Doddesthorp, Doddings-down, etc.[1] In Scottish charters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the name was generally written “Dodinstun,” but this spelling, of course, is not uniformly ad- hered to: In the chartulary of Kelso there is a charter giving the church of Sympering—or Swinton—with its pertinents to the Abbot of Kelso, and the church of St Mary in the reign of King Malcolm IV., the grandson of David I., between the years 1153 and 1165. Among the signatures to this document is to be found that of “Dodine de Dodinestun.” A subsequent charter written in the following reign, viz., of William the Lion (1165-1214), in, which a gift of the church of Bolton with a piece of land, is made to the Abbey of Holyrood, has, among other witnesses, the name of “Hugo, Filius Dodini de Dodinestun”—that is Hugh, the son of Dodin of Dodinestun. A few years after, confirmation of this grant is made by Sir William Viponte (or Sir Wm. de Vetere Ponte), which bears to be witnessed by “Hugo, de ville Dodin ” that is, “Hugh of the town of Dodin,” which would seem to indicate that his father was now dead, and that Hugh was the owner of the patrimony.
Dodin was a man of means and position as is evident not only from his owning the “lands of Dodinestun,” but from his holding property elsewhere. His name appears in a charter by Herbert, the First Abbot of Kelso, after his appointment as Bishop of Glasgow, making a grant to the Abbey “of the Church of Lintun Ruderick,” etc., “which Dodin gifted to me.” Assuming that this refers to “Dodin of Dodinestun,” this grant to Herbert must have been made by Dodin previous to 1147, as it was in that year that the Abbot was appointed to the Bishopric of Glasgow.
For 400 years the Abbots of Kelso were feudal superiors of the Barony of Duddingston, over which, until the Reformation, they. exercised jurisdiction by a Bailie of Regality. From an examin- ation of the charters of Kelso Abbey, it appears that for about. one hundred years at least, the influence of the family of Dodin in Duddingston was felt. Thus, in Abbot Herbert's time (the second Abbot of that name), 1221-1240, we find the grandson renouncing some of the rights and privileges which Dodin and his. son Hugh had held in the barony. Abbot Henry (1208-1210) at the end of the long reign of William the Lion, had granted to
- ↑ See Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonico; and Searle’s Onomasticon Angio-Saxonicum, 1897.
