Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England (part 4 of 4)

Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England (part 4 of 4)

What portion of the arable land shall we suppose to be sown in any one year? Some grave doubts may occur to us before we put this portion higher than one half[1436]. Common opinion would perhaps strike a balance between two-field and three-field husbandry. So we will suppose that out of 9 million acres 5 million are sown.

[What was the acre's yield?]

Then comes the insoluble question about the acre's yield. Even could we state an average, this would not be very serviceable, for every district had to feed itself in every year, and the statistics of the later middle ages suggest that the difference between good and bad years was very large, while the valuations of the manors in Domesday Book seem to tell us that the difference between fertile and sterile, forward and backward counties was much wider in the eleventh century than it is in our own day. The scientific agriculturist of the thirteenth century proposed to sow an acre with two bushels of wheat and regarded ten bushels as the proper return[1437]. Walter of Henley proved by figures that a three-fold return would not be remunerative, unless prices were exceptionally good, but he evidently thought of this exiguous yield as a possibility[1438], and yet, as we have seen, he represents the 'high farming' of his time and in his two-course husbandry would plough the land thrice over between every two crops. In the first half of the next century we can not put the average as high as 8 bushels[1439]. To eyes that look for 29 or 30, a yield of from 6 to 10 may seem pitiful; and the 'miserable husbandry' that Arthur Young saw in the west of England was producing from 15 to 20[1440]. However, there are countries in which a crop of wheat which gave 10 of our bushels to one of our acres would not be very small[1441]. For our present purpose, the figure that we should wish to obtain would be, not that which expressed the yield of an average year, but that which was the outcome of a bad year, for we have to keep folk alive and they can not wait for the good times. Let us then take our hypothesis from Walter of Henley. We suppose a yield of 6 bushels, 2 of which must be retained for seed. This would give us 20 million bushels as food, or, we will say, 15 bushels for every person.

[Of beer.]

Now, had we to deal with modern wheat and modern mills, we might argue that the bushel of wheat would weigh 60 pounds, that the weight of flour would be 72 per cent. of the weight of grain[1442], and that every human mouth could thus be provided with a little more than 28 ounces of flour every day, or, to put it another way, with bread amounting to nine-sixteenths of a four pound loaf[1443]. Some large, but indefinable, deduction should be made from this amount on the score of poor grain and wasteful processes. As the sum stands, we are at present proposing to give to each person a great deal more wheat-flour than would be obtained if the total amount consumed now-a-days in the United Kingdom were divided by the number of its inhabitants[1444]. But it need hardly be said that the problem is far more complex than are our figures. In the first place, we have to withdraw from the men of 1086 a large quantity, perhaps more than a half, of the wheat-flour that we have given them in order to supply its place with other cereals[1445], in particular with barley and oats, much of which, together with some of the wheat[1446], will be consumed in the form of beer. And who shall fathom that ocean? Multum biberunt de cerevisia Anglicana, as the pope said. Their choice lay for the more part between beer and water. In the twelfth century the corn-rents paid to the bishop of Durham often comprised malt, wheat and oats in equal quantities[1447]. In the next century the economy of the canons of St. Paul's was so arranged that for every 30 quarters of wheat that went to make bread, 7 quarters of wheat, 7 of barley and 32 of oats went to make beer[1448]. The weekly allowance of every canon included 30 gallons[1449]. In one year their brewery seems to have produced 67,814 gallons from 175 quarters of wheat, a like quantity of barley and 708 quarters of oats[1450]. With such figures before us, it becomes a serious question whether we can devote less than a third of the sown land to the provision of drink. The monk, who would have growled if he got less than a gallon a day, would, we may suppose, consume in the course of a year 20 bushels of barley or an equivalent amount of other grain: in other words, the produce, when seed-corn is deducted, of from two to three acres of land; and perhaps to every mouth in England we must give half a gallon daily[1451].

[The Englishman's diet.]

But if we can not make teetotallers of our ancestors (and in very truth we can not) neither may we convert them to vegetarianism. What we can read of the provender-rents paid in the days before the Conquest suggests that those who were well-to-do, including the monks, consumed a great deal of mutton, pork, poultry, fish, eels, cheese and honey[1452]. This would relieve the arable of part of the pressure that it would otherwise have borne, for, though we already hear of two manors which between them supply 6000 dog-loaves for the king's hounds[1453], and also read of pigs that are fattened with corn[1454], it is not very probable that any beasts, save those that laboured, got much from the arable, except the straw, and the stubble which we may suspect of having been abundantly mixed with grass and weeds. It is likely, however, that the oxen which were engaged in ploughing were fed at times with oats. Walter of Henley would keep his plough-beasts at the manger for five-and-twenty weeks in the year and would during that time give 70 bushels of oats to every eight of them[1455]. At this rate our 75,000 teams would require 5,250,000 bushels of oats, and on this score we might have to deduct some 4 million bushels of wheat[1456] from our 20 millions and reduce by one-fifth each person's allowance of grain. But then, it is by no means certain that we ought to transplant Walter's practices into the eleventh century; we have seen that he expected much of his oxen[1457].

[Is the arable super-abundant?]

At first sight it may seem incredible that the average human being annually required the produce of nearly seven acres. But observe how rapidly the area will disappear. We deduct a half for the idle shift; a third of the remainder we set apart as beer-land. We have not much more than two acres remaining, and may yet have to feed oxen and horses. But suppose that we concede to every human mouth the wheat of two full acres; we can not say for certain that we are giving it a quarter of grain, even though we suppose each acre to yield more than was to be had always and everywhere in the fourteenth century[1458].

[Amount of pasturage.]

Our doubt about the food of the oxen makes it difficult for us to state even the outlines of another important problem. Are we leaving pasture enough for the beasts? Their number was by no means small. South of the southern frontier of Cheshire and Yorkshire we must accommodate in the first place some 600,000 beasts of the plough, and in the second place and for their maintenance a sufficiency of bulls, cows and calves. Now-a-days England keeps 4,723,000 head of cattle, but we have been excluding from view near a quarter of England. Then there are other animals to be provided for. Their number we can not guess, for apparently the statistics that we obtain from the south-western and eastern counties give us only the stock that is on the demesne of the manors[1459]. We have seen that the peasants in East Anglia had sheep enough to make their 'fold-soke' an important social institution[1460]. Also we have much evidence of large herds of pigs belonging to the villeins, though these we may send to the woods. But, attending only to the dominical stock, we will begin by looking at the manor which stands first in the Cambridgeshire Inquest. The lord has 5 teams, 8 head of not-ploughing cattle, 4 rounceys, 10 pigs and 480 sheep. Then, in the accompanying table we will give some figures from various counties which show the amount of stock that is kept where there are 200 teams or thereabouts.

Teams (Demesne Beasts not and of the Tenants') Plough Horses Goats Pigs Sheep

Essex 207 267 34 107 777 1657 Suffolk 200 196 30 295 676 1705 Norfolk 202 132 44 200 672 5673 Dorset 202 159 47 281 479 6160 Somerset 202 82 16 49 198 1506 Devon 205 282 16 135 173 1553 Cornwall 200 62 35 52 26 1445 Total 1418 1180 222 1119 3001 19699

Even if we look only at the flocks which belong to the holders of manors, we may have to feed a million sheep south of the Humber, and, though all England now maintains more than 15 millions, it does this by devoting a large portion of its arable to the growth of turnips and the like. No doubt, the medieval sheep were wretched little animals; also large numbers of them were slaughtered and salted at the approach of winter; but from the arable they got only the stubble, and every extension of the ploughed area deteriorated the quality besides diminishing the quantity of the pasture that was left for their hungry mouths. As already said, our forefathers did not live on bread and beer; bacon must have been plentiful among them[1461]. Also many fleeces were needed for their clothing. As to meadow land (pratum), that is, land that was mown, it was sparse and precious[1462]; the supply of it was often insufficient even for the lord's demesne oxen. At least in Cambridgeshire, we find traces of a theory which taught that every ox should have an acre of meadow; but commonly this was an unrealized ideal[1463]. In Dorset now-a-days there will be near 95,000 acres growing grass for hay, whereas there were not 7,000 acres of meadow in 1086[1464]. Therefore we are throwing a heavy strain on the pasture[1465].

[Area of the villages.]

