived from ' port,' a market-town. 



2 Add. MS. 3560 (Brit. Mus.) fos. 159-165. 



^ Blore's Rutland, under Casterton, gives no assistance ; nor can I find this ' portland ' 

 mentioned either in the Hundred Rolls or in the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. 



* See p. 285. 



^ ' Quarta carucata adjacuit in zecclesia omnium sanctorum. . . . Residuam dimi- 

 diam carucatam terrae habuit et habet Sancta Maria de LLncolia.* 



* See Mr. Seebohm's English Village Community. 



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