The Origin .Of the Borough of Newport Pagnell
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THE ORIGIN .OF THE BOROUGH OF NEWPORT PAGNELL ARNOLD H. J. BAINES Newport Pagne/1, a Domesday borough and market-town, is exceptional in having been in the hands of a mesne lord even before the Norman Conquest. The relationship of the borough to the lord's demesne is discussed, and its legal and fiscal privileges, its status as a tenth-century mint and its medieval constitution are reviewed. It is suggested that the town originated as a checkpoint and trading post on the Danish frontier during the reign of Alfred the Great; otherwise it could hardly have held its ground against Buckingham. Its privileges were those of its lord, and it failed to achieve autonomy and corporate status. 'There is no evidence as to the origin of the breach of which was punished according to the borough of Newport Pagnell. Burgage tenure standing of the occupier.4 A ceorl's defended existed in 1086, and the name of the vill shows curtilage was a tun but not a burh. The that at that date a market was already in paradigm of burh is irregular, and the mutated existence.' Thus Dame Myra Curtis in her dative singular byrig (used as locative) gave rise invaluable but severely factual account of to the place-name element bury, which is Newport in the last volume of the Victoria frequent in the northern Home Counties in the County History. 1 The documentary record of sense 'manor, manor-house'.5 In the first half Newnort. as of manv of our smaller towns. of the tenth century, say between the last years begi~s with Domesd~y Book,2 and from that of Alfred the Great and the time of Edgar the unique survey we can follow it with varying but Peaceable, the primary meaning of burh shifted generally increasing clarity for the succeeding from a stronghold to a defended town, nine centuries; but Newport was not very new recognized as a sanctuary of peace in violent in the Conqueror's time, and from the later times, the more so as its inhabitants evidence we can perhaps draw some inferences (burhware), not yet comfortable bourgeois, concerning its earlier history. 'The Beyond is were ready to defend it. A borough enjoyed the ; 011 1 1 1 .._.._1_ _ ___ ..__~.._1! __ ...._, ______ 1_.._1__ 1"--' _____ j:. _l_~_L ___ l __ L _____ l..l _! ___ ___ ..J ~llll Vt:ly Ui:UI\.; UUlllll:: Wi:lY LUll HI::~ llHUUI;;ll LUI:: 1\.111!;; ~ IJI::i:l\,;1::," WIUUI UIHY Ill:: I,;UUIU !;;IVt:, i:lllU Norman record. A result is given to us; the therefore became a centre where merchants and problem is to find cause and process' .3 craftsmen gathered. Newport was both a market-town (port) and The word port, from Latin portus a borough (burh or burg, Latin burgus). During 'harbour', 7 originally related to a trading centre the tenth century these terms became almost on the coast or on a navigable river, but came synonymous, but their original meanings were to be applied to any place where trade or quite different. Burh meant a stronghold, not manufacture was regularly carried on and necessarily with a permanent population. An where services were provided for the Iron Age hillfort such as Cholesbury was a surrounding area. During the tenth and early burh; so was a walled Roman site, whether still eleventh centuries a burh needed to become a inhabited (Canterbury) or deserted (Rich port if it was to survive at all, and usually a port borough). The term was applied to the house acquired at least symbolic and legal defensive of a person of noble rank, protected by limits, within which men could live, work and some form of stockade or entrenchment, the trade in safety. Those who were authorized and 128 encouraged to occupy town-houses within honour, and he probably had a timbered burghal limits became burgesses (Latin manor-house (heajod-botl) on what became the burgenses). Instead of agricultural services, site of a small castle by the church, where the they paid a fixed and usually small gajo/ or rent Ousel or Lovat joins the Great Ouse. 16 His to the king, some other lord, or both.8 Their successor in 1086 was William fitz Ansculf, tenure soon became secure, and their tenements who held over a hundred hides in the county. could be assigned or mortgaged. The essential William's successor (probably his son-in-law 17 ) features of borough-right, which made it highly was Fulk Payne!, who gave his name to the prized, were fixed money rents in lieu of all or place. The late Miss Cicely Baker always most services, heritability and ease of transfer. pronounced it