Lastly, we must not neglect, as some modern calculators do, the sites of the villages, the straggling group of houses with their court-yards, gardens and crofts, for this deducts a sensible piece from the conceivably tillable area. An exceedingly minute account of Sawston in Cambridgeshire which comes from the year 1279 shows us a territory thus divided: Messuages, Gardens, Crofts, etc., 85 acres: Arable, 1243 acres: Meadow, 82 acres: Several Pasture, 30 acres. The neighbouring village of Whittlesford shows us: Messuages, Gardens, Crofts, etc., 35 acres: Arable, 1363 acres: Meadow, 44 acres: Several Pasture, 35 acres. In both cases we must add some unspecified quantity of Common Pasture[1466]. The core of the village was not large when compared with its fields; but it can not be ignored.

[Produce and value.]

Recurring for a moment to our food problem, we may observe that the values that are set on the manors in Domesday Book seem to point to a very feeble yield of corn. Without looking for extreme cases, we shall often find that the value of a teamland is no more than 10 shillings. Now let us make the hypothesis most favourable to fertility and suppose that this 'value' represents a pure, net rent[1467]. We will make another convenient but extravagant assumption; we will say that 24 bushels of wheat will make 365 four-pound loaves. If then a lord is to get one such loaf every day from each teamland that is valued at 10 shillings, the price of wheat will be a good deal less than 5 pence the bushel; if two daily loaves are to be had, the price of the bushel must be reduced below 2-1/2 pence, for the cost of grinding and baking is not negligible. Whether this last price could be assumed as normal must be very doubtful, for the little that Domesday tells us about the price of grain is told in obscure and disputable terms[1468]. However, the evidence that comes to us from the twelfth[1469] and thirteenth centuries[1470] suggests a rough equivalence between an ox and two quarters of wheat, and in the eleventh the traditional price of the ox was 30 pence. But at any rate, the lord who has a small village with five teamlands, and who lets it to a firmarius, will receive a rent which, when it is stated in loaves, is by no means splendid. He will not be much of a hláford, or have many 'loaf-eaters' if his whole revenue is £2. 10_s._ or, in other words, if he is lord of but one small village in the midlands.

[Varying size of acres.]

Here we must leave this question to those who are expert in the history of agriculture; but if some relief is required, it may be plausibly obtained by a reduction in the size of the ancient acre. A small piece off the village perches will mean a great piece off the 2,600 teamlands of Oxfordshire, and we seem to have the best warrant for a recourse to this device where it is most needed. The pressure upon our space appears to be at its utmost in Oxfordshire, and just for that county we have first-rate evidence of some very small acres[1471]. On the other hand, in Lincolnshire and generally in the north, where we read of abnormally large acres, we seem to have room enough for them. And here may be a partial explanation of the apparent fact that the teamland of Oxfordshire does not support three, while that of Lincolnshire supports five recorded men.

[The teamland in Cambridgeshire.]

In these last paragraphs we have been speaking of averages struck for large spaces; but if we come to some particular districts we shall have the greatest difficulty in allowing 120 acres to every teamland. This is the case in southern Cambridgeshire. In that county Domesday's list of vills is so nearly the same as the modern list of parishes that we run no great risk in comparing the ancient teamlands with the modern acreage vill by vill, if we also compare them hundred by hundred. The general result will be to make us unwilling to bestow on every teamland a long-hundred of acres. One example shall be given. The Whittlesford Hundred[1472] contains five vills and we can not easily concede to it more land than is now within its boundary. In the following table we give for each vill its modern acreage, then the number of its teamlands, then the result of multiplying that number by 120.

WHITTLESFORD HUNDRED.

Sawston 1884 10 1200 Whittlesford 1969 11 1320 Duxford 3232 21[1473] 2520 Hinxton 1557 16[1474] 1920 Ickleton 2695 24-1/2 2940 The Hundred 11337 82-1/2 9900

In two cases out of five we have already come upon sheer physical impossibility. But let us suppose some rearrangement of parish boundaries and look at the whole hundred. We are giving it 9900 acres of arable and leaving 1437 for other purposes. Then we are told of 'meadow for' 37 teams and this at the rate usual in Cambridgeshire[1475], means 296 acres, so that we have only 1141 left. On this we must place the sites of five villages, houses, farmyards, fourteen water-mills, cottages, gardens. Probably we want 250 acres at least to meet this demand. Not 900 acres remain for pasture. The dominical flocks and herds were not large, but the lords were receiving divers ploughshares in return for the pasture rights accorded to the tenants and in some of the vills there was not nearly enough meadow for the oxen of the villeins. It is difficult to believe that 87 per cent. of a Cambridgeshire hundred was under the plough, and that less than 8 per cent. was pasture. However, we know too little to say that even this was impossible. In the twelfth century we read of manors in which there is no pasture, except upon the arable field that is taking its turn of idleness[1476]. We must remember that this idle field was not fallowed until the summer[1477]; also we may suspect that much that was not corn grew on the medieval corn-land.

[The hides of Domesday.]

Saddened by our encounter with the teamlands (B)--and our last word about them is not yet said--we turn to the hides, carucates and sulungs (A). With a fair allowance for errors we feel safe in believing that the total number mentioned by Domesday Book falls short of 70,000--and yet time was when we spoke of 60,000 knight's fees of 5 hides apiece[1478]. Let us then recall once more those tales of taxation that are told by the chronicler[1479]. If Cnut raised a geld of £72,000, then, even if we allow him something from those remote northern lands which William's commissioners did not enter, the rate of the impost can hardly have been less than a pound on the hide. We are not told that he raised this sum in the course of a single year; but, even if we suppose it spread over four years, it is a monstrous exaction, and we can hardly fancy that in earlier days the pirates had waited long for the £24,000 or £30,000 that were the price of their forbearance. And yet, as already said, our choice seems to lie between believing these stories and charging the annalist with reckless mendacity. Hereafter we shall argue that some ancient statements about hidage, even some made by Bede himself, deserve no credit; but it is one thing for a Northumbrian scholar of the eighth century to make very bad guesses about the area of Sussex, and another for a chronicler of the eleventh to keep on telling us that a king levies £21,099 or £11,048 or the like, if these sums are wildly in excess of those that were demanded. As to the value of money, the economists must be heard; but it is probable that the sea-rovers insisted on good weight[1480], and when in the twelfth century we can begin to trace the movement of prices, in particular the price of oxen, they are not falling but rising. However, we have already said our say about the enormity of the danegeld.

[Relation between hide and teamland.]

We are now to investigate the 'law' of A and its relation to B. We shall soon be convinced that we are not dealing with two perfectly independent variables. There will often be wide variations between the two; A may descend to zero, while B is high, and in some counties we shall see a steady tendency which makes A decidedly higher or decidedly lower than B. And yet, if we look at England as a whole, we can not help feeling that in some sense or another A ought to be equal to B, and that, when this equation holds good, things are in a condition that we may call normal. Perhaps, as we shall see hereafter, the current notion has been that the teamland should be taxed as a hide if it lies in a district where a teamland will usually be worth about a pound a year. But for the time we will leave value out of account, and, to save words, we will appropriate three terms and use them technically. When A = B, there is 'equal rating'; when A > B, there is 'over-rating'; when A < B there is 'under-rating.' We shall find, then, that in many counties there are numerous cases of equal rating. Thus in Buckinghamshire we count

cases of under-rating 136 cases of equal rating 102 cases of over-rating 115

In Lincolnshire we may find an unbroken series of fourteen entries each of which gives us an instance of equal rating[1481]. In both Lincolnshire and Yorkshire such cases are common, but, while in Lincolnshire over-rating is rare, in Yorkshire under-rating is very rare. Fewer are the over-rated than the under-rated counties; but there are some for which the figures can not be given, and, as immense Yorkshire is set before us as much over-rated, the balance must be nearly redressed. But further, we may see that the relation between A and B is apt to change somewhat suddenly at the border of a county. The best illustration is given by the twin shires of Leicester and Northampton, the one over-rated, the other grossly under-rated. Another good illustration is given by the south-western counties. Wiltshire is heavily over-rated; Dorset, as a whole, very equally rated; Somerset decidedly under-rated, while when we come to Devon and Cornwall we enter a land so much underrated that, had we only the account of these two counties, the assumption that is implied in our terms 'under-rated' and 'over-rated' would never have entered our heads.

[Unhidated estates.]

