DOMESDAY SURVEY assessment of each in so far as it can be gathered from the relevant entries in Domesday : — Caru- Caru- Wapentake cates Bovatea Wapentake cates Bovates Newark . 46 4f ' Lide ' . 44 6J RushclifFe . 49 7H Oswardbeck . 41 7il Bingham 95 4;- Bassetlaw 101 2| Thurgarton . 77 6i Broxtow 84 3 These figures must only be taken as approximately correct/' but such as they are they suggest that the assessment of the several wapentakes of Not- tinghamshire was governed by a definite scheme of distribution. The average assessment of the first four wapentakes is, roughly, 46 carucates ; the averao-e of Bingham and Bassetlaw is 98. Now, bearing in mind the prevalent duodecimal character of the Danelaw assessments, we should expect the original assessment of each wapentake to stand at some duodecimal figure, and on correcting the figures in the above table to the nearest multiple of twelve, the first four wapentakes will each stand burdened with 48 carucates, while Bassetlaw and Bingham will be rated at double this amount — 96 carucates each. The two wapentakes the assessments of which are incompatible with the system just described are Thurgarton and Broxtow, and if in accordance with the statement in the prefatory note to the description of Rutland we divide the 24 carucates of Alstoe Wapentake equally between them, Thur- garton Wapentake will answer for 89 carucates, and Broxtow Wapentake for 96, each being thus brought within measurable distance of the figures required by the scheme for the existence of which we are arguing. That such a scheme was really operative in determining the assessment of the Nottinghamshire wapentakes is made probable by that practice of grouping villar assessments into blocks of i 2 carucates each, on which we have already commented with reference to the Rutland wapentakes, but which governed the distribution of the Nottinghamshire geld also ; and it is significant that at a later date we read in relation to the latter county of ' half wapentakes,' a term which would naturally be applied to the wapentakes of 48 carucates in contrast to those of 96.'- But if the scheme in question did really underlie the distribution of the Nottinghamshire geld, we have in it a simple explana- tion of the mysterious division of Alstoe Wapentake, which will have resulted from the necessity of bringing up the assessment of the Nottinghamshire wapentakes of Thurgarton and Broxtow to the level demanded by their place in the general fiscal arrangement of the county. It may also be noted that when once the Alstoe geld had been assigned to Nottinghamshire,'^ the " Owing to modern changes there is much difficulty in determining the boundaries of the Nottingham- ■shire wapentakes in 1086. It is probable that the figure given above for Bassetlaw includes a few carucates which rightly belong to 'Lide' or Oswardbeck ; and there is a matter of 6 carucates representing the borough lands of Nottingham, which in 1086 probably belonged to Thurgarton Wapentake, in which these lands lay in later times. For other information concerning these wapentakes see F.C.H. Notts. , passim. " An early reference to a system of half wapentakes in Nottinghamshire occurs in a charter of Henry I in favour of the Bishop of Lincoln. Dugdale, Mo«. viii, 1272. ' Si wapentachium episcopi Line' de Niwercha defendit se versus me pro dimidio wapentachio ; tunc praeclpio,' &c. In the ' Nomina Villarum ' RushclifFe appears as a ' half wapentake.' '^ This arrangement cannot have been made before 1049, for Bishop Wulfsige of Dorchester, who succeeded in that year, is addressed in a writ of Edward the Confessor directed to the thegns of Northampton- shire. This document (for which see below, p. 135) may have been issued in any year between 1049 and 1066, but being granted in favour of Westminster Abbey, it probably belongs to the close of this period, and the change which we are considering most likely took place after the Conquest. 127
