A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1924.
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'Shrivenham hundred: Introduction', in A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4, ed. William Page, P H Ditchfield( London, 1924), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp500-502 [accessed 24 November 2024].
'Shrivenham hundred: Introduction', in A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4. Edited by William Page, P H Ditchfield( London, 1924), British History Online, accessed November 24, 2024, https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp500-502.
"Shrivenham hundred: Introduction". A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4. Ed. William Page, P H Ditchfield(London, 1924), , British History Online. Web. 24 November 2024. https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp500-502.
THE HUNDRED OF SHRIVENHAM
Containing The Parishes Of Ashbury (fn. 1); Buscot; Coleshill; Compton; Beauchamp; Eaton Hastings; Shrivenham (fn. 2); Uffington (fn. 3);
The area now included in the hundred of Shrivenham was in 1086 divided between the three hundreds of Shrivenham, Wyfold and Hildeslaw. The hundred of Shrivenham then contained the townships of Shrivenham, Watchfield and Becket, (fn. 4) the hundred of Wyfold the townships of Faringdon, Coxwell, Coleshill, Buscot, (fn. 5) and probably Eaton (which is not located in any hundred in the Domesday Survey, (fn. 6) but which from its geographical position must have always lain within this hundred), whilst in Hildeslaw Hundred were included Woolstone, Uffington, Ashbury, Compton, Odstone, Knighton (fn. 7) and part of Sparsholt. (fn. 8) The pre-Conquest assessment of Hildeslaw was for 150 hides, of Wyfold (including Eaton) for 144, and of Shrivenham for 71. In 1086 Hildeslaw was assessed for 71 hides and 1 virgate, Wyfold for 24½ hides (fn. 9) and Shrivenham for 58 hides and 4 acres.
Within these three hundreds the king in 1086 held Shrivenham, Faringdon and Sparsholt in demesne. Faringdon early developed into a borough, and was apparently already separate from the hundred of Wyfold when granted by King John to Beaulieu Abbey. The hundred of Faringdon, as held by the abbot, included the parishes of Great and Little Faringdon and Coxwell. (fn. 10) Shrivenham remained royal demesne until 1200, when the manor was granted to Geoffrey Count of Perche, the rights over the hundred evidently being included in the grant of the manor. (fn. 11) Early in the reign of Henry III the manor and hundred were acquired by William Marshal Earl of Pembroke and William Longespée Earl of Salisbury (see Shrivenham). The Earl of Pembroke granted his share to Warin Monchesney, who married his daughter Joan, whilst the Earl of Salisbury alienated the second moiety to Reginald de Whitchurch and Adam de Hawtrey. (fn. 12) The hundreds of Hildeslaw and Wyfold, which by the beginning of the 13th century had been thrown together into the single 'hundred of Hildeslaw and Wyfold,' (fn. 13) may have continued for a time to be farmed by the sheriff, but the position of Shrivenham between the two hundreds and the absence of any royal demesne within them (fn. 14) seem to have contributed to bring about before long their amalgamation with that hundred. (fn. 15) In 1276 it was deposed that the bailiffs of William de Valence (fn. 16) had moved the hundred court of Hildeslaw to a place within the bounds of Shrivenham Hundred. (fn. 17) The hundred had its own jurors as late as 1284, (fn. 18) but by the end of this century or the beginning of the next it formed an 'extrinsec' or 'forinsec' hundred of Shrivenham. (fn. 19) In 1327 the intrinsec hundred included the townships of Shrivenham, Bourton, Cotes (Longcot) and Fernham, the forinsec hundred those of Watchfield, Littleworth, Eton, Coleshill, Buscot, Ashbury, Edwinston (or Idstone in Ashbury), Compton, Odstone, Becket, Woolstone, Balking, Fawler, Kingston and Uffington. (fn. 20) The intrinsec hundred, therefore, comprised only the area of the manor of Shrivenham. (fn. 21) There appears later to have been no practical distinction between the two parts of the hundred. (fn. 22)
The constitution of the hundred has changed little since 1327. Becket (in Shrivenham) was not assessed separately for later subsidies, whilst Knighton and Hardwell were generally assessed as well as Compton, and there are other minor changes in the grouping of the townships. (fn. 23) The number of townships in this hundred which had a separate existence for civil purposes, but were not ecclesiastical parishes, is noticeable. Watchfield, Becket, Woolstone, Odstone and Knighton all date back to the 11th century, Balking to the 10th. Cotes and Fernham are found as townships in the 13th century. (fn. 24) Of these Watchfield and Longcot (Cotes) were chapelries to Shrivenham, Woolstone and Balking to Uffington. (fn. 25) The portion of the parish of Sparsholt lying in Shrivenham Hundred became the chapelry of Kingston Lisle, which ecclesiastically remained attached to Sparsholt in Wantage Hundred. (fn. 26)
The private franchises within the hundred were, as usual, numerous, (fn. 27) In 1276 Gerald de Lisle in Kingston, the Prior of Winchester in Woolstone, the Earl of Cornwall in Knighton and the Abbot of Glastonbury in Ashbury had all withdrawn their suit from the hundred. (fn. 28) At Ashbury it was customary for the Bishop of Bath and Wells, whilst overlord of Glastonbury Abbey, to take the return of writs from the sheriff and to return them to the abbot, whilst the abbot held his own hundred courts and pleas de namio vetito and shared the amercements with the bishop. (fn. 29) In 1275 the bishop quitclaimed his rights over the abbey to the king, (fn. 30) and in 1280 the king granted the return of writs to the abbey, (fn. 31) the grant being substantiated as regards Ashbury by a quitclaim of this liberty to the abbot by William de Valence in 1286. (fn. 32) The abbot held a hundred court for his tenants at Ashbury, (fn. 33) at which the tithings of Edwinston and Ashbury did suit. (fn. 34)
Shrivenham Hundred descended in moieties with the manors of Shrivenham Salop and Shrivenham Stalpits. The rights of the third coparcener (over a quarter of it, by the double feoffment made by the Earl of Salisbury) do not appear after the 13th century. (fn. 35) The two moieties of the hundred are sometimes called the hundred of Shrivenham Salop and the hundred of Shrivenham Stalpits respectively. (fn. 36)