Now for one cause of the aberration of A from B we have not far to seek; it is a cause which will make A less than B and which may reduce A to zero. It is privilege. Certain estates have been altogether exempt from geld. In particular many royal estates have been exempt. 'Nescitur quot hidae sint ibi quia non reddidit geldum'--'Nunquam geldavit nec scitur quot hidae sint ibi'--'Rex Edwardus tenuit; tunc 20 hidae sed nunquam geldaverunt':--such and such like are the formulas that describe this immunity. The number of actually geldant hides is here reduced to zero, and sometimes the very term 'hides,' so usually does it imply taxation, is deemed inappropriate. But these royal estates do not stand alone. Often enough some estate of a church has been utterly freed from taxation. The bishop of Salisbury, for example, has a great estate at Sherborne which has gelded for 43 hides; but 'in this same Sherborne he has 16 carucates of land; this land was never divided into hides nor did it pay geld[1482].'

[Beneficial hidation.]

But then again, we have the phenomenon which has aptly been called 'beneficial hidation.' Without being entirely freed from the tax, a manor has been rated at a smaller number of hides than it really contains. 'There are 5 hides' says a Gloucestershire entry, '3 of them geld, but by grant of the Kings Edward and William 2 of them do not geld[1483].' 'There are 8 hides there' says another entry 'and the ninth hide belongs to the church of St. Edward; King Æthelred gave it quit [of geld][1484].' 'There are 20 hides; of these 4 were quit of geld in the time of King Cnut[1485].' 'The Bishop [of Winchester] holds Fernham [Fareham] in demesne; it always belonged to the bishopric; in King Edward's day it defended itself for 20 hides, and it does so still; there are by tale 30 hides, but King Edward gave them thus [i.e. granted that they should be 20 hides] by reason of the vikings, for it [Fareham] is by the sea[1486].' 'Harold held it of King Edward; before Harold had it, it defended itself for 27 hides, afterwards for 16 hides because Harold so pleased. The men of the hundred never heard or saw any writ from the king which put it at that figure[1487].' We have chosen these examples because they give us more information than we can often obtain; they take us back to the days of Cnut and of Æthelred; they tell us of the depredations of the vikings; they show us a magnate fixing the rateable value of his estate ad libitum suum. But our record is replete with other instances in which we are told that by special royal favour an estate has been lightly taxed[1488]. What is more, there are many other instances in which we can hardly doubt that this same cause has been at work, though we are not expressly told of it. When in a district which as a whole is over-rated, or but moderately under-rated, we come upon a few manors which are extravagantly under-rated, then we may fairly draw the inference that there has been 'beneficial hidation.'

[Effect of privilege.]

Certainly this will account for much, and we have reason to believe that this disturbing force had been in operation for a long time past and on a grand scale. There is an undated writ of Æthelred[1489], which ordains that an immense estate of the church of Winchester having Chilcombe for its centre and containing 100 hides shall defend itself for one hide. In Domesday Book Chilcombe does defend itself for one hide though it has land for 88 teams[1490]. But further, Æthelred is decreeing nothing new; his ancestors, his 'elders,' have 'set and freed' all this land as one hide 'be the same more or less.' Behind this writ stand older charters which are not of good repute. Still we can see nothing improbable in the supposition that Æthelred issued the writ ascribed to him and that what he said in it was substantially true. Before his day there may have been no impost that was known as a 'geld'; but there may have been, as we have endeavoured to show, other imposts to which land contributed at the rate of so much per hide. We suspect that 'beneficial hidation' had a long history before Domesday Book was made.

[Divergence of hide from teamland.]

But it will not account for all the facts that are before us; indeed it will serve for few of them. Privilege can account for exceptional cases; it will not account for steady and consistent under-rating; still less will it account for steady and consistent over-rating. We must look elsewhere, and for a moment we may find some relief in the reflection that by the operation of natural and obvious causes an old rate-book will become antiquated. There will be more 'teamlands' than there are gelding hides because new land has been brought under cultivation; on the other hand, land will sometimes go out of cultivation and then there will be more gelding hides than there are teamlands. Now that there is truth here we do not doubt. As we have already said[1491], the stability of agrarian affairs in these early times may easily be overestimated. But we can not in this direction find the explanation of changes that take place suddenly at the boundaries of counties.

[Partition of the geld.]

A master hand has lately turned our thoughts to the right quarter. There can we think be no doubt that, as Mr Round has argued, the geld was imposed according to a method which we have called the method of subpartitioned provincial quotas[1492]. A sum cast upon a hundred has been divided among that hundred's vills; a sum cast upon a vill has been divided among the lands that the vill contains. It is in substance the method which still governs our land-tax, and in this very year our attention has been pointedly called to its inequitable results. But, whereas in later centuries men distributed pounds, shillings and pence among the counties, our remoter ancestors distributed hides or carucates or acres. The effect was the same; and it is not unlikely that they could pass with rapidity from acres to pence, because the pound had 240 pence in it and the fiscal hide had 120 acres. So the complaint urged this year that Lancashire is under-taxed and Hertfordshire over-taxed[1493] would have been in their mouths the complaint that too many hides had been cast on the one county and too few on the other.

[Distribution of hides.]

We will not repeat Mr Round's convincing arguments. Just to recall their character, we will notice the beautiful hundred of Armingford in Cambridgeshire[1494]. In Edward's day it had 100 hides divided among fourteen vills, six of which had 10 hides apiece, while eight had 5 hides apiece. Before 1085 the number of hides in the hundred had been reduced from 100 to 80; the number of hides in each of the 'ten-hide vills' had been reduced to 8; and each 'five-hide vill' had got rid of one of its hides. Obviously such results as these are not obtained by a method which begins by investigating the content of each landholder's tenement. The hides in the vill are imposed from above, not built up from below[1495].

[The Worcestershire hidage.]

We have no wish to traverse ground which must by this time be familiar to all students of Domesday. But, having in our eye certain ancient statements about the hidage of England, we will endeavour to carry the argument one step further.

In Worcestershire we have strong evidence of a neat arrangement of a whole county. In the first place, we are told that 'in this county there are twelve hundreds, whereof seven, so the shire says, are so free that the sheriff has nothing in them, and therefore, so he says, he is a great loser by his farm[1496].' Then we are told that the church of Worcester has a hundred called Oswaldslaw in which lie 300 hides. Then we remember that notorious charter (Altitonantis) which tells how this triple hundred of Oswaldslaw was made up of three old hundreds, called Cuthbertslaw, Wulfhereslaw and Wimborntree[1497]. Then, turning to the particulars, we find that exactly 300 hides are ascribed to the various estates which St. Mary of Worcester holds in this triple hundred. Those particulars are the following:--

[The Worcester estate.]

Chemesege 24 } Norwiche 25 } Wiche 15 } Overberie 6 } } Fledebirie 40 } Segesbarue 4 } } Breodun 35 } 200 Scepwestun 2 } 25 } 100 Rippel 25 } Herferthun 3 } } Blochelei 38 } Grimanleh 3 } } Tredinctun 23 } Halhegan 7 } } Cropetorn 50 }

We have here preserved the order in which Domesday Book names the estates, but have added some brackets which may serve to emphasize the artificiality of the system. Then, looking back once more at our Altitonantis, we see Edgar adding lands to the 50 hides at Cropthorn, so that 'a perfect hundred' may be compiled, and the lands that he adds seem to be just those which in our table are bracketed with the Cropthorn estate.

[The Westminster estate.]

Thus we have disposed of three out of those twelve 'hundreds' of which Worcestershire is composed and also of 300 hides of land. Next we perceive that the church of Westminster is said to hold 200 hides. Reckoning up the particulars, we find, not indeed 200, but 199.

H. V. H. V. Persore 2 Pidelet 5 Wiche 6 Newentune 10 Pendesham 2 Garstune 1.3 Berlingeham 3.1 Pidelet 4 Bricstelmestune 10 Peritune 6 Depeforde 10 Garstune 7 Aichintune 16 Piplintune 4.2 Beford 10 Piplintune 6.2 Longedune 30 Cumbrintune 9 Poiwic 3 Cumbrintune 10 Snodesbyrie 11 Broctune 3 Husentre 6 Stoche 15 Wich 1 Cumbrintune 2 Dormestun 5 ----- 199.0

[The Pershore estate.]

Then the church of Pershore has just 100 hides; they are distributed thus:--

Persore 26 Beolege 21 Sture 20 Bradeweia 30 Lege 3 ---- 100

It is easy to divide these manors into two groups, each of which has 50 hides. The county also tells us that the church of Pershore ought to have the church-scot from 'the whole 300 hides,' that is, as well from the 200 allotted to Westminster as from the 100 which Pershore holds[1498].

[The Evesham estate.]

