NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
(version 1a)

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY
Until the tenth century, the land that became Northamptonshire was an undifferentiated part of Mercia. The Tribal Hidage, which gives the assessment in hides of various tribes subject to the Mercian kings, may preserve the names of some tribes that occupied this and neighbouring areas under the names of the North Gyrwa and the South Gyrwa (600 hides each), a fenland people living north of the River Nene, the Widerigga (600 hides) who were perhaps connected with Wittering and Werrington, and the Herefinna (1200 hides) who extended from the future Huntingdonshire into the south-east of what became Northamptonshire. The Danes settled much of the area in the late ninth century and by partitioning Mercia established a distinctive entity under Danish rule. It is not certain that the boundary between English and Danish Mercia was Watling Street. 
	The Danes were pacified or expelled early in the tenth century by Aethelflaed of Mercia, sister of Edward the Elder King of Wessex, and by Edward himself. In 918 'the army which belonged to Northampton as far north as the Welland' submitted to King Edward and in 918 he took Stamford; see the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under those years.. The proto-Northamptonshire appears to have originated as an area cleared of a single Danish army, that based on Northampton. The shire itself, as a judicial, fiscal and administrative entity may not have been formally organized around the town until early in the eleventh century (it is first mentioned in 1011) and it is likely that the County Hidage records the earliest organization of the county; in that document it is allotted 3200 hides, which suggests a shire containing 32 hundreds. These included two north of the River Welland (the double hundred of Witchley) and a number south-west of Watling Street which may have been added at an unknown date 'to make up the shire'. On all this, see Hart, Hidation of Northamptonshire, pp. 12-14; Finberg, Gloucestershire Studies, pp. 17-45; Place-Names of Northamptonshire, pp. xviii-xix; Hall, 'Introduction', Northamptonshire and Rutland Domesday, pp. 6-7.

HIDATION
A notable feature of the Domesday Survey for Northamptonshire is the small number of hides in the Domesday shire compared with earlier surveys and the relation of hides to ploughlands and ploughlands to ploughs. The hide is both a term of areal measurement and a term of tax assessment. In some counties, the two are identical, but in Northamptonshire the tax liability of a hide was considerably reduced. The County Hidage (perhaps representing the situation in the early eleventh century) allots 3200 hides to Northamptonshire; the Northamptonshire Geld Roll (c. 1070) implies the existence of 3200, but accounts for 2663 ½ hides, although at the time of Domesday the shire contained 1244 hides and, in the Pipe Roll of 1130, it had 1192 ¾ hides. The assessment of Cambridgeshire was similarly reduced. This successive reduction in hidage implies that many lands held by the king were not only not taxed, but not even hidated; it also implies a reduced assessment of the county as a whole, probably as a result of the devastation of he county by earl Morcar's army in 1065, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The Northamptonshire Geld Roll records 900 hides, about a third of the county, as waste. Between 1066 and 1086 most estates show an increase in values, but these are especially sharp in the areas through which Morcar and his supporters may be presumed to have passed on their way to Northampton. Even in 1086, however, the county contained much waste, some with a nominal value. This reduction in assessment was unequal and progressive: in the Northamptonshire Geld Roll, while in the south and east of the county 15 hundreds returned 100 hides each, in the centre and north, two hundreds had been cut to 90 hides, and six to 80. In the north and east, reductions were greater: a double hundred was cut to 108 ½ hides, four hundreds to 62 hides, one to 60 hides, one to 47 hides and one to 40 hides. In Domesday however, each of the hundreds has been evenly reduced to about 40 hides apiece. See Hart, Hidation of Northamptonshire, and SUS {Appendix}.
	Hides are fewer than ploughlands in the county, in some areas on a clear ratio of 2:5. The ploughlands themselves show traces of a decimal or a duodecimal system of assessment, depending on whether they belonged to the 'English' or the 'Danish' areas of the county. The ploughlands might represent an earlier assessment of the county prior to the reduced hidation and may have been retained in the text of Domesday because obligations other than tax (such as roads, bridges, fortification) were based on them; on this, see Round in VCH Northamptonshire, i. p. 265; Baring, ‘Pre-Domesday Hidation of Northamptonshire’; Baring, ‘Hidation of Northamptonshire’; Hart, Hidation of Northamptonshire.
	Land in Northamptonshire was predominately measured in hides and virgates, thus contrasting with the adjacent counties of Lincolnshire and Leicestershire where the 'Danish' carucate and bovate was the norm. Carucates are found sporadically in Domesday Northamptonshire, and bovates are mixed with hides and virgates mainly in the north and east of the county. A feature of Northamptonshire measurements is the number of small divisions of the hide, such as the third part of half a hide, and (at 56,5) 3 parts of 2 parts of 1 hide.

