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There is often apparent confidence about the spelling and origins of names, and also descriptions of places and events in history seem to place reliance on measurements being standard.
Ironically, trains are a major area of concern over poor timekeeping today, but the coming of railways was a prime element in the move to a common time system. Before that, determining the time of day was highly localised except where a reliable timepiece carried by stagecoach might be used for comparison. (The associated conversations on this topic and on news from other parts were naturally referred to as "passing the time of day").
Reference to historical maps and documents shows that names have fallen victim to the impact of the various language influences (Latin, early English, Norman, etc.), the lack of schooling and individual phonetic interpretation when translating the oral to written record. Locally, today there is no variation of the name of Markyate, but 17th and 18th Century papers show – Market Street, Margaret Street, Marget Street and Margate Street. Normally the Cell is recorded with the same first name as the village, but the 1847 map by Thos. Moule shows Market Street and Margate Cell. Today’s Kinsbourne Green appears in variations from Kingsbourn to Kinsman Green.
Interpretation may well depend on a reader’s background and experience. If fish stew just suggests food, then you might be surprised that the fish stews at Limbury (a hamlet, which is now an area of Luton) were ponds for the breeding and storing of fish. You may conjecture as to whether Brown Brick, the name taken in the 19th Century by a suburb of Luton from the field on which it was mainly founded, came originally from associations with brick making or from ownership at some time by Brown and Brickwood or maybe something else entirely, such as is suggested by the following extracts from court rolls.
Manor of Luton Court of Thomas Rotherham knight held there Quarterly
the 3rd day of October 5 Edward VI [1552]
Item they say that Thomas Lawrence of Chiltern Greene has encroached to himself one common "le Breck" going out of Byshes Crofte in le Dencrofte with hedges and ditches.
Manor of Luton Court of Thomas Rotherham knight held there Quarterly
on the 10th day of January 6 Edward VI [1553]
Excuses
John Mower excused Thomas Perott of Le Vyne excused
Roger Berbor senior Robert Perott Roger Okeley Robert Daldorn Thomas
Wellys Richard Thraill Nicholas Humfrey Thomas Hyde John Ramerryge
John Stopsley John Wye William Stalworthe William Crawley sworn
who say upon their oath that etc.
A pain is imposed on William Kilbey of Le Hyde to throw back one hedge/ditch [fossum] being in le Bradcrofte "pre fores" as it used to be in le Comen Feild within one month after the date of this court under pain to forfeit to the lord 13s 4d etc. and make it up as it used to be etc.
A pain is imposed on John Kilbye of Le Hyde that he should throw back one ditch "fossum" which he had cut off with hedges, ditches and banks and put it as it was before, before the next quarter court under the pain of forfeiting 13s 4d.
It is ordered that those inhabitants who abut on Bayley Feild shall sufficiently scour the common ditch lying in Bayley feilde at le Gardyns End before the next Quarter, under the pain of each to forfeit 12d that is to say, each for their part, from the house of John Camfeild to Brownes Breck etc.
A pain is imposed on John Goodale alias Sterlinge that he shall sufficiently make a certain hedge on his own soil before the next Quarter Court under pain of forfeiting to the lord 6s 8d
A pain is imposed on Roger Berbor senior Thomas Everett Robert Daldorn Thomas Pygott and Edward Helder that they should enquire whether the said John Goodale has made the hedge as etc and to certify at the next court leet under pain of each forfeiting 12d
affeered by the whole homage
At the least the extracts show some interesting names and flexible approach to spelling.
Today we remain uncertain as to whether the River Lea is really spelt Lee, in any event, the Ancient Britons seem to have called it Lygea, from which the name of the settlement of Lygetun (now Luton) recorded in the 8th Century appears to derive.
One may accept some Norman French influence in the Domesday Book recording, of what was then Crown property, as Loitine. Over succeeding centuries there were a few further variations before Luton was adopted in the reign of Charles 1.
Despite the seemingly logical derivation relating to the River, some have believed that Luton is a corruption of Low Town, relating to its position between two hills.
There is a substantial dissertation on variation in names in relation to Napier and the Clan/Family of that name, which includes specific reference to Sir Robert Napier, baronet, Luton Hoo at - http://www.clannapier.org:80/ (See also closing part of this section.)
To appreciate some of the elements that contribute to a degree of uncertainty in local and national history, it may be useful to review some dictionary definition extracts.