Then Evesham Abbey has, we are told, 65 hides in the hundred of Fissesberge. 'In that hundred,' it is added, 'lie 20 hides of Dodingtree and 15 hides in Worcester make up the hundred.' The 65 hides which Evesham holds are allotted thus:--

Evesham 3.0 } Lenchewic 1.0 } Nortune 7.0 } Offenham 1.0 } 25 Liteltune 6.0 } Bratfortune 6.0 } Aldintone 1.0 }

Wiqwene 3.0 } Bratfortune 6.0 } Badesei 6.2 } 25 Liteltune 7.0 } Huniburne 2.2 }

Ambreslege 15.0 ---- 65.0

[The residue of Worcestershire.]

We have dealt heretofore with 665 hides. Let us now reckon up all the hides in Worcestershire that we have not yet counted. The task is not perfectly straightforward, for we have to meet a few difficult questions. In order that our account may be checked by others, we will set forth its details. We will go through the survey noting all the hides which we have not already reckoned.

--------------------------------------------------------------- Worcester city 15.0 | More 1.0 | Glese 1.0 Bremesgrave 30.0 | Betune 3.2 | Merlie 0.1 [1499]Suchelei 5.0 | More 0.1 | Wich 1.0 Grastone 3.2 | Edboldelege 2.2 | Escelie 4.0 Cochesei 2.2 | Eslei 6.0 | Nordfeld 6.0 Willingewic 2.3 | Eslei 1.0 | Franchelie 1.0 Celdvic 3.0 | Ridmerlege 1.2 | Welingewiche 0.3 Chideminstre 20.0 | Celdeslai 1.0 | Escelie 1.0 Terdeberie 9.0 | Estham 3.0 | Werwelie 0.2 Clent 9.0 | Ælmeleia 11.0 | Cercehalle 2.0 Wich 0.2 | Wich 10.0 | Bellem 3.0 Clive 10.2 | Sudtune 1.0 | Hageleia 5.2 Fepsetanatum 6.0 | Mamele 0.2 | Dudelei 1.0 Crohlea 5.0 | Broc 0.2 | Suineforde 3.0 Hambyrie 14.0 | Colingvic 1.0 | Pevemore 3.0 Stoche 10.0 | Mortune 4.0 | Cradeleie 1.0 Huerteberie 20.0 | Stotune 3.0 | Belintones 5.0 Ulwardelei 5.0 | Stanford 2.2 | Witone 2.0 Alvievecherche 13.0 | Scelves 1.0 | Celvestune 1.0 Ardolvestone 15.0 | Chintune 5.0 | Cochehi 2.2 Boclintun 8.0 | Beretune 2.0 | Osmerlie 1.0 Cuer 2.0 | Tamedeberie 3.0 | Costone 3.0 Inteberga 15.2 | Wich 0.2 | Beneslei 1.0 Wich 1.0 | Clistune 3.0 | Udecote 1.2 Salewarpe 1.0 | Chure 3.0 | Russococ 5.0 Tametdeberie 0.2 | Stanford 1.2 | Stanes 6.0 Wich 0.2 | Caldeslei 1.0 | Lundredele 2.0 Matma 5.0 | Cuer 1.0 | Hatete 1.0 [1500]Mortune 5.0 | Hamme 1.0 | Hamtune 4.0 Achelenz 4.2 | Sapie 3.0 | Hortune 2.0 Buintun 1.0 | Carletune 1.1 | Cochesie 2.0 Circelenz 4.0 | Edevent 1.0 | Brotune 2.0 Actune 6.0 | Wicelbold 11.0 | Urso's hide 1.0 Lenche 4.0 | Elmerige 8.0 | Uptune 3.0 Wich 1.0 | Croelai 5.0 | Witune 0.2 Ludeleia 2.0 | Dodeham 1.0 | Hantune 4.0 Hala 10.0 | Redmerleie 1.2 | Tichenapletreu 3.0 Salewarpe 5.0 | Hanlege 1.2 | Cedeslai 25.0 Wermeslai 2.0 | Hanlege 3.0 | Hilhamatone 0.1 Linde 2.0 | Alretune 1.2 | Fecheham 10.0 Halac 1.0 | Hadesoro 2.0 | Holewei 3.0 Dunclent 3.0 | Holim 1.0 | [1501]Mertelai 13.0 Alvintune 2.0 | Stilledune 0.2 | ----- 539.0

We have here therefore 539 hides to be added to the 665 of which we rendered an account above. We thus bring out a grand total of 1204 hides. Perhaps the true total should be exactly 1200; but at any rate it stands close to that beautiful figure. And now we remember how we were told that there were 'twelve hundreds' in Worcestershire from seven of which the sheriff got nothing. Of these twelve the church of Worcester had three in its 'hundred' of Oswaldslaw, the church of Westminster two, the church of Pershore one, and the church of Evesham one. But the Evesham or Fissesberge hundred was not perfect; it required 'making up' by means of 15 hides in the city of Worcester and 20 in the hundred of Dodingtree. Thus five hundreds remain to be accounted for, and in its rubrics Domesday Book names just five, namely, Came, Clent, Cresselaw, Dodingtree and Esch. We can not allot to each of these its constituent hides, for we never can rely on Domesday Book giving all the 'hundredal rubrics' that it ought to give, and the Worcestershire hundreds were subjected to rearrangement before the day of maps had dawned[1502]. An intimate knowledge of the county might achieve the reconstruction of the old hundreds. But, as it is, we seem to see enough. We seem to see pretty plainly that Worcestershire has been divided into twelve districts known as hundreds each of which has contained 100 hides. It is an anomaly to be specially noted that one of the jurisdictional hundreds, one which has been granted to the church of Evesham, has only 65 hides and can only be made up into a 'hundred' for financial purposes by adding to it 20 hides lying in another jurisdictional hundred and the 15 hides at which the city of Worcester is rated.

[The County Hidage.]

The moment has now come when we may tender in evidence an ancient document which professes to state the hidage of certain districts. There are three such documents which should not be confused. We propose to call them respectively (1) The Tribal Hidage, (2) The Burghal Hidage, and (3) The County Hidage; and this is their order of date. For the two oldest we are not yet ready. The youngest professes to give us a statement about the hidage of thirteen counties. We have it both in Latin and in Old English. It has come down to us in divers manuscripts, which do not agree very perfectly. We will here give its upshot, placing in a last column the figures at which we have arrived when counting the hides in Domesday.

THE COUNTY HIDAGE.

Cotton, Cotton, Gale, Claudius, Vespasian, Scriptore MS. Jes. B. vii. A. xviii. xv. Coll. Ox.; f. 204 b; f. 112 b; p. 748 Morris, Domesday Kemble, Kemble, from a Old English Book Saxons Saxons Croyland Miscellany, (boroughs i. 493 i. 494 MS. p. 145 omitted)

Wiltshire 4800 4800 4800 4800 4050 Bedfordshire 1200 1000 1200 1200 1193 Cambridgeshire 2500 2500 2005 2500 1233 Huntingdonshire 850[1503] 850[1503] 800-1/2 850 747 Northamptonshire 3200 4200 3200 3200 1356 Gloucestershire 2400 2000 2400 3400 2388 Worcestershire 1200 1500 1200 1200 1189 Herefordshire 1500 1500 1005 1200 1324 Warwickshire 1200 1200 1200 1200 1338 Oxfordshire 2400 2400 2400 2400 2412 Shropshire 2300 2400 2400 2400 1245 Cheshire 1300 1200 1200 1200 512 Staffordshire 500 500 ---- 500 505

[Date of the document.]

Dr Liebermann has said that the text whence these figures are derived was probably compiled in English and in the eleventh century[1504]. If we put faith in it, we shall be inclined to set its date at some distance before that of Domesday Book. But our first question should be whether it merits credence; whether it was written by some one who knew what he was about or whether it is wild guesswork. Now when we see that the scrupulous Eyton brought out the hides of Staffordshire at 499, or rather at 499 H 2-13/30 V, and that this document makes them 500, we shall begin to take it very seriously, without relying on our own 505, the result of hasty addition. We have also seen enough to say that 1200 for Worcestershire is very near the mark. As regards other counties, we set so little reliance upon our own computation, that we are not very willing to institute a comparison; but we have given Bedfordshire 1193 hides[1505] and this document gives it 1200; we have given Oxfordshire 2412 and this document gives it 2400; we have given Gloucestershire 2388[1506] and two versions of this document give it 2400. Having seen so much agreement, we must note some cases of violent discord. For Wiltshire 4800 seems decidedly too high, though we have brought the number of its hides above 4000. The figure given to Cambridgeshire is almost twice that which Domesday would justify, and the figures given to Cheshire, Shropshire and Northamptonshire are absurdly large when compared with the numbers recorded in 1086. These cases are enough to show that, though no doubt some or all of the transcribers of The County Hidage must be charged with blunders, the divergence of the copies from Domesday can not be safely laid to this account. About certain counties there is just that agreement which we might expect, when we remember how precarious our own figures are. About certain other counties there is utter disagreement. We infer therefore that the original document did not truly state the hidage as it stood in 1086; but may it not have represented an older state of things?