THE COUNTY BOUNDARY
The major difference between the 1086 county and the later one was the inclusion of the southern third of what became Rutland, that is, Witchley Wapentake, in Northamptonshire. The remaining two Rutland wapentakes, Alstoe Wapentake and Martinsley Wapentake, had a quasi-independent existence in 1086 as Roteland, attached to Nottinghamshire 'for the collection of the king's tax'. Roteland is given a separate section for its landholders on the Nottinghamshire landholders page (folio 280d) and a separate schedule at the end of Nottinghamshire (folios 293c-294a). 
	With the exception of the uncertainly identified Hardwick (an outlier of the Lincolnshire estate of Skillington: LIN CK10), all places in Witchley Wapentake were in Northamptonshire in 1086. Moreover, the entries for that wapentake do not form any separate schedule, but are scattered throughout the Northamptonshire text like those of any other hundred or wapentake. The estates there are predominantly hidated, but bovates and carucates are also found, as well as a mixture of both systems as in the rest of Northamptonshire. Nonetheless, Witchley Wapentake is the only part of England north of the River Welland to be assessed in hides and virgates. Earlier, the hundreds of East Witchley and West Witchley are found as part of the county in the Northamptonshire Geld Roll, but, by the time of the twelfth-century Northamptonshire Survey, Witchley Wapentake was not included in Northamptonshire The marginal Rotel' entered in the manuscript against some entries in Witchley Wapentake is in a late thirteenth-century hand, by which time the modern Rutland had been formed.
	The 1086 county also differed in a number of minor ways from the later shire. Most of the changes (which are set out below) date from the nineteenth century. Until then Northamptonshire along its south-eastern boundary was much interlaced with Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire, with some villages divided by the county boundary, and some parts of Northamptonshire being entirely detached. The 1086 bounds are complicated by the fact that some lords, the Bishop of Coutances, the Abbots of Ramsey and Peterborough and William Peverel, held adjacent ground on both sides of the boundary. Moreover, it is not always possible from the Domesday evidence alone to determine if a piece of land was an outlying part of Northamptonshire in another county in 1086, or if it was then an integral part of the county but later isolated from it by an unrecorded boundary change. Domesday place-names are those of areas, often of a large number of hides, only a marginal portion of which could be in another county:

PLACE	1086	LATER	
Northamptonshire/ Bedfordshire Border

FARNDISH (BDF 42,1. 43,1. NTH 35,1f.)

NEWTON BROMSWOLD (BDF. 3,9. NTH 4,20.)

PODINGTON (BDF 32,5. 34,1. NTH 35,1g.)

RUSHDEN (BDF 3,17. 22,2. NTH. 35,1b;1j)

STANWICK (BDF. 7,1. NTH. 6,16)

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties	

Northamptonshire portion to Bedfordshire in 1884

Bedfordshire portion to Northamptonshire early

Northamptonshire portion to Bedfordshire early

Bedfordshire portion to Northamptonshire early

Bedfordshire portion to Northamptonshire early
	
Northamptonshire/ Huntingdonshire Border†

CATWORTH (HUN 13,4. 19,12;32. 29,3. D17. NTH 6a,26)

ELTON (HUN 6,13. NTH 6,9. 9,3)

HARGRAVE (HUN 3,1. 19,13-14. NTH 35,15)

