Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/169

 THE HALL 01' OAKHAM. sworn allcgiaHC(3 ; the other is best expLnincd in the laws of King Edward tlie Confessor, where it is said that wliat other counties call hundreds, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham- shire, Leicester and Northamptonshire call wapentakes. Though Edith his wife is mentioned in Domesday as having possessed Oakham, the county was so inconsiderable that it was not enumerated amongst those which were thus divided. And this little incidental omission will serve to shew the defi- ciency of information respecting Rutlandshire, at the period we are naturally most anxious to know something about its history. It has just been remarked that there exists a simi- larity in the signification of these two jurisdictional divisions, and "the proof of this is gathered from the exj)lanation of tlu; term afforded us by the laws themselves, which set forth that the title is not without reason, for when any one received the pra3fecture of the wapentage, upon a set day all the elders were accustomed to assemble in the usual place, and the pra3- fect dismounting from his horse, all rose up before him, when he stretched forth his lance on high, and all touched it with their own, and thus they ratified their union ; and from the arms, because they are called wsepons, iwcqypa^ and tacca, which is to confirm. . Here then in the wapentake of Martinslei, there was Kir- kesset (Cherchesoch) for Oakham, or a church payment or contribution of the fruits of the soil rendered on the day of St. Martin to the mother church ; a right enforced vmder heavy penalties by the laws of King Ina, Edgar, Ethelred, and Henry L It does not seem improbable that a devotion to this saint, who in records is often called St. Martin in the Winter, (St. Martin in Yeme, Esch. 3 Hen. VI. No. Hi. 4 Edw. I. Ea^d. vol. i. p. 537,) might have influenced the ear- lier inhabitants of the district in giving the wapentake its name, as the villages of Martinsthorp and Tinwcll would in like maimer derive their a[)pellations. The entry in Domesday goes on to say that at Oakham, with its five handcts. Queen Edith had four carucates of land, that is, as much arable as four ploughs with their horses could plough in a year, paying geld. There were altogether sixteen carucates of arable. The king had two for the hall, four were capable of being brought into cultivation. There were a hundred and thirty-eight vilians, that is, people in a condition of absolute servitude, who with their wives and