Hamlet* a group of houses or small village
Hide an old English measure of land (pre Norman, though it continued after) varying in extent, but primarily the area considered adequate to support one free family and dependants – early date definition of as much land as could be tilled with one plough in a year
Hundred # a subdivision of a county or shire having its own court. An obscure origin leaves it open to conjecture as to whether it related to 100 hides or to a district, which was responsible for supplying 100 warriors to the Crown.
Manor in common with Roman "Mansio", Saxon "Halla" and English "Moothall", the Norman Manor is a unit of house plus land, with cultivation undertaken by tenants, partly for an overlord and partly for themselves (associations survive in the names – Court Farm, Hall Farm, Grange Farm and of course Manor Farm).
Moiety a half (one of two equal parts)
Parish a township or cluster of townships having its own church and ministered to by its own priest, parson or parish clergyman to whom tithes were due.
name of a subdivision of a county applied primarily to its ecclesiastical aspect, but also for various civil purposes such as, historically, the administration of the Poor-law.
Virgate a land measure varying greatly in extent, but in many cases averaging 30 acres
Village* a collection of dwelling houses, a centre of habitation in a country district (smaller than a town, larger than a hamlet)
* Some usage in nineteenth century books indicates that ‘hamlet’ seemed then to apply to an area akin to a manor (not necessarily having a manor house) or parish and ‘village’ indicated a close collection of houses with, even if very small, a commercial centre.
# Local adjacency to the Chiltern Hills seems a reasonable justification for explaining a curious phrase relating to the Chiltern Hundreds.
There were five Hundreds in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire where the manorial rights belonged to the Crown. Stewards and Bailiffs were employed for their administration. The rights and obligations ceased to have more than nominal existence a long time ago, but the legal fiction of paid employment remains.
It is a convention that no Member of Parliament may resign whilst still qualified for the post. However, an MP is disqualified if they hold an ‘office of profit under the Crown’. Thus one who wishes to give up the role of MP, does so by applying for Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds.
Today we may associate "being left high and dry" with some form of abandonment, but to residents of wet areas such as the Lea (or Lee) Valley it described positive and practical aspects of the location of burial grounds or footpaths such as the "Pedlars Way", which leads to Dane Street in East Hyde.
Dane Street provides a reminder of the border that once ran through the Lea Valley.
After occupation of areas of much of what is now England by the Angles of Schleswig-Holstein, the Saxons of Lower Saxony and the Jutes of Jutland, Offa (730-796) extended his authority well beyond his original land of Mercia (central England) and with the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon lands, took the title King of All England.
However, in the 9th Century, the Vikings (Danes) invaded and, through a series of battles, progressively expanded their territory towards Wessex. Between 871 & 878, King Alfred (Alfred the Great), was forced to make concessions that established the authority of Danelaw well into the middle of England. Then in 886 he successfully defeated the Vikings and re-took London. The subsequent agreement defined the western boundary of the Danelaw north of London as the course of the River Lea.
Apart from the potential for the name of the Napier family of Luton Hoo to have derived from a member holding the post of Keeper of the Royal Linen as explored in the website referred to earlier, further interesting elements of the Napier’s name variation can be seen in the following account relating to these descendants of Alexander "Sandy" Napier.
Extract from "Magna Britannia", 1806 relating to Great Linford ( three miles south-west of Newport Pagnell)
Dr. Richard Sandy, alias Napier, who was presented to this rectory in 1589, was a very remarkable character: he was son of Sir Robert Napier, of Luton Hoo, in Bedfordshire, and having been instructed in physic and astrology, by the celebrated Dr. Simon Forman, commenced the profession of those sciences, in conjunction with the cure of souls: his practice as a physician became very extensive, it being given out that he held conversations with the angel Raphael, by means of which, he prognosticated with certainty, the death or recovery of his patients. This procured him great credit in a superstitious age, and he was resorted to by persons of the first rank and consequence. It appears by a passage in Howell's Familiar Letters, that the Earl of Sunderland (lord president of the north) was under his care for some months, at his house at Linford, in 1629. It was said of this emperic divine, that he was so devout, that his knees grew horny by much praying, and that he died in that posture, at a great age, in the year 1634. His burial is thus entered in the parish register, "April 15, 1634. Buried, Mr. Richard Napier, rector, the most renowned physician both of body and soul." Dr.Napier's papers came into the hands of Mr. Ashmole, and are now in the museum at Oxford.
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