[The Northampton Geld Roll.]

Let us take one case of flagrant aberration. Three copies tell us that Northamptonshire has 3200 hides; one that it has 4200. The balance of authority inclines therefore to 3200. Domesday will not give us half that number. But let us turn to the Northamptonshire Geld Roll[1507], the date of which Mr Round places between the Conquest and 1075[1508]. It gives the county 2663-1/2 hides. So here we have a case in which between 1075 and 1086 a county was relieved of about half of its hides[1509]. Also at 2664 we are within a moderate distance of 3200. But the Geld Roll does more than this. It represents Northamptonshire as composed of 28 districts; 22 of these are called 'hundreds'; two are 'two-hundreds'; four are 'other-half hundreds,' or, as we might say, 'hundred-and-a-halfs.' We work a sum:--

(22+4+6) × 100 = 3200.

The result will increase our respect for The County Hidage. Now, when the Geld Roll was made, some of the 'hundreds' of Northamptonshire contained their 100 hides apiece, but others were charged with a smaller number, which generally was round, such as 80, 60, 40 hides; and this arrangement is set before us as that which existed 'in the days of Edward the king.' If therefore we put faith in The County Hidage and its 3200 hides, we must hold that it speaks to us from the earlier part of the Confessor's reign or from some yet older time.

[Value of The County Hidage.]

Is it too good, too neat to be true? Before we pass a condemnatory judgment we must recall the case of Worcestershire, its twelve 'hundreds' and 1200 hides. Also we must recall the case of the Armingford hundred in Cambridgeshire, where we have seen how in William's reign an abatement of 20 per cent, was equitably apportioned among the fourteen villages, and the 100 hides were reduced to 80[1510]. Moreover, if in Domesday Book we pass from Northamptonshire to the neighbouring county of Leicester, we see a startling contrast. The former is decidedly 'under-rated'; the latter is 'over-rated.' Leicestershire has about 2500 carucates, while Northamptonshire has hardly more than half that number of hides. The explanation is that Northamptonshire has obtained, while Leicestershire is going to obtain a reduction. The Pipe Rolls of the twelfth century show us that either under Rufus or under Henry I. this sadly over-taxed county was set down for exactly 1000 carucates.

[Reductions of hidage.]

As to the other cases in which there is a strident discord between Domesday and The County Hidage, the case of Chester, where the contrast is between some 500 hides and a round 1200 will not perhaps detain us long, for we may imagine, if we please, that the Chestershire of Cnut's day was much larger than the territory described under that name in 1086[1511]. The 2500 hides attributed to Cambridgeshire and the 2400 attributed to Shropshire may shock us, for, if they are correctly stated, they point to reductions of 50 per cent. or thereabouts. But we have seen some and are going to see some other large abatements.

[The county quotas.]

On the whole, we believe that this County Hidage, though it has come to us in transcripts some or all of which are careless, is an old and trustworthy document, that it is right in attributing to the counties neat sums of hides, such as 1200 and 2400, and that it is right in representing the current of change that was flowing in the eleventh century as setting towards a rapid reduction in the number of hides. Only in one case, that of Warwickshire, have we any cause to believe that it gives fewer hides to a county than are given by Domesday; here the defect is not very large, and, besides the possibility of mistranscription, we must also remember the possibility of changed boundaries[1512].

[The hundred and the hundred hides.]

There is one other feature of this document that we ought to notice. Let us compare the number of hides which it gives to a county with the number of 'hundreds' which that county contains according to Domesday Book. The latter number we will place in brackets[1513].

Bedfordshire 1200 hides [12 hundreds]: Northamptonshire 3200 [28 hundreds which, however, have been reckoned to be 32[1514]]: Worcestershire 1200 [12]: Warwickshire 1200 [12]: Cheshire 1200 [12]: Staffordshire 500 [5]: Wiltshire 4800 [40]: Cambridgeshire 2500 [17]: Huntingdonshire 850 [4]: Gloucestershire 2400 [39[1515]]: Herefordshire 1500 [19]: Oxfordshire 2400 [uncertain, but at least 19]: Shropshire 2400 [13].

In six out of thirteen cases we seem to see a connexion of the simplest kind between the hides and the hundreds. Now in the eyes of some this trait may be discreditable to The County Hidage, for they will infer that its author was possessed by a theory and deduced the hides from the hundreds. But, after all that we have seen[1516] of symmetrical districts and reductions of hidage, we ought not to take fright at this point. Other people besides the writer of this list may have been possessed by a theory which connected hides with hundreds, and they may have been people who were able to give effect to their theories by decreeing how many hides a district must be deemed to contain. Is it not even possible that we have here, albeit in faded characters, one of their decrees? But the history of the hundreds can not be discussed in a parenthesis. Some further corroboration this County Hidage will receive when hereafter we set it beside The Burghal Hidage, and we may then be able to carry Worcester's 1200 and Oxford's 2400 hides far back into the tenth century.

[Comparison of Domesday hidage with Pipe Rolls.]

Meanwhile, making use of our terms 'equally rated' (A = B), 'over-rated' (A > B), and 'under-rated' (A < B), let us briefly survey the counties as they stand in Domesday. Some help towards an estimation of their hidage is given to us by those few Pipe Rolls of the twelfth century which contain accounts of a danegeld. But we must not at once condemn as false the results of our own arithmetic merely because they do not square with the figures on these rolls. One instance will be enough to prove this. The Henries have to be content with £166 or thereabouts from Yorkshire, or, in other words, to treat it as having 1660 'carucates for geld.' We give it a little more than 10,000 and shall not admit that we have given it 8000 too many. This poor, wasted giant has been relieved and has been set below little Surrey. So again, though Leicestershire will account to Henry I. and his grandson for but £100, it most certainly had more than 1000 and more than 2000 carucates when William's commissioners visited it. On the other hand, there seem to be cases in a small group of counties in which his sons were able to recover a certain amount of geld which had been, rightfully or wrongfully, withheld or forborne during his own reign. But, taking the counties in mass, we hope that our figures are sufficiently consonant with those upon the Pipe Rolls. Absolutely consonant they ought not to be, for we have endeavoured to include the hides that are privileged from gelding, and in some shires (Hereford, for example) their number is by no means small. Also some leakage in an old tax may always be suspected, and the Pipe Rolls themselves show some unexplained variations in the amount for which a sheriff accounts, and some arithmetical errors[1517].

But now we will make our tour and write brief notes as we go.

[Under-rated and over-rated counties.]

Kent is scandalously under-rated. Of this there can be no doubt, though, since in many cases blanks are left where the number of the teamlands should stand, the figures can not be fully given. There has in a few instances been a reduction in the number of geldable sulungs since the Conquest, but this does not very greatly affect the result. The under-rating seems to be generally distributed throughout the county. It had not been redressed in Henry I.'s day. Indeed on the Pipe Rolls Kent appears as paying but £105, while Sussex pays twice as much. Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire appear to have all been over-rated. In the Conqueror's day, however, they shuffled off large numbers of their geldant hides and were paying for considerably fewer hides than they had teamlands. Some part of this reduction was perhaps unauthorized. At any rate the sums that appear on the Pipe Rolls seem to show that in Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire more hides were gelding under Henry I. than had been recently gelding when the survey was made; but the recovery was not sufficient to restore the state of things that existed under the Confessor. Wiltshire, so far as we can see, has always been a sorely over-rated county. It obtains no reduction under William. In the Pipe Rolls it stands at the very head of the counties. Dorset, taken as a whole, is exceedingly fairly rated. Eyton seems to have made 2321 hides and 2332 teamlands; but if the royal demesne (much of which is unhidated) be left out on both sides of the account, there will be slight over-rating. Somerset is very much under-rated, even if no notice be taken of the royal demesne. Devon is grossly under-rated. Cornwall is enormously under-rated. To all appearance considerably more than 1000 teamlands have stood as 400 hides, and even this light assessment seems to be the work of the Conqueror, for in the Confessor's day the whole county seems to have paid for hardly more than 150 hides[1518]. Middlesex is decidedly over-rated; but Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford are under-rated. The ratio borne by hides to teamlands varies from county to county. We believe that it becomes small in Gloucester and Worcester and falls much below 1:2 in Hereford[1519]. This ratio is very small again in Warwick, Stafford, Shropshire and Cheshire. The two sister counties of Northampton and Leicester have, as already said, been very differently treated. Northampton is escaping easily, while Leicester, if we are not much mistaken, is over-rated[1520]. Then however the Pipe Rolls show that before the end of Henry I.'s reign Leicester has succeeded in largely reducing its geldability. We have seen reason to believe that a similar reduction had been made in Northamptonshire shortly before the compilation of Domesday Book. Derby is under-rated; Nottingham is much under-rated. Lincoln, though under-rated, is an instance of a county in which we long doubt whether the under-rating of some will not be compensated by the over-rating of other estates. So far as we can tell, Yorkshire had been heavily over-rated; but then, the teamland of Yorkshire is very often a merely potential teamland, and we can not be certain that the jurors will give to the waste vills as many teamlands as they had before the devastation. In the end a very small sum of geld is exacted.

