Geography
In the 11th century Northamptonshire was included in Tostig's northern earldom; but in 1065, together with Huntingdonshire, it was detached from Northumbria and bestowed on Waltheof. The only monastic foundation which survived the Conquest was Peterborough. Norman castles existed at Rockingham, Barnwell, Lilbourne, Northampton and Wellingborough.
As a shire Northamptonshire was probably of Danish origin, representing in the 10th century the area which owed allegiance to Northampton as a political and administrative centre. In 921 this area extended to the River Welland, the present northern limit of the county; at the time of the Domesday Survey the boundaries were approximately those of the present day. Northamptonshire is first mentioned by name in the Historia Eliensis, in connection with events which occurred at the close of the 10th century.
The Geld roll of the time of William I and the Domesday Survey of 1086 mention 28 hundreds in Northamptonshire, and part of Rutland is assessed under this county. By 1316 the divisions had undergone considerable changes, both in name and in extent, and had been reduced to their present number, 20, since which date they have remained practically unaltered. The names of the hundreds point to primitive meeting-places gradually superseded by villages and towns. For example, the court for Fawsley hundred met under a large beech tree in Fawsley Park until the beginning of the 18th century, when it was transferred to Everdon. The shire court originally met at Northampton.
Read more about this topic: History Of Northamptonshire
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)