LUDDINGTON-IN-THE-BROOK (HUN 19,19. NTH 6a,16)

LUTTON (HUN 6,14. NTH 6a,11. 9,2)

STIBBINGTON (and WANSFORD) (HUN 7,7. 9,4. NTH 59,1)

THURNING (HUN 5,2. 19,18. NTH 6,10b)

WINWICK (HUN 19,16-17. NTH 6a,17. 55,4)

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Divided between counties

Northamptonshire portion to Huntingdonshire c. 1890

Northamptonshire portion to Huntingdonshire by 1851 

Huntingdonshire portion to Northamptonshire early

Huntingdonshire portion to Northamptonshire in 1895

Huntingdonshire portion to Northamptonshire in 1895

Stibbington is now confined to Huntingdonshire and Wansford to Northamptonshire. Probably no boundary change; see 59,1 Stibbington note

Huntingdonshire portion to Northamptonshire in 1895

Northamptonshire portion to Huntingdonshire in 1895

Northamptonshire/ Leicestershire Border

LITTLE BOWDEN (NTH 18,19)

In Northamptonshire	

To Leicestershire in 1889	
Northamptonshire/ Oxfordshire Border

GRIMSBURY (NTH 48,11)

MOLLINGTON (NTH 35,26. OXF 17,7. WAR 37,9.)

In Northamptonshire

Apparently divided between three counties in 1086, but the Northamptonshire portion may have been misallocated; see 35,26 Mollington note	

To Oxfordshire in 1894

If a portion lay in Northamptonshire, it was transferred to Oxfordshire or Warwickshire early; see 35,26 Mollington note 
 	
Northamptonshire/ Roteland Border

BARROWDEN (NTH 1,2. 26,3)

BELMESTHORPE (NTH 56,1) 

BISBROOKE (NTH 1,2e. 56,25)

CALDECOTT (NTH 5,2)

CASTERTON (NTH 1,4. 58,1)

EMPINGHAM (NTH 35,9. 46,4-5)

ESSENDINE (NTH 5,3)

GLASTON (NTH 1,2e. 56,36)

HARDWICK? (LIN CK10)

HORN (NTH 3,1. 56,27)

KETTON (NTH 1,1)

NORTH LUFFENHAM (NTH 1,3. 56,36)

SOUTH LUFFENHAM (NTH 1,2f)

LYDDINGTON (NTH 5,2)

MORCOTT (NTH 1,2d)

"PORTLAND" (NTH 1,5)

RYHALL (NTH 56,1)

'SCULTHORP' (NTH 1,3)

SEATON (NTH 1,2b. 26,3. 56,36)

'SNELSTON' (NTH 5,2)

STOKE DRY (NTH 5,2. 6,10c)

THORPE-BY-WATER (NTH 1,2c. 56,36)

TICKENCOTE (NTH 56,26)

TINWELL (NTH 6,13)

TIXOVER (NTH 1,1)

TOLETHORPE (NTH 36,1)

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

Outlier of the Lincolnshire estates of Lavington and 
Skillington , county not
stated, assumed to be the
place in Northamptonshire 
in 1086

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

In Northamptonshire

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century

To Rutland by early 13th century	
Northamptonshire/ Warwickshire Border‡

MOLLINGTON (NTH 35,26. OXF 17,7. WAR 37,9)

STONETON (NTH 27,1)

Apparently divided between three counties in 1086, but the Northamptonshire portion may have been misallocated; see 35,26 Mollington note

In Northamptonshire

If a portion lay in Northamptonshire, it was transferred to Oxfordshire or Warwickshire early; see 35,26 Mollington note. The Warwickshire portion transferred to Oxfordshire in 1896.