[Hidage and value.]

We have seen enough in the case of Northampton to make us hesitate before we decide that the arrangement of hides set forth by Domesday Book is in all cases very ancient. That book shows us two different assessments of Cornwall; it shows us Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire relieving themselves or obtaining relief in the Conqueror's time; it shows us some Cambridgeshire hundreds disburdened of their hides. But of the great reduction in Northamptonshire we should have learnt nothing from its pages. Therefore in other cases we must be cautious, even in the scandalous case of Kent, for we can not tell that there has not been a large reduction of its sulungs in quite recent years. However, behind all the caprice and presumable jobbery, we can not help fancying that we see a certain equitable principle. We have talked of under-rating and over-rating as if we held that every teamland in the kingdom should pay a like amount. But such equality would certainly not be equity. The average teamland of Kent is worth full thirty shillings a year; the average teamland of Cornwall is barely worth five; to put an equal tax on the two would be an extreme of injustice. Now we have formed no very high estimate of the justice or the statesmanship of the English witan, and what we are going to say is wrung from us by figures which have dissipated some preconceived ideas; but they hardly allow us to doubt that the number of hides cast upon a county had been affected not only by the amount, but also by the value of its teamlands. If, starting at the east of Sussex, we journey through the southern counties, we see that over-rating prevails in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset. We see also that the valet of the average teamland stands rather above than below one pound. We pursue our journey. The ratio that A bears to B begins to decline rapidly and at the same time the valets descend by leaps and bounds. When we have reached Devon we are in a land which could not with any show of justice be taxed at the same rate per acre as that which Wiltshire might bear without complaint. Every test that we can apply shows the extreme poverty of the country that once was 'West Wales.' That poverty continues through the middle ages. We look, for example, at the contributions to the tax of 1341 and compare them with the acreage of the contributing counties. Equal sums are paid by 1020 acres in Wiltshire, 1310 in Dorset, 1740 in Somerset, 3215 in Devon, 3550 in Cornwall[1521]. We look at the subsidy of 1294[1522], and, in order that Devon and Cornwall may not be put at a disadvantage by moor and sea-shore, we take as our dividend the number of acres in a county that are now-a-days under cultivation[1523], and for our divisor the number of pence that the county pays. The quotients are, for Wiltshire 2·7, for Dorset 2·8, for Somerset 2·5, for Devon 6·4, for Cornwall 5·2. Retaining the same dividend, we try as a divisor the 'polls' for which a county will answer in 1377[1524]. Cornwall here makes a better show; but Devonshire still displays its misery. The quotients are, for Wiltshire 16, for Dorset 14, for Somerset 15, for Devon 27, for Cornwall 17. These figures we have introduced because they support the inferences that we should draw from the valets and valuits of Domesday Book, a study of which has convinced us that the distribution of fiscal hides has not been altogether independent of the varying value of land.

[Connexion between hidage and value.]

But in order that we may not trust to vague impressions, let us set down in one column the number of hides (carucates or sulungs) that we have given to twenty counties and in another column the annual value of those counties in the time of King Edward as calculated by Mr Pearson[1525].

Hides, Value | Hides, Value Carucates, in | Carucates, in Sulungs Pounds | Sulungs Pounds Kent 1224 3954 | Oxford 2412 2789 Sussex 3474 3467 | Gloucester 2388 2855 Surrey 1830 1417 | Worcester 1189 1060 Berkshire 2473 2378 | Huntingdon 747 900 Dorset 2277 2564 | Bedford 1193 1475 Devon 1119 2912 | Northampton 1356 1407 Cornwall 399 729 | Leicester 2500 491 Middlesex 868 911 | Warwick 1338 954 Hertford 1050 1894 | Derby 679 631 Buckingham 2074 1785 | Essex 2650 4079 | ----- ----- | 33240 38652

[One pound one hide.]

No one can look along these lines of figures without fancying that some force, conscious or unconscious, has made for 'One pound, one hide.' But we will use another test, which is in some respects fairer, if in others it is rude. The total of the valets or valuits of a county sometimes includes and sometimes excludes the profit that the king derives from boroughs and from county courts; also the rents of his demesne manors are sometimes stated in disputable terms. Therefore from every county we will take eighty simple entries, some from the lands of the churches, some from the fiefs of the barons, and in a large county we will select our cases from many different pages. In each case we set down the number of gelding hides (carucates, sulungs) and the valuit given for the T. R. E.[1526]. Our method will not be delicate enough to detect slight differences; it will only suffice to display any general tendency that is at work throughout England and to stamp as exceptional any shires which widely depart from the common rule, if common rule there be. Using this method we find the values of the hide (carucate, sulung) to have been as follows, our figures standing for pounds and decimal fractions of a pound. We begin with the lowest and end with the highest valuit.

Leicester 0·26, York 0·34, Surrey 0·68, Northampton 0·75, Wiltshire 0·77, Sussex 0·81, Chester 0·82, Warwick 0·84, Somerset 0·85, Buckingham 0·86, Oxford 0·87, Dorset 0·88, Berkshire 0·89, Hereford 0·91, Gloucester 0·99, Lincoln 0·99, Derby 1·00, Huntingdon 1·02, Shropshire 1·02, Bedford 1·09, Hampshire 1·10, Worcester 1·10, Middlesex 1·15, Essex 1·41, Devon 1·52, Hertford 1·69, Cambridge 1·73, Nottingham 1·76, Kent 3·25, Cornwall 3·92.

[Equivalence of pound and hide.]

Now 'One pound, one hide' seems to be the central point of this series, the point of rest through which the pendulum swings. Our experiment has been much too partial to tell us whether a shire is slightly over-taxed or slightly undertaxed; but, unless we have shamefully blundered, it tells us that in some twenty out of thirty counties the aberration from the equivalence of pound and hide will not exceed twenty five per cent.: in other words, the value of the normal hide will not be less than 15 nor more than 25 shillings. Also we have brought our counties into an admirable disorder. We have snapped all bonds of race and of neighbourhood. For example, we see the under-taxed Hampshire in the midst of over-taxed counties; we have divorced Nottingham from Derby and Leicester from Northampton. The one general remark that we can make about the geographical distribution of taxation is that, if East Anglia is under-taxed (and this is likely), then Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge and Hertford would form a continuous block of territory that is escaping easily.

[Cases of under-taxation.]

[Kent.]

The markedly exceptional cases are the most interesting. First let us look at the worst instances of immunity. In Kent we seem to see 'beneficial hidation' on a gigantic scale; but on the whole, though the evidence is not conclusive, we do not think that this is due to any modern privilege. We can not doubt that for a long time past the Kentish churches have been magnificently endowed, and yet the number of manses and sulungs that their land-books bestow upon them is not very large, and the number attributed to any one place is usually small, perceptibly smaller than the number of hides that will be comprised in a West Saxon charter. If a royal land-book condescends to mention acres (iugera, segetes)[1527] it will almost certainly be a Kentish charter, and we may guess that its acres are already fiscal acres of wide extent. To say more would be perilous. The title-deeds of Christ Church can not be readily harmonized with Domesday Book[1528]; perhaps we ought to add that this is much to their credit; but the documents which come to us from St. Augustin's and Rochester suggest that the arrangement of sulungs which exists in the eleventh century is ancient, or, at any rate, that the monks knew of no older computation which dealt out these units with a far more lavish hand[1529]. In Kent the churches were powerful and therefore may have been able to preserve a scheme of assessment which unduly favoured a rich and prosperous shire; but we can not be certain that the hide and the Kentish sulung have really had the same starting-point, nor even perhaps that Kent was settled village-wise by its Germanic invaders[1530].

