THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



It was the custom to provide quarters close to a religious house for 

 the knights who owed it service. Such quarters are mentioned in Domes- 

 day at Westminster and at Bury St. Edmund's.' At Evesham, also, the 

 knight's quarters were so close to the abbey as to cramp it. Although 

 we do not find them till some forty years later at Peterborough,* it is 

 probable that some already existed even at the time of Domesday. 



It was alleged by Bridges, of Stamford ' Baron ' (or ' St. Martin's '), 

 that 'There is no mention of Stamford in Domesday Book." But this 

 was an error. That interesting possession of Peterborough Abbey is 

 entered under Stamford (Lincolnshire). We there read that, of its six 

 wards, the sixth lay in Northamptonshire [Hantunescyre), and the abbot 

 of Peterborough ' had and has ' its gafol and toll (fo. 3361^). Forty years 

 later the abbot had on this land fifty-nine tenants and fifteen ' Undersetes,' 

 distinct, as in Domesday, from his tenants in the Lincolnshire portion of 

 Stamford.* And sixty years after Domesday, Pope Eugenius confirmed 

 to him the dwellings of these fifty-nine tenants, with the toll and the 

 other appurtenances. 



Of the other religious houses holding land in the shire, Westminster 

 Abbey retained its two small estates, while that of Bury St. Edmund's 

 had increased its possessions. Warkton, which had belonged to /Elfgifu, 

 wife of earl iElfgar and mother of earl Morcar, had been given to the 

 abbey by queen Matilda, after whose death king William had added earl 

 ./Elfgar's lands in Scaldwell. Possessions of the earl at Boughton and 

 East Farndon had also been acquired by the abbey. 



The most difficult question connected with the lands of the religious 

 houses is that raised by the entry of Badby among the manors of Crow- 

 land Abbey. Unaware, at the time they wrote, that the chronicle assigned 

 to ' Ingulph ' (abbot of Crowland) was a forgery, the historians of North- 

 amptonshire accepted, and repeated without question, its statements con- 

 cerning this manor, which, it alleged, had been given to Crowland so far 

 back as the year 833.^ The manor, however, is subsequently found in 

 the hands of Evesham Abbey, and this had to be accounted for. Ingulfs 

 story, is that about 1006 a lease of the manor of Badby for 100 years 

 was given to Norman, brother to earl Leofric, at a peppercorn rent, to 

 secure his protection. On his death, the manor, it was alleged, passed 

 to his brother the earl [temp. Canute), and by the earl, at the prayer of 

 his confessor Avicius, prior of Evesham, it was bestowed on Evesham 

 Abbey, which declined to give it up. In Domesday, however, as the 

 writer insists, the manor was entered as belonging to Crowland, apparently 

 (according to his own story) in consequence of his proving its right to 

 it before the king.' His so-called continuator, ' Peter of Blois,' has a 

 long story about the manor, in which he makes the holy hermit Wulfsige 



' xxxiiii. milites inter francos et anglicos ' (II. 372). 



' Milites Abbatis habent xviii. hospicia in burgo ' (Peterborough, Liber Niger). 

 ' History of Northamptonshire, II. 578. * Chronicon Petrohurgtrise, pp. 165—6. 



Bridges' Northamptonshire, I. 19-20 ; Baker's Northamptonshire, I. 253-255. 

 Ed. Gale, pp. 57, 85. 



285 



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