To Warwickshire in 1895	
The dates of boundary changes are derived from Youngs, Local Administrative Units, i. and ii. passim

† The continuing expansion of Peterborough south of the River Nene has intruded on parts of the Huntingdonshire parishes of Fletton (1889 and 1894), Woodston (1889 and 1894); Old Fletton (1894), Stanground (1905), Alwalton (1956), Chesterton (1956) and Orton Longueville (1956).
	In Parliamentary Papers SPR. MIC. E.291, Accounts and Papers (3) 1825 vol. 21 entitled 'Insulated Parcels of Land', nine portions of the parish of Thrapston (Northamptonshire) are listed as lying in Huntingdonshire . No doubt some of these parcels were adjacent and formed the six Northamptonshire 'fields' found within Huntingdonshire on early Ordnance Survey maps (e.g., one-inch sheet 53 of 1835).

‡  It is possible that Sawbridge (10,3), lying within the bounds of Warwickshire,  was an outlier of Northamptonshire in 1086, although there is no later record of its being in Northamptonshire. The estate was probably misallocated to Northamptonshire; see 10,3 Sawbridge note.

HUNDREDS
The forms of the names of some hundreds have been changed for this partial re-editing of the Phillimore printed edition of Northamptonshire. Those hundred names that are in single inverted commas are derived from places that have subsequently disappeared:

Phillimore printed edition	This edition	

Alboldstow
Alwardsley
Cleyley
Collingtree
Corby
Foxley
"Geritone"
Gravesend
Guilsborough
Hamfordshoe
Higham Ferrers
Huxloe
Mawsley
Navisford
Navisland
Nobottle
Orlingbury
Polebrook
Rothwell
Spelhoe
Stoke
Stotfold
Sutton
Towcester
Upton
Warden
Willybrook
Witchley
Wymersley
	
'Alboldstow'
'Alwardsley'
Cleyley
Collingtree
Corby
Foxley
Gretton (alternative name for Corby Hundred)
'Gravesend'
Guilsborough
'Hamfordshoe'
Higham
'Huxloe'
Mawsley
Navisford
'Navisland'
Nobottle
Orlingbury
Polebrook
Rothwell
'Spelhoe'
Stoke
'Stotfold'
Sutton
Towcester
Upton
Warden
Willybrook
Witchley
Wymersley

The names of 29 hundreds occur in the text of Northamptonshire. One of them, Gretton Hundred, is probably an alternative name for Corby Hundred (1,32 Gretton note). The remaining 28 are evidenced in more or less detail: hundred heads are sporadic in the text, Higham Hundred being entered only once as a rubrication, although the Domesday hundred probably contained 16 places. Apart from scribal lack of care, other reasons are that hundred heads are rarely entered for outlying parts of a manor, nor at the beginning of chapters, nor, it seems,when the place named the hundred.
	The relation of the Domesday hundreds to those given in the Northamptonshire Geld Roll, the Northamptonshire Survey, the Nomina Villarum of 1316 (Feudal Aids, iv. pp. 19-30) is set out below. The names from the Geld Roll, from Domesday and from the Northamptonshire Survey are given in their modern form.

Northamptonshire Geld Roll (c. 1070)	Domesday (1086)	Northamptonshire 
Survey (12th century)	Nomina Villarum (1316)  	
'Alboldstow'
'Alwardsley'
Cleyley
------------
Corby
Foxley
'Gravesend'
Guilsborough 
'Hamfordshoe'
Higham
'Huxloe'
Mawsley
Navisford
'Navisland'

Nobottle Grove
Orlingbury
Polebrook
Rothwell
'Spelhoe'
Stoke
'Stotfold'
Sutton
Towcester
Upton
Warden
Willybrook
West Witchley

East Witchley 
Wymersley
	'Alboldstow'
'Alwardsley'
Cleyley
Collingtree
Corby (or Gretton)
Foxley
'Gravesend'
Guilsborough
'Hamfordshoe'
Higham
'Huxloe'
Mawsley
Navisford
'Navisland'

Nobottle
Orlingbury
Polebrook
Rothwell
'Spelhoe'
Stoke
'Stotfold'
Sutton
Towcester
Upton
Warden
Willybrook
Witchley