[West Wales.]

Devon and Cornwall ought to be 'under-rated' (A < B) for they are very poor. What we find is that they are so much under-rated that the hide is worth a good deal more than a pound. Here again we are inclined to think that this under-rating is old, perhaps as old as the subjection of West Wales. Such land-books as we obtain from this distressful country point in that direction, for they give but few hides and condescend to speak of virgates[1531]. Among them is a charter professing to come from Æthelstan which bestows 'one manse' upon the church of St. Buryan; but clearly this one manse is a wide tract. Also this would-be charter speaks to us of land that is measured by the arpent, and, whether or no it was forged by French clerks after the Norman Conquest, it may tell us that this old Celtic measure has been continuously used in the Celtic west[1532]. Be that as it may, when we are speculating about the under-taxation of Devon and Cornwall, we may remember that where the agrarian outlines were drawn by Welsh folk, the hide, though it might be imposed from above as a piece of fiscal machinery, would be an intruder among the Celtic trevs and out of harmony with its environment. The light taxation of Cambridgeshire is perhaps more wonderful, for our figures represent the hidage of the Confessor's time, and we have seen[1533] how some of the hundreds in this prosperous shire (our champion wheat-grower) obtained a large abatement from the Conqueror[1534]. If, in accordance with The County Hidage, we doubled the number of Cambridgeshire's hides, though it would be over-taxed, it would not be so heavily taxed as are some other counties.

[Cases of over-taxation.]

Extreme over-taxation is far more interesting to us at the present moment than extreme under-taxation. The latter may be the result of privilege, and in the middle ages privileges will be accorded for value received in this world or promised in another. But what are we to say of Leicester? On the face of our record it seems to have been in Edward's day the very poorest of all the counties and yet to have borne a crushing number of carucates. Under William it was beginning to prosper but still was miserably poor[1535]. We have bethought ourselves of various devices for explaining this difficult case--of saying, for instance, that the Leicestershire 'carucate of land' is not a carucate for geld[1536]. But this case does not stand quite alone. The Yorkshire carucates, and they are expressly called 'carucates for geld,' had been worth little. It is likely that the figure that we have given for Yorkshire is not very near the true average for that wide territory; but we examined an unusually large number of entries and avoided any which showed signs of devastation in the present or the past. Also we see that in Northamptonshire, if we take the Edwardian valuit and the number of hides existing in 1086, we have an over-taxed county; and yet we have reason to believe that since 1075 it had been relieved of about half its hides. Had this not been done, it would have stood along with Yorkshire, and, if it once had those 3200 of which The County Hidage speaks, it would have stood along with its sister, the wretched Leicestershire. We might find relief in the supposition that the Leicestershire of Edward's time had been scourged by war or pestilence; but unfortunately the jurors often tell us how many teams were then upon the manors, and in so doing give a marvellously small value to the land that one team tilled. Such reports as the following are common[1537].

Teams Teams Valuit Valet Carucates T. R. E. T. R. W. sol. sol. Werditone 4 5 3 1 20 Castone 9 10 7 40 140 Wortone 6 6 5 40 100 Tuicros 6 6 7 3 40 Gopeshille 3 3 3 1 30 Scepa 2 3 3 2 30

What can these figures mean? They can not mean that a tract of land was being habitually tilled by three teams and yet was producing in the form of profit or rent no more than the worth of one or two shillings a year. An organized attempt to deceive King William into an abatement seems out of the question, for he is being told of a rapid increase of prosperity. Our best, though an unwarranted, guess is that the Leicestershire valuit speaks not of the Confessor's day, but of some time of disorder that followed the Conquest, for in truth it seems to give us but 'prairie values.' However, if we take, not the valuit, but the valet, we still have carucates that are worth much less than a pound, and it seems clear that the carucate had been worth much less than a pound in the as yet unravaged Yorkshire. On the whole, these cases, together with what we can learn of Lancashire, will dispose us to receive with more favour than we might otherwise have shown certain statements about the hidage of England that have yet to be adduced. In Yorkshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire we may perhaps see the unreformed relics of an age when the distribution of fiscal units among the various provinces of England was the sport of wild guesswork[1538].

[Equity and hidage.]

We have spoken of a tendency on the part of the hide to be worth a pound. Now we have no wish to represent this equitable element as all powerful or very powerful; the case of Kent is sufficient to show that it may be overruled by favouritism or privilege. There has been a 'beneficial hidation' of shires as there has been a 'beneficial hidation' of manors. Still that the kings and witan have considered the value as well as the number of teamlands seems fairly plain. Probably they have considered it in a rough, 'typical' fashion. Any one who peruses Domesday Book paying attention to the valets will be struck in the first place by their roundness. If a teamland is not worth 20, it is worth 10 or 30, 5 or 40 shillings. The jurors seem to keep in their minds as types the 'one-pound-teamland,' the 'half-pound-teamland' and so forth. But then, whereas in one county 'twenty shillings' will stand for 'fair average' and in another for 'rather poor,' in a third it will indicate unusual excellence. Similarly we imagine that when fiscal hides have been distributed or redistributed, there has been talk of typical qualities of land, of first-rate and fourth-rate land. Any tradition of Roman taxation which had perdured in Britain or crossed the sea from Frankland would have taught men that this was the right method of procedure. But it is by no means certain that we can carry back this equitable principle very far[1539]. Long ago the prevailing idea may have been that teamland, house-land, pound-land and fiscal hide were, or ought normally to be, all one; and then the discovery that there are wide tracts in which the worth of an average teamland is much less or somewhat greater than a pound may have come in as a disturbing and differentiating force and awakened debates in the council of the nation. We may, if we like such excursions, fancy the conservatives arguing for the good old rule 'One teamland, one hide,' while a party of financial reformers has raised the cry 'One pound, one hide.' Then 'pressure was brought to bear in influential quarters,' and in favour of their own districts the witan in the moots jobbed and jerrymandered and rolled the friendly log, for all the world as if they had been mere modern politicians.

[Distribution of hides and of teamlands.]

But, to be serious, it is in some conjecture such as this that we may perchance find aid when we are endeavouring to loosen one of Domesday's worst knots. We have hinted before now[1540] that there are districts in which the teamland (B) seems to be as artificial and as remote from real agrarian life as is the hide or the gelding carucate (A). To any one who thinks that when we touch Domesday's teamland we have always freed ourselves from the geld system and penetrated through the rateable to the real, the following piece of the survey of Rutland may be commended. 'In Martinesleie Wapentake there is a hundred in which there are 12 carucates for geld and there can be 48 teams.' Now there is nothing curious in the fact that 48 'real' teamlands are rated at 12 carucates. But let us look closer. Beside one smaller estate there are in this wapentake three manors. Their arrangement is this[1541]:--

Carucates Villeins and Demesne Men's for geld Teamlands bordiers teams teams Ocheham 4 16 157 2 37 Hameldune 4 16 153 5 40 Redlinctune 4 16 196[1542] 4 30 Subtenancy 24 4 5 ---- ---- ---- ------ ------ \/ 12 48 530 127

Now surely the three sixteens are just as artificial as the three fours, and in what possible sense can we affirm that there is land for only 48 teams when we see that 530 tenants are actually ploughing it with 127 teams? Behind this there must be some theory or some tradition that we have not yet fathomed[1543].

[Area and value as elements of geldability.]

We strongly suspect that in the work of distributing and reducing the geld, 'the land for one team' has been playing a part for some time past. In order to decide, for example, whether a claim for abatement was just, the statesman had to consider two elements, the number of the teamlands and their value. He would be content with round figures, indeed no others would content him or be amenable to his rude manipulation. So it is decided that some province or district has, or must be deemed to have, y teamlands. Also it is decided at this or at some other time, or perhaps from time to time, that the land in this district (regard being had to its state of cultivation) is or must be deemed to be first-class, or, as the case may be, third-class land. Then a combination of these propositions induces the conclusion that the district has x hides or carucates for geld. Then inside the district, when the process of subpartitionment begins, a similar method is pursued. There are x hides or carucates for geld to be distributed. They ought to be distributed with reference to the number and value of real teamlands. The work is rudely done in the subpartitionary fashion. A certain sub-district has x/a hides thrown upon it; a sub-sub-district has x/ab; but this apportionment is obtained by combining a proposition about value with a partitionment of the y teamlands. The sub-sub-district has x/ab hides, because y/cd teamlands fall to its share and because its land is assigned to a certain class. Then, perhaps for the purpose of future rearrangements, the number of teamlands (y/cd) is remembered as well the number of hides or gelding carucates (x/ab). The result is that every manor in a certain district has four hides and sixteen teamlands. It is very pretty; it was never (except for technical purposes) very true, and every year makes it less true[1544]. [Sidenote: The equitable teamland.]

