Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/540

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [us. v. jr>- E 8,1912,

men gather to review the memorials of the great masters and teachers of the nation, and the ashes and the name of the greatest instructor of the nineteenth century should not be absent."

The great difficulty to be overcome was the special clause in Dickens's will relating to his funeral :

" I emphatically direct that T be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be made of the time or place of my burial ; that at the interment not more than three plain mourning coaches be employed ; and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black bow, long hatband ; or other such revolting absurdity."

Thanks to the wise action of good Dean Stanley, all difficulties were overcome ; and while I was with Frederic Chapman in his private room over the shop in Piccadilly on the afternoon of Tuesday, the 14th of June, Charles Dickens the younger came in and said : " To-morrow morning early at West- minster." JOHN COLTJNS FRANCIS.

(To be continued.)

THE HIDAGE OF OXFORDSHIRE.

(See 11 S. iv. 482.)

'SiNCE the essay on ' Hampshire : its Forma- tion,' was printed, the writer has been able, with the aid of ' Notes on the Oxfordshire Domesday,' by J. L. G. M. (1892), to make a tentative grouping 'of the hidages of the county. Though only six names of hun- dreds are recorded in Domesday Book, out of some twenty or more, and though their positions cannot be defined, it is fortunately the case that the later hundreds approxi- mately represent the ancient ones in groups, AS shown below.

The royal manor of Bensington, which had the soke of 4 hundreds, was obviously the head of what were later called the Chiltern Hundreds : Pirton, Binfield, Lang- tree, Lewknor, and Ewelme (half-hundred). Of these, Pirton, Lewknor, and the half- hundred of Bensington (for Ewelme) are named in Domesday Book. The respective hidages are about 110, 85, 115, 121, 118 549 in all, instead of the 450 to be expected from the phrase " four and a half hundreds."

The Bishop of Lincoln's hundreds of Dorchester (139) and Thame (120), of which only the former is named, yield 259 hides.

The above district almost identical with the south end of the county cut off by the Thame, but with Dorchester town added has, therefore, a gross hidage of 808, against the 750 postulated in the essay above referred to.

The royal manor of Headington, to the north, had the soke of two hundreds. These are later denned as the hundred of Bulling- don and the hundred " outside the North gate of Oxford." This latter seems to have been (all or part of) that called the " second Gadre " hundred in 1086. Ths former is named " Bulenden and Soteleu " in the ' Testa de Nevil.' The hidage of this dis- trict Bullingdon (195) and Oxford (15) amounts to 210.

The royal manor of Kirtlington had the soke of 2|- hundreds. Perhaps one of these was the " first Gadre " hundred named in Domesday Book. The later hundred of Ploughley had formerly the alternative name of Pothou ; thus Ploughley, Pothou, and Gadre may have been the old hundreds. The hidage amounts to 269.

Thus the total hidage of the county to the east of the Thames and Cherwell "(but including the North-Gate hundred of Ox- ford) amounts to nearly 1,300, of which 800 lie south of the Thame and 500 north of it.

West of the Cherwell the royal manor of Upton, which had the soke of three hundreds, appears to be represented by the later Wootton, though the name Upton is no longer found there. Its hidage amounts to 406, or just a hundred hides more than the recorded soke would lead one to expect. In this case, as in the Chiltern Hundreds above, an anciently distinct hundred may have become incorporated with the others, thus losing its identity.

The royal manor of Shipton, with the soke of three hundreds, probably corresponds with the later Chadlington hundred, which contained 292 hides.

The royal manor of Bampton had the soke of two hundreds, and the later hundred so named had 206 hides.

The soke of two hundreds pertained to the royal manor of Bloxham and Adderbury, which may also be the names of the hun- dreds ; the later Bloxham hundred had about 250 hides, or half a hundred in excess of expectation.

The Bishop of Lincoln's hundred of Ban- bury contained about 87 hides. It is not mentioned in Domesday Book, and may then have been considered part of Dorchester, just as (somewhat later at least) the hun- dreds of Dorchester and Thame became united with Banbury to form the episcopal barony of Banbu y.

The gross total for the county west of the Cherwell is thus 1,242 hides ; of which a little over 600 lay in Bampton and Wootton, and about 630 in the district to the north or