Wymersley
	'Alboldstow'
'Alwardsley'
Cleyley
[part of Wymersley]
Corby
Norton
'Gravesend' Fawsley
Guilsborough
'Hamfordshoe'
Higham
'Huxloe'
Mawsley
Navisford
'South Navisland'
'North Navisland'
Nobottle Grove
Orlingbury
Polebrook
Rothwell
'Spelhoe'
Stoke
'Stotfold'
Sutton
Towcester
-------------
Warden
Willybrook
[In Rutland]

[In Rutland]
Wymersley
	[part of Sutton]
[part of Fawsley]
Cleyley
[part of Wymersley] 
Corby
Norton
Fawsley
Guilsborough
'Hamfordshoe'
Higham
'Huxloe'
[part of Orlingbury
Navisford
[part of 'Huxloe']
[part of 'Huxloe']
Nobottle Grove
Orlingbury
Polebrook
Rothwell
'Spelhoe'
[part of Corby]
[part of Rothwell]
Sutton
Towcester
Nassaburgh
Warden
Willybrook
'Wrangditch' [in Rutland]
'East' [in Rutland]
Wymersley

	The Northamptonshire Geld Roll states that some hundreds are double ('Navisland' and Upton) and some are 'hundreds and a half' (Guilsborough, Higham, Nobottle, Wymersley). West Witchley and East Witchley are, in effect, a double hundred. Domesday sometimes calls Guilsborough and Wymersley 'a hundred and a half. 	Amalgamations in the centuries following the compilation of Domesday removed 'Alboldstow', 'Alwardsley', Mawsley, 'Navisland', Stoke and 'Stotfold'. Collingtree Hundred occurs only in Domesday, containing about six places, and was soon amalgamated with Wymersley Hundred where it was probably included in the Northamptonshire Geld Roll. Although a hundred is named after Foxley in Domesday, the village itself was in Towcester Hundred in 1086, possibly a recent transfer.
	'Alwardsley' Hundred occurs in the Northamptonshire Geld Roll, in Domesday and in the Northamptonshire Survey . In this last, it appears to have formed a much larger area to the north of the correspondingly reduced 'Gravesend' Hundred, Staverton Badby and Dodford being on its southern edge. In the Northamptonshire Geld Roll, the hundred of 'Alwardsley' was similarly larger than the 1086 one, which seems to have contained only Barby and Kilsby, since the other places that are included in the hundred earlier and later are either beneath a 'Gravesend' hundred head in the text of Domesday, or among places in'Gravesend' Hundred.
	Two of the Domesday hundreds were later divided: in the Northamptonshire Survey (Round, pp. 388-89), 'South Navisland' included Finedon, Irthlingborough, Addington and Woodford, the other places that in 1086 were in 'Navisland' Hundred being in 'North Navisland' in the Northamptonshire Survey (Round, p. 389). Witchley Wapentake, later in Rutland, became divided into two hundreds, 'East' Hundred and 'Wrangditch' Hundred, probably reflecting the division found in the Northamptonshire Geld Roll into East Witchley and West Witchley. 'East' Hundred contained Ketton, Tinwell, Empingham and places to the east; 'Wrangditch' Hundred consisted of Luffenham, Tixover and places west. There is no evidence in the arrangement of Witchley places in the text of Domesday that it was regarded as falling into two halves in 1086.  
	Apart from these major differences between the Domesday and the earlier and later hundreds, there were a number of variations in the boundaries of the 1086 hundreds. Some villages were split between hundreds: Boughton was both in Rothwell Hundred and in Corby Hundred, and Easton-on-the-Hill in both Upton Hundred and Willybrook Hundred. Evenley was both in 'Alboldstow' Hundred and Sutton Hundred, with another part of the village an outlier of Towcester Hundred. Hardwick was both in 'Hamfordshoe' Hundred and Orlingbury Hundred, Steane was in both Sutton Hundred and 'Alboldstow' Hundred, and Warmington was probably in both Polebrook Hundred and Willybrook Hundred.
	Detached parts of hundreds were unusual in 1086, but Evenley and Silverstone were certainly separated from Towcester Hundred and Foxley Hundred respectively, and it is probable that Hinton-in-the-Hedges and Kingsthorpe (with the dependent Moulton and Weston) were detachments of Towcester Hundred and Mawsley Hundred respectively.
	Hundred heads in the text or the order of entries suggest that some places were in different hundreds in 1086 from those where they later lay: thus Cleyley Hundred seems to have contained Grafton Regis, placed by the Northamptonshire Survey in Towcester Hundred; Denford was in Higham Hundred, but later in 'Huxloe' Hundred. 'Huxloe' Hundred contained Benefield; Mawsley Hundred probably had Holcot. Part of Wellingborough was probably in 'Navisland' Hundred, and part of Spratton was in Nobottle Hundred. Orlingbury Hundred contained part of Burton Latimer; Stoke Doyle and Thurning were in Polebrook Hundred (later in Navisford Hundred) and Kelmarsh and Pipewell were in Rothwell Hundred. Kelmarsh, included in the Northamptonshire Survey in 'Stotfold' Hundred, was later amalgamated, like its hundred, with Rothwell Hundred.  

