A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



de Waltervilla ' holding 13^ hides of the Abbot in Northamptonshire, 

 though he owed for this no more than the service of three knights, the 

 same quota as De la Mare. Hugh ' Candidus ' enables us to learn that 

 this holding included lands at Marholm, Clapton and Thorpe Water- 

 ville, as well as at Achurch and Tichmarsh. This family contributed an 

 abbot to Peterborough (1155-1175) and continued in the male line till 

 1287, when the 'Marholm' fief passed to Robert de Vere, maternal 

 grandson of Reginald de Waterville. Dallington, again, is an interesting 

 fief. In Domesday its four hides are held by ' Richard ' of the Abbot ; 

 in A, thirty years later, it is held by Robert Fitz Richard, who owes for 

 it two knights ; in B (1146) it is the fief of Robert Frehlle (?) ; in C 

 it is that of ' Almaricus ' Despencer ; in D (12 12) it is that of Geoffrey 

 de Lucy, but its service has now dropped to one knight, for (says Hugh 

 ' Candidus') Geoffrey has kept back the other since the days of Abbot 

 Benedict (i 177- 1 194). The Abbot and the then holder of the fief 

 actually fought the question out in the ' Parliament ' of 1275, and the 

 service was fixed at one knight.' 



One particularly noticeable point about the knights of Peter- 

 borough is the small number of hides that went to the knight's fee. 

 The information here at our disposal enables us to speak positively, and 

 to produce figures strangely at variance with the widespread belief that 

 a knight's fee normally consisted of five hides,^ or, as some say, of four." 

 In Northamptonshire ^^ knights were due from the lOj^ hides of 

 Anschetil de St. Medard, 3 from the 13^ hides of Ascelin de Water- 

 ville, 3 from the 8 hides of Geoffrey ' the Abbot's nephew,' 3 from the 

 yf hides of Richard Fitz Hugh, i| from the De la Mares' 2| hides, i 

 from the 2 hides of Richard Engaine, i from the i^ hides of Walo de 

 Pastone, 2 from the 5I hides of Roger Malfe, 2 from the 4 hides at 

 Dallington, 2 from 3 hides at Sutton, 2 from 2^ hides at Castor, and so 

 on. Not only are the majority of these fees extremely small in hidage ; 

 they also, it will be seen, differ widely in hidage among themselves. 

 This is a point of very great institutional importance in view of the 

 belief frequently met with, and so recently upheld, that a knight's fee 

 consisted of a certain number of hides, and that the system of military 

 service under the Norman kings was thus connected with that which 

 prevailed in the days before the Conquest.* 



* Chronkan Petroburgense, p. 22. 

 ^ Oman's History of the Art of War, p. 360. 

 ^ Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. clxi.-clxiv. 



■* See further, on this point, Feudal England, pp. 232—4 ; Studies on the Red Book of the 

 Exchequer, pp. I2— 16 ; The Commune of London and other Studies, pp. 57-8. 



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