A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE This latter identification can be proved by the manorial descent. For though Bridges could not actually connect the ' Luddington,' which the Cromwells and Fitz Hughs shared under Henry IV. with the later ' Lutton,' it is clear that Gregory Lord Dacre, who sold his moiety of ' Lutton ' under Elizabeth, was senior co-heir of the Fitz-Hughs, while Tateshall College, which the Cromwells endowed from their moiety under Henry VI., is found holding lands in ' Lutton ' under Henry VIIL As Luddington and Lutton have been confused, so have Duddington and Denton. ' Dodintone ' is entered five times in the county Domes- day, and two of these entries undoubtedly refer to Duddington (or Doddington), on the Welland, in the extreme north of the county. Bridges referred the other three to Denton, in Wymersley Hundred, near Northampton ; and he was clearly right. For the first (fo. 222) places it, with Whiston and Brayfield, in Wymersley Hundred ; the second (fo. 228/^) places it in that Hundred, next to Grendon and Whiston ; while the third (fo. 229), though the Hundred heading is wrong, places it between Bozeat and Brayfield. Mr. Stuart Moore, however, assigns all five entries to ' Doddington,' and, stranger still, Mr. Kirk in his index to the Ramsey Cartulary ' identifies Denton (where Ramsey had a manor) as Doddington, although that Cartulary actually includes it in an 'extent' of Whiston. Lastly, one has to allow for amazing eccentricities of spelling on the part of the Domesday scribe. Little Billing is found, in entries close together, as ' Belinge ' and as ' Bellica ' (fo. 223), Blakesley as ' Blacheslewe,' and as ' Baculveslea,' Braybrook as ' Bradebroc ' and ' Baiebroc,' Croughton as ' Creveltone ' and ' Cliwetone,' and so forth. Stranger still, he sometimes gave the wrong initial letter. Draughton, for instance, occurs both as ' Drac- tone ' and ' Bracstone ' ; Clopton as ' Clotone ' and as ' Dotone.^ There is a parallel to this last mistake in the Domesday of Sussex, where the scribe has similarly confused ' cl ' and ' d ' in the MS. from which he copied. When we add to these peculiarities the fact that the 'Hundred' headings cannot be relied upon in Northamptonshire, unless they im- mediately precede an entry, it may be understood how difficult, and how, at times, uncertain is the process of identifying the places to which the Domesday entries refer. The chief object of the Domesday Survey, that of securing an exact record of the liability to ' geld,' better knov/n as Danegeld, has been dealt with above, at some length, in the section devoted to assessment. There was, however, another subject on which the king needed information, namely, the dues payable to the Crown in what may be termed its seigneurial capacity as distinct from the special tax styled the ' geld.' This revenue was of two kinds : there were rents to be re- Huntingdonshire. This proves Mr. Kirk's identification of the Ramsey Abbey manor to be erroneous. 1 Cartularium de Rameseia (Rolls Series), vol. III. (1893), p. 397. - Both these errors were detected by Bridges (II. 28, 421). 272