THE DOMESDAY FORMAT
The Manuscript
The manuscript is written on leaves, or folios, of parchment (sheepskin) measuring about 15 inches by 11 inches (38 centimetres by 28 centimetres), on both sides. On each side, or page, are two columns, making four to each folio. The folios were numbered in the seventeenth century, and the four columns of each are here lettered a, b, c, d. The manuscript emphasises words and usually distinguishes chapters and sections by the use of red ink. Underlining here generally indicates deletion.
	The Northamptonshire folios are less carefully compiled than those for some other counties. Chapters 15 and 16 in the Landholders' List are in reverse order in the text which also misnumbers chapter 23 (as 33) and 31-38 (as 30-37), thus giving two chapters numbered 30. A third chapter 30 is found after the misnumbered 33 and is really chapter 35. Chapter 6 is divided in the text between lands of Peterborough Abbey and lands of that church's men, but the second heading is not in the Landholders' List. The last two entries of chapter 19 appear at the foot of folio 224a,b, across both columns, and chapters 23 and 22 are found transposed on folio 224c, d. Moreover, chapter 24 is written at the foot of folio 224c thus breaking into chapter 23. On his reversal of the fiefs of Earl Hugh and Hugh of Grandmesnil in the text, see NTH 22 Hugh note.
	Marginal additions are found on folio 220b (Roade 2,9), folio 225a (Titchmarsh 25,2) and folio 229b (Hollowell 57,4); and cramped, possibly postscriptal, entries are found at the foot of folio 220b (chapter 3), folio 222c (West Haddon 12,4), folio 223c (Creaton 18,53) and folio 227c (Crick 47,2). The term wapentake is sometimes used for hundred, and vice versa; Guilsborough is sometimes termed a hundred, sometimes a hundred and a half.

Places entered in the wrong Domesday County
A literal reading of the folios for Northamptonshire would suggest that 20 or so entries refer to places that were outliers of the county within Oxfordshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire in 1086. This is unlikely to be so. At one stage in the complex process that produced Domesday Book, material was probably grouped by fief and within it by county as in the Liber Exonioensis (Exon). It would be easy for a county heading to be missing in such a schedule or for the main scribe of Great Domesday to miss one, especially if it was partly or wholly in the margin; he would thus have continued entering in one county places that belonged to another. The Northamptonshire examples probably involve eight fiefs (NTH 4. 10. 16. 19. 23. 35. 36. 46). In most cases, the lands concerned are entered at the end of the fief. In one case (16,1) there is a hundred heading ('In Cuttlestone Hundred') that manifestly relates the estate to a county other than Northamptonshire. In four cases the tenant concerned is not entered as a landholder in the folios of these other counties. Moreover, other parts of the vills are entered in their correct county:

In Oxfordshire	In Staffordshire	In Warwickshire	
4,30 Finmere
4,31 Hethe
4,32 Shelswell
4,33 Glympton
4,34 Wootton
4,35 Worton
4,36 Heyford
23,16 Cottisford 
23,17 Charlton-on-Otmoor
23,18 Shipton-on-Cherwell
23,19 Sibford Gower 
35,26 Mollington‡	16,1 Lapley
16,2 Marston
36,3 West Bromwich	10,3 Sawbridge†
19,2 Berkeswell
19,3 Over Whitacre
36,4 Over
46,7 Whichford	

†  Sawbridge lay close enough to the border to have been an outlier of the county in 1086; see 10,3 Sawbridge note.
‡  It is possible that Mollington, which lay at the junction of Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and which was certainly divided between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire in 1086, also had a portion in Northamptonshire, although its inclusion in Northamptonshire may be the result of a mis-division of material relating to the circuit; see 35,6 Mollington note. 

