The history and antiquities of Boston, and the villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Benington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle; comprising the hundred of Skirbeck, in the county of Lincoln. Including also a history of the East, West, and Wildmore fens, and copious notices of the Holland or Haut-Huntre fen ... sketches of the geology, natural history, botany, and agriculture of the district; a very extensive collection of archaisms and provincial words, local dialect, phrases, proverbs, omens, superstitions, etc. By Pishey Thompson. Illustrated with one hundred engravings.

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HE parish of Benington lies eastward from Butterwick, to which it is contiguous, and is about five
miles distant from Boston, on the highroad leading
to Wainfleet.
i The name of this parish is spelled Beningtone
and Beninctun in Domesday Book. STUKELEY
n l] says, that towns whose names end in ington or
ingham are so called from being situated among
meadows or ings; hence Benington probably comes
from Bying-town, as being'adjoining to the Ings.1 The Domesday account of
this parish is as follows:" Land of William de Warren, berewick and soke to Carleton, in Benington, two carucates
of land, and two oxgangs to be taxed. Land to three ploughs. Ten oxgangs are inland,2 and
one carucate soke of this manor. There is one plough in the demesne, and three sokemen
and one bordar have one plough, and twenty acres of meadow.
" In Beninctun Earl Alan claims ten oxgangs of land, but the jury of the wapentake say
it belongs to William de Waren's manor of Carletun, and Earl Harold his ancestor had
it so."
This last quotation informs us that Earl Harold was the holder of Benington
before the Conquest.
William de Warren accompanied King William I. into England, and fought
valiantly at the battle of Hastings; he was created Earl of Surrey by King
William Rufus. It does not, however, appear that the Earls of Surrey held
their property in Benington for a very long period; for when the Testa de
Nevill was taken, in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., the whole of this
parish was held of the honour of Richmond, as follows:
"IRodolphus de Fenne held in Benigton two carucates of land of John de Edelington, and
the same John of the honour of Richmond, by the fourth part of one knight's fee.
" Warinus Engayne and Ralph de Quappelade held in Benigton seven parts of one knight's
fee, of Rod. de Fenne, and the same Rod., of the honor of Richmond. Simon, the son of
John, and Alan de Seldic, held in Benigton the sixteenth part of one knight's fee, of
Lambert de Moleton; and the same Lambert of the honor of Richmond, and the Earl of
Richmond of the King in capite. The Earl of Richmond held of himself in Benington two
carucates of land in socage by free service."
We think a better derivation than any of these Thus BENING-TON would be the town of cultiis found in the Anglo-Saxon, byn, " tilled, culti- vated, consequently inhabited, meadows.
vated, settled," from byzoan, to dwell, cultivate, 2 Inland was that which lay next, or most con&c. Hence byn-land, inhabited country, and by, a venient for the lord's mansion-house as within the
dwelling.-See LYE'S Saxon Dictionary, and Bos- view thereof, and, therefore, they kept that part in
WORTH'S Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. their own hands for the support of their family and
hospitality.-KENN'T' s Glossary.