Panel, but this authentic and In 1086, and indeed before 1066, wherever traditional pronunciation has been replaced by there were burgesses they held by burgage the Latinized form (from Paganellus). tenure and there was a borough.9 The idea of fortification had been replaced by legal The Domesday entry for Newport is protection of tenurial privileges. exceptionally interesting, but needs elucidation; it may be translated as follows: The Domesday Commissioners recognised Manor. William himself holds Newport. It only three towns in Buckinghamshire: answers for 5 hides. There is land for 9 Buckingham, Aylesbury and Newport Pagnell. ploughs. In the demesne are 4 carucates of Of these, the first-named was the county town land, and on it are 4 ploughs; and 5 villeins and a royal borough, half of whose burgesses have 5 ploughs. The burgesses have 6V2 held directly of the king while half were men of ploughs, and of other men outside .the 5 hides other magnates who had estates in the (there are) those who cultivate (for them?). neighbourhood, within a day's return There are 9 slaves, and 2 mills worth 40 shill journey .10 The Conquest had transferred most ings, meadow for all the plough-teams and of these estates to new lords, without severing worth 40 shillings besides, woodland for 300 the connection between particular burgages and swine and worth 2 shillings besides, and, in rural manors. addition, 4 shillings come from men who dwell in the woodland. And in all other rents Aylesbury was a burh in the oldest sense; the paid yearly it renders 116 shillings and 4 second element in its name refers to its Iron Age pence. In all it is and was (when received) earthworks, which were renewed in the Middle worth 20 pounds; in King Edward's time 24 Saxon period 11 and were perhaps reasserted for pounds. This manor Ulf, a thegn of King legal and commercial reasons after it once more Edward, held. became a king's manor in 971. 12 Aylesbury had William fitz Ansculf also held the contiguous a market, the tolls of which yielded £10 a year vills of Tickford, valued at 100 shillings, and in 1086, 13 but it had no burgesses and is not a Caldecote, valued at 40 shillings; but these, 'Domesday borough'. Indeed, there is no though they became parts of the ecclesiastical evidence of burgage tenure in Aylesbury at any and civil parish of Newport Pagnell, were later date, though the privileges enjoyed by treated as separate manors. tenants on ancient demesne of the Crown may have been invoked and extended to serve much The surprising feature of the borough of the same purpose. 14 The manor of Newport was Newport is that even before the Conquest it had not a royal estate in the Conqueror's or the a single lord who was not the king. This was Confessor's time, but it included a market quite usual on the Continent, where towns and town which was a borough. Before the cities were often held by feudatories of the Conquest its lord was Ulf, a king's thegn and a Emperor or the King of France; but in England, housecarl of King Edward, with a Danish outside Kent, nearly all the boroughs were in name; he and his men also held Tickford, the king's hands in 1066, and were administered Caldecote and other estates in Bucks. 15 In by officers directly responsible to him. The only Norman terms, Newport was the caput of his exceptions allowed by Tait 18 were Durham, 129 where the bishop had exceptional powers there was a qualmstowe at Astwood on the because of the proximity of the Scots, and the county boundary (syremere). 29 Until the late herring-port of Dunwich, where royal rights twelfth century Astwood was part of the were exercised by Edric of Laxfield before the Newport demesne, and the gallows there might Conquest and by Robert Malet after it, until well go back to a time when the manor was in he forfeited them to Henry I. Maitland 19 would the king's hands. In the thirteenth century it include Taunton, which had borough-right would have been useful to the king's justices on before 1066,20 though it had been held for circuit; when there was little business from centuries by the Bishop of Winchester;21 this Buckinghamshire, they would only have to ride may, however, be a development of tenth from Bedford along the Newport road to deal century privileges which treated Taunton as if it with it on Bucks ground. The Saxon word were still demesne of the Crown.22 Maitland cwealmstow seems to have become obsolete and Tait both overlooked Newport, which was after the late twelfth century; it occurs in the clearly a mesne or seignorial borough.