THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BOROUGH OF BUCKINGHAM, 914-1086 A. H. J. BAINES In 914 Buckingham was fortified and garrisoned to control the Roman road system serving Northampton, Bedford and the Ouse valley. Buckinghamshire originated as the area which was needed to provide military and financial support to this stronghold, to which a hundredal market was transferred. After the pacification of 942, Buckingham lost its military significance but remained a royal borough and developed into a town (« market and service centre, with a mint) having an 'urban field' much smaller than the county, extending not more than twelve miles from the town. Links between its burgesses and neighbouring rural manors are inferred from the Domesday survey. Buckingham was assisted by exceptional fiscal concessions, and two of its reeves, ALthelmoer and Aithelwig, enjoyed strong royal support, but the records, including the coinage, illustrate the difficulty with which its special position as the 'county borough' was maintained. The construction of the fortress of depended on possession of the Water Stratford Buckingham by Edward the Elder in November crossing and the use of the Alchester road (160 914 and the definition of the area contributing A) and Akeman Street. These roads were still to its support can rightly be regarded as the significant, as the only surviving metalled establishment of the borough and shire,1 highways. though at this period burh meant 'stronghold' rather than 'borough', and the term scir was In the late sixth century the Buccingas, folk not applied to the contributory area until a led by Bucc or Bucca, probably approached the 2 century later. site of Buckingham by the Roman road from Magiovinium (166), crossed the Great Ouse at The reasons for Edward's decision were Buckford and occupied the land within the military. Unlike some other burga that he river-bend south of that road. Its approach to fortified, Buckingham was not a Roman 'waste Buckford from the east is defined by crop Chester': the Roman roads pass it by. The marks and by masonry in the river bank, and choice of site may however be explained by on the west side a footpath indicates its line as their proximity. C. W. Green3 has well said far as the modern Buckingham-Stony Stratford 'Edward's fortresses on each side of the Ouse at road, near the first milepost; but then road 166 Buckingham, the advance camp at Passenham swerves right, away from Buckingham, along from which 171, 174 [the Ouse Valley roads] the hollow lane called (the) Holloway which 5 and Watling Street were within view, and the became the borough boundary. At the top of the reconstruction of the Roman walls of hill it crosses road 171, which ran from Water Towcester (taking care of the Alchester and Stratford to Old Stratford, linking up Romano- Tove valley roads passing behind Buckingham) British villas, settlements and industries, but all conform to the Roman road plan, but ignoring Buckingham. Edward the Elder saw without that plan are somewhat incomprehen- that the roads coming from Danish-occupied sible.' The Danish counterstroke through territory could all be controlled if Buckingahm Bernwood against Aylesbury in 9174 equally were garrisoned. His action led to the eventual demise of these roads, with the emergence of a fold 'enclosure for a stud of horses') could new pattern of communications once Bucking- well have accommodated a horse-fair in ham became a town. As Mawer and Stenton connection with the hundred moot, and such observed, it is 'served today by roads which gatherings would have led to other forms of have little appearance of antiquity'.6 trading. Mawer and Stenton10 translate Lamport 'long port or town' and comment 'It Before 914 Buckingham was probably not would seem early to have lost its status as such, greatly different from other villages in what to judge by its documentary record'. In fact the became Stodfold hundred on the north bank of market function of a port does not necessarily 11 the Ouse, such as Radclive and Water imply more than a small resident population. Stratford. There seem to have been no such settlements on the south bank in Rowley It would obviously be the policy of Edward hundred until Hasley was founded at the end of the Elder to relocate the market in the ninth century, the villages in the Chetwood Buckingham, under the protection of his new being set well back from the river. The Moreyf burh. There would not be room for two such (Whittlewood Forest) north of the Ouse centres in a sparsely populated forest area. probably also came down almost to the bank, Buckingham north of the Ouse, though but clearance was well under way before Danish