diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
index 94d7be00bd88..1b0706f658e2 100644
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
 [submodule "doc/scipy-sphinx-theme"]
 	path = doc/scipy-sphinx-theme
 	url = https://github.com/scipy/scipy-sphinx-theme.git
+[submodule "doc/sphinxext"]
+	path = doc/sphinxext
+	url = https://github.com/numpy/numpydoc.git
diff --git a/doc/sphinxext b/doc/sphinxext
new file mode 160000
index 000000000000..447dd0b59c2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/sphinxext
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit 447dd0b59c2fe91ca9643701036d3d04919ddc7e