RELATED OR 'SATELLITE' TEXTS
Two documents, the Northamptonshire Geld Roll of c. 1070 and the twelfth-century Northamptonshire Survey, while they are not Domesday 'satellites', are invaluable for its elucidation:
	The Northamptonshire Geld Roll, probably dating from the early years of the Conqueror's reign and perhaps intended to explain the apparently low yield of tax from the county, survives in the twelfth-century Liber Niger of Peterborough (London, Society of Antiquaries, 60, folios 52r-54v = folios xlviir - xlixv of the medieval foliation). It was discussed by Round in Feudal England, pp. 147-56, and by him in VCH Northamptonshire, i. pp. 257, 258-61; by Hart, Hidation of Northamptonshire, pp. 16-21; and transcribed, translated and discusssed in Robertson, Anglo-Saxon Charters,  pp. 230-37; 481-84. It lists hides held, hundred by hundred, but without place-names, though several holdings can be identified by comparison with Domesday.
	The more detailed Northamptonshire Survey dates from the reign of Henry I, but the tenants' names were partially updated to the end of the reign of Henry II. It survives in 'The White Book', a register of Peterborough Abbey dating from the early part of the fourteenth century (B. L., Cotton Vespasian E. xxii, folios 94r-99v). It was discussed by Round in Feudal England, pp. 215-24, and in VCH Northamptonshire, i. pp. 357-364, and translated in full by him in the latter (pp. 365-389). Hundred by hundred it lists landowners and the hidage of their holdings, in such detail that most Domesday holdings can be found there, often in the hands of the sons of the 1086 holder. It is invaluable in making or supporting identifications. It should be noted that the term 'great virgate' represents the Domesday virgate, a quarter of a hide, while 'small virgate' refers to a tenth of a hide.

EDITORIAL
Bibliographical
The pioneer works on Domesday Northamptonshire are Bridges, History of Northamptonshire, and Baker, History of the County of Northampton, but the masterly edition by Round in VCH Northamptonshire, i. pp. 257-356 (its translation based on that of Stuart Moore), coupled with a study of the Northamptonshire Survey (pp. 357-89; see also Round, Feudal England, pp. 215-24), is the fundamental work, requiring only a few adjustments to identifications. The Place-Names of Northamptonshire, (1933) put the county's names on a sounder base, and the whole county was indexed and mapped in the Domesday Gazetteer. There is a useful bibliography in Domesday Geography of Midland England, pp. 419-20.

The Identification of Places
Hundred heads are entered only sporadically in the text and this causes difficulty in identifying places in a county where Torp can represent seven different places, Stoche four and Estone three. Some of the spellings are odd: Mermeston for Armston, Arniworde and Narninworde for Arthingworth, Bellica and Belinge for Billing, Bracstone for Draughton, and Dotone for Clopton. Fortunately these deficiencies can in part be made good by near-contemporary documents: the earlier Northamptonshire Geld Roll and the later Northamptonshire Survey; see {Introduction: Related or 'Satellite' Texts}. 
	The descent of manors and the evolution of the forms of the Domesday place-names are largely outside the scope of this edition, but enough evidence is given in the notes below to identify places with the same name or with difficult names where there might otherwise be doubt. Northamptonshire contains many places with the same basic name, now distinguished by East and West, St Mary and St Peter. Only Little Weldon (23,1) is so distinguished in the text, the separate existence of other adjacent villages such as Great and Little Billing being only evidenced later. No attempt is made to distinguish such places in the text but the notes discuss some of the later evidence. The only places with distinguishing names that are included in the text (for example, East Haddon and West Haddon) are those that are in different areas of the county. The text sometimes uses alius or alter to distinguish holdings, as at Addington (4,22), Harrowden (4,6) and Heyford (18,8), where separate villages are later found. But 'another' Courteenhall is also listed, where there is no later evidence for two villages, and the evidence of other counties, for example, Seaborough in Somerset (3,1) and Thistleton in Rutland (LIN 27,48-49), suggests that these terms refer often to different holdings in a single place rather than to different places; see Thorn, 'Manorial Affixes'.

