THE HUNDRED OF SPELHOE 



CONTAINING THE PARISHES OF 



ABINGTON KINGSTHORPE PITSFORD 



GREAT BILLING MOULTON AND MOULTON SPR.'^TTON WITH LITTLE 



LITTLE BILLING PARK CREATON 



BOUGHTON OVERSTONE WESTON FAVELL' 



THE meeting-place of the hundred, from which it derived its name, 

 which means 'the hillof speech', was a field on high ground in the north 

 of Weston Favell parish.- In the Doniesdav survey the parishes of 

 Abington, the Billings, Boughton, Moulton, Pitsford, Spratton, and 

 Weston are all entered under Spelhoe, though, owing to imperfect rubrication, 

 several of these occur also under the heading of 

 other hundreds. In the 1 2th-century survey .-*' "^ 

 Spelhoe includes all these parishes and also that bpRAnoNf /-•— . 

 of Overstone, which is not mentioned in 1086, '^..^ ^* '•. % \^\ 



beingprobably at thatdate part of Sywell.-J Kings- f'\^!°.^,°': "^ -^ \ 



thorpe, with outliers in Moulton and Weston, is 'Vboughton*. ° • ° i 



entered in both surveys-* under the hundred of j .-^^x. .•:'*.. .T^--* 



'Mallesle', or Maweslev, of which all the other *./>%•■% •.;*?-\ 



parishes had been absorbed into the Hundred of \'^^^''?^^\\\f^'^ 



Orlingbury (q.v.) by the middle of the i 3th cen- '•— • '^i'^.'iJ^-'^ 



tury. This is the more remarkable as from an early SPELHOE 

 date the Hundred of Spelhoe was appurtenant to j^j^p ^^ ^^^ Hundred 



the royal manor ot King^thorpe and the men of that 



vill claimed to hold it at farm from the Crown ever since the reign of John. 

 Their right was confirmed bv Henry III in i 2245 and its history is identical with 

 that of Kingsthorpe (q.v.) up to the reign of Charles II, after which date all 

 rights connected with it seem to have fallen into abeyance. There appears to 

 have been some doubt in the reign of Edward II as to whether the hundred was 

 included in the farm of the county of Northants., but an inquiry made in i 3 i 9 

 showed that it had always so belonged.'' In 1365 the men of Kingsthorpe com- 

 plained that whereas they used to have the Hundred of Spelhoe, worth /jo, 

 Walter Paries (sheriff in i 359) and later sheritl's had taken the hundred and only 

 paid them 4 marks yearly for it.' By letters patent dated 15 19 the men of 

 Kingsthorpe were granted the manor of Kingsthorpe with all its members to 

 hold from the Crown for 40 years at a rent of /'50, and on the strength of these 

 letters they claimed in 1545 to hold the hundred also.^ In 1638 another grant 



' List taken from Popu/alion Return! Abilract of 183 1. 



^ Called Spcllow Close: Place-Names of Northants. (E.n^.'P.-^.Soc.), 131. 



3 r.C.H. Northanti. i, 381. ■• Ibid. 306, 381. 



' Rot. Lit. Claus. (Rcc. Com.), i, 609. 



' Memo. R. L.T.R. Hil. 12 Edw. II, m. 76; ibid. East. 12 Edw. II, m. 100. 



' Cal. Put. 1364-7, p. 141. * Pat. 37 Hen. VIII, pt. i, m. 72. 



63 



