instance, in Oxfordshire, was an outlying portion of Buckingham-
shire, under which county it is surveyed.[1] More remarkable is the
case of Lillingstone, a lo-hide vill, which occupies a corner of Buck-
inghamshire, projecting into Northamptonshire. Five of its hides, now
represented by Lillingstone Dayrell, are duly surveyed in our county, but
the other five, which now constitute Lillingston Lovell, were surveyed
under Oxfordshire, to which county they continued to belong. About
half way between Lillingstone and the Oxfordshire border was another
' island ' of that county, namely Boycot ; and yet a third, Ackham-
stead, lay in the south of the county.
Apart from this, we have to remember that places on the border of a county are sometimes surveyed in Domesday partly under one county and partly under another. Ibstone, for instance, which is now in Oxfordshire, but which lies just on the border, appears in Domesday as a vill assessed at 4 hides, Hervey holding the whole of it. Of these hides 2 are entered under Buckinghamshire as ' Hibestanes,' and the other two under Oxfordshire, one as ' Ypestan ' and the other as ' Ebestan.' On the Bedfordshire border Edlesborough, itself in Buckinghamshire, has 20 of its 30 hides surveyed in that county, while the rest are entered under Bedfordshire. What is true of counties is true also of Hundreds ; Mr. Ragg observes, as the result of tabulating Domesday Hundreds, that ' vills could be divided by the boundaries of Hundreds or counties as they appear in Domesday, not always into sections which contained commen- surable numbers of hides and as in the case of Senelai [7 + 5] with but partial regard to separation into portions which take note of 5.' He consequently holds that ' the hidation as it occurs in Domesday is a reminiscence of a more ancient state of things than counties and Hun- dreds, at least as therein given.'
Mr. Morley Davies, in his study on the ancient Hundreds of the county, has similarly pointed out that, in Domesday, Hundreds, like counties, have their detached portions, and that their boundaries, like those of counties, occasionally intersect a vill, or, as he prefers to describe it, divide two townships of the same name.[2] These features, of course, are in no way peculiar to Buckinghamshire, but they are of singular interest to those who seek to explore our earlier history and to trace the building up of all but the oldest counties from probably pre-existent Hundreds and of Hundreds, possibly, from vills. Whether the Hundred or the vill (or township) was the older unit, or whether they are equal in antiquity, we can hardly say at present ; but the map of England that great palimpsest, as Professor Maitland has well termed it still bears the impress of our earliest national developments, and its patient study may yet provide an answer to the riddles of the past.
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