State of Revision
The Phillimore edition of Northamptonshire was published in 1979. The translation was drafted by Margaret Jones, Philip Morgan and Judith Plaister, the maps were the work of Jim Hardy and Frank Thorn and the volume was edited by Frank and Caroline Thorn. The editors were very grateful to Mr J.D. Foy for reading the typescript and proofs and to Mr P.L. King, Chief Archivist of Northamptonshire, for help with the county boundary.
	John Morris, the originator and first editor of the series had died in 1977 and the subsequent volumes in the series were brought out under the supervision of John McN. Dodgson and Alison Hawkins. A note at the end of the Introduction said; 'At the time of Dr Morris's death in June 1977, he had completed volumes 2 [Sussex], 3 [Surrey], 11 [Middlesex], 12 [Hertfordshire], 19 [Huntingdonshire], 23 [Warwickshire], 24 [Staffordshire]. He had more or less finished the preparation of volumes 13 [Buckinghamshire], 14 [Oxfordshire], 20 [Bedfordshire], 28 [Nottinghamshire]. These and subsequent volumes in the series were brought out under the supervision of John Dodgson and Alison Hawkins, who have endeavoured to follow, as far as possible, the editorial principles established by John Morris'. The preparation of the volume was greatly assisted by a generous grant from the Leverhulme Trust Fund.

When it appeared, the Northamptonshire volume had more than the minimal annotation which characterized earlier volumes in the series and which reflected John Morris' policy. Nonetheless, it would benefit from a full revision because of its editors' further twenty-eight years of study, especially on the manuscript and the writing and correction of this county, and because of the appearance of a number of important books and articles. The editors intend to undertake such a revision in due course. The present edition is part of a project to convert the annotation of the Phillimore printed volumes to electronic form and to revise them. For this purpose only a limited number of changes have been made to the printed notes:
•	The translation of some terms has been brought into line with those of the series as a whole.
•	The bibliographical and other conventions have been changed to align them with the other counties that have been revised for the current project.
•	Certain changes have been necessary in the conversion of the notes to a searchable electronic version, such as to the lead words for the notes, to cross-references and to punctuation. 
•	The form of the hundred names has been standardized so as to distinguish between those units that are named from places still extant and those that are not.
•	A number of the forms of personal names have been changed as part of a continuing process to bring more consistency to the entire name stock of Domesday Book.
•	 Some of the people have been further identified. When the identification comes from the person's occurrence in other documents or in other Domesday counties, this is shown in the translation between asterisks within square brackets. Where there is no documentary evidence for the identity of an individual, but it seems likely that a number of persons with the same first name are one and the same, this has been indicated in the translation by putting the name of one of the estates held by that person between < >. In this county some of the notes to justify both these forms of identification have been written by John Palmer and these have been attributed to him as (JP) put at the end of his paragraph.
•	Northamptonshire estates that were later in Rutland have benefited from a fuller (but not exhaustive) annotation as a result of the full revision of the Domesday survey of Roteland. 
•	The section on the county boundary has been rewritten, with some consequential additions to the notes.
•	In the Phillimore printed volume translations and annotation were provided for those places that lay outside Northamptonshire in 1086 but which were subsequently transferred to it. These places are tabulated here in {Introduction: The County Boundary}; for translation and notes, now see the counties concerned. 
•	Obvious typographical errors in the Phillimore printed notes have been corrected.

Caroline Thorn
Frank Thorn
February 2007
June 2007