geographically in Stodfold hundred, was extra- invaders arrived, though there was still plenty hundredal, and the hundred-moot continued to of room for the newcomers. Settlement took meet at Lamport, but craftsmen and traders the form of loosely grouped endships or who had been attracted to the market there hamlets; thus Lillingstone, with 10 hides, could readily move to Buckingham, taking their comprised several dispersed hamlets, and Danish customary law with them and helping to Leckhamstead still consists of Church End, make both the incipient county town and the Middle End, South End and Limes End, county itself part of the Danelaw. representing one 5-hide and three 6-hide units. Athelstan held a council at Buckingham on Six-hide units, characteristically Danish,7 12 September 934,12 but this is no proof of its accounted for half of Stodfold hundred urban status. Nevertheless Athelstan rarely reckoned by annual value both in 1065 and travelled north of the Thames, and he may on 1086, though they paid 56 per cent of the geld, this occasion have taken some steps to develop which was more onerous for them than for the the place. The market has probably always 5-hide estates; this may be explained by the occupied its present site on Market Hill north terms of their submission to Edward in 914, of Castle Hill, though the church with St which were nevertheless more favourable than Rumbold's shrine lay to the south. Some those imposed on the rest of the army of indirect evidence for dating the origin of the Northampton which resisted him until 917. town was obtained from an excavation carried Between 877 and 914 the Danish landowners of out by R. A. Hall13 for the Bucks County Stodfold had been part of that army; their Council in 1974 on the site of the new meeting-place was 'in a Ground antiently University College in Prebend End, which was known by the name of Stock, or Stofield'8 in then thought to be within the area of the Saxon the vill of Lamport or Langport, now a hamlet, burh. No feature earlier than the thirteenth indeed scarcely a hamlet, in the parish of Stowe. century was identified, and it appears that Lamport was a 6-hide unit, and the name, previously the area was meadow, part of the representing langa port 'long market-place' hamm of the place-name (at least in its suggests an attempt to establish a hundredal Chronicle form); it lay within the church estate, market. The holding of markets in conjunction held of the king by the bishop. There was with hundreds is characteristic of however a quantity of late Saxon pottery of St Northamptonshire; King's Sutton, Oundle and Neots type, wheel-turned, fine, shelly ware with Higham Ferrers are examples recorded in characteristic smooth 'soapy' surfaces, ranging Domesday Book.9 The stodfald (Danish stod- in colour from medium to dark grey with red 54 undertones and a grey core. This pottery was Midland practice, the county town stands residual and not apparently related to any of 'above the line', though in 1086 Newport the excavated medieval features; the largest Pagnell was also a borough. North of the amount (four rims and 18 wall sherds) came Thames the commissioners normally dealt in from a ditch which had been filled with soil this way with one and only one town in each having a high cess content. This ditch, which county; thus Buckingham was not treated as was traced across the site from east to west, Terra Regis or as anyone else's land. In legal marks the transition from a clay to a gravel theory all land was held either by the king or of subsoil, and medieval occupation was found the king, but it was characteristic of the county only on the gravel. St Neots ware was very towns that some burgesses held directly of the common over much of East Anglia and the king, while others held their burgages through South Midlands during the tenth century,14 and other lords. In Buckingham the king had 26 Buckingham is among the sites where it is the burgesses who take the place which villeins only ceramic of the period present. In the occupied in his rural manors and even in Walton (Aylesbury) excavations it was taken to Aylesbury. There were also 11 bordars and two indicate a tenth-century horizon where it slaves. Bishop Remigius of Lincoln, successor occurred on its own without other fabrics.15 to Bishop Wulfwig of Dorchester, held the Martin Biddle16 has suggested that cooking pots borough church, with land for four ploughs with narrow rim diameter in St Neots type which belonged to it. On this land there were no fabric are generally indicative of a relatively burgesses but 3 villeins, 4 bordars and 10 early date. Further comparanda from closely cottars; very humble folk, though not servile.