That exactly this was done, we do not say and do not think; but something like it may have been done. As already remarked, we gravely doubt whether that question which the commissioners put about potential teams was understood in the same way in different counties, but we are sadly afraid that some of the answers that they obtained were references, not to existing agrarian facts, but to a fiscal history which already lay in the past and is now hopelessly obscure. A mystery of iniquity is bad, but the mysteries of archaic equity are worse. In many Anglo-Saxon arrangements we find a curious mixture of clumsiness and elaboration.

[Artificial valets.]

We can not quit this part of our subject without adding that there are cases in which the valuits and valets look as artificial and systematic as the hides and the teamlands. On a single page we find a description of five handsome Yorkshire manors[1545]. We wish to know their value in the past and the present, and what we learn is this: Brostewic valuit £56, valet £10; Chilnesse valuit £56, valet £10; Witfornes valuit £56, valet £6; Mapletone valuit £56, valet £6; Hornesse valuit £56, valet £6; and yet between these manors there are large variations in the number of the carucates and the number of the teamlands. Then we look about and see that it has been common for the first-class manor of Yorkshire, if it is the centre of an extensive soke, to be worth precisely £56[1546]. We can not but fear that the value of these manors is a legal fiction, though a fiction that is founded upon fact. Their supposed worth seems fixed at a figure that will fit into some scheme, the clue to which we have not yet recovered. Everywhere we are baffled by the make-believe of ancient finance.

[The new assessments of Henry II.]

The obscure forces which conspired to determine the quotas of the various counties might be illustrated by an episode in the reign of Henry II. The old danegeld is still being occasionally levied, and in the main the old assessment prevails. But alongside of this we see a newer tax. From time to time the king takes a gift (donum, assisa, gersuma) from the counties. A certain round number of marks is demanded from every shire. For this purpose a new tariff is employed, and yet it is not wholly independent of the old, for we can hardly look at it without seeing that it is so constructed as to redress in a rude fashion the antiquated scheme of the danegeld. In the first column of the following table we give, omitting fractions, the pounds that the counties contribute when a danegeld is levied, in the second and third the half-marks (6_s._ 8_d._) that they pay by way of gift on two different occasions early in the reign of Henry of Anjou[1547].

Danegeld Donum of Donum of 2 Hen. II. 4 Hen. II.

£ half-marks half-marks Kent 106 320 240 Sussex 217 202 160 Surrey 180 160 160 Hampshire 185 200 Berkshire 206 148 120 Wiltshire 390 200 160 Dorset 248 Somerset 278 200 300 Devon 104 368 300 Cornwall 23 Middlesex 86 175 80 Hertford 110 120 Buckingham 205} 200 240 Bedford 111} Oxford 250 140 200 Gloucester 194 218 260 Worcester 101 100 120 Hereford 94 80 140 Cambridge 115 160 Huntingdon 71 100 Northampton 120 240 280 Leicester 100 100 160 Warwick 129 100 240 Stafford 45 80 100 Shropshire 118 80 140 Derby } 112 160 280 Nottingham } York 165 1000[1548] 1000 Lincoln 266 540 600 Essex 236 400 400 Norfolk 330 400 } 400 Suffolk 235 240 }

The variable tariff of dona hits most heavily just those counties which have been too favourably treated; Kent and Devon must make large 'gifts' because they pay little geld. Yorkshire, which once more is becoming prosperous, heads the new list, though it pays less geld than Surrey; and, on the other hand, Wiltshire, which makes the largest of all contributions to the ancient tax, is leniently treated. When men have acquired a vested right in an iniquitous assessment, the fertile politician neither reforms nor abolishes the old, but invents a new impost.

[Acreage of the fiscal hide.]

And now, after all these inconclusive meanderings, we will state our cheerful belief that the hide of Domesday (A) is always[1549] composed of 120 acres and that the carucate for geld of Domesday (A) is always composed of 120 acres. We are speaking only of a fiscal system. Let us forget for a time that the terms that we are using can be employed to describe masses of land. Let us treat them as red and white counters. In the game played at the Exchequer the red counter called a hide is the equivalent of 120 white counters called acres.

[Equation between hide and acres.]

If Domesday Book is to serve its primary purpose, if it is to tell the king's officers how much geld is due, it is absolutely necessary that by some ready process they should be able to work sums in hides and acres and in carucates and acres. They must understand such statements as the following:--'it defends itself for 2 hides and 5 acres[1550]': 'it gelded for 3 hides, 1 virgate and 1-1/2 acres[1551]': 'he has 5 bovates, 13 acres and 1 virgate for geld[1552].' Now it is conceivable that the treasury contains a book of tables which will teach the clerks that a hide has a acres in Surrey and b acres in Devon; but this seems highly improbable. As we have already said[1553], the variations between the numbers of 'real' acres that go to make 'real' hides are not provincial, they are villar variations. That the financiers at Winchester should consider villar variations is out of the question. Therefore if we can prove that in one district they employed a given equation, there is a strong presumption that they used it in other districts. And unfortunately our proof has to be of this kind, for in many counties acres are rarely mentioned and we get no sums that are worked in acres and hides. But further, if we see one equation holding good in a considerable number of cases, we shall still believe that this is the one true equation, though other cases occur in which it breaks down. We have to remember the possibility of mistranscription, the possibility of bad arithmetic, the possibility of a haughty treatment of small numbers: the actual existence of all these dangers can be amply proved. Therefore if once we have inductively obtained an equation which serves in many instances, we shall hold by it, unless the instances in which it fails point either to some one other equation or to the conclusion that the equation varies from parish to parish.

[Evidence from Cambridgeshire.]

Now the Cambridgeshire Inquest professes to give us the total hidage of a vill and then proceeds to allot the hides among the various tenants in chief. Sometimes when it does this it speaks of virgates and acres and thus gives us an opportunity of seeing how many acres are reckoned to the hide or to the virgate. The equation 1 H. = 4 V. is implied in many entries. But further, there are at least ten cases which assume one or both of the following equations: namely, 1 H. = 120 A. and 1 V. = 30 A. On the other hand, there are some cases in which the sum that is put before us is not rightly worked if these equations be correct; but in some of these cases the Inquisitio and Domesday Book contradict each other and in some a small quantity is neglected. The very few remaining cases point to no one rival equation, and are not too numerous to be ascribed to carelessness[1554].

[Evidence from the Isle of Ely.]

A similar test can be applied to a part of Cambridgeshire that is not included in the Cambridgeshire Inquest but is included in the Inquisitio Eliensis. We speak of the Isle of Ely. There are entries which, having told us how many hides a manor contained, proceed to allot these among their various occupants, and, as in some of these cases a calculation by acres is mixed up with a calculation by hides, they hold out a hope that we may be able to discover how many acres were reckoned to the hide. We will begin with Ely itself. 'Ely defends itself for 10 hides.... In demesne there are 5 hides ... and there are 40 villeins with 15 acres apiece ... and 18 cottiers and 20 serfs[1555].' Now if from the total of 10 hides we subtract the 5 that are in demesne, this leaves 5 others, and if we divide these 5 among the 40 villeins this gives to each villein 1/8th of a hide; but we are told that each villein has 15 acres; therefore it follows that 120 acres make a hide. We reckon that in eight other cases[1556] the same method of computation is followed, though in one of these a hide divided among 17 villeins is said to give them 7 acres apiece and this shows us how a single acre may be neglected in order to avoid a very ugly fraction[1557]. Against these cases must be set seven which give less pleasing results[1558]. In at least one of these no possible theory will justify the arithmetic of our record as it stands[1559], and there is no accord between the remaining five.

[Evidence from Middlesex.]

At first sight the survey of Middlesex seems to offer materials similar to those that come to us from Cambridgeshire. Very curious and instructive they are. A Middlesex entry will usually give us the number of hides (A), the number of teamlands (B), the number of teams (C), and also certain particulars which state the quantity of land that there is in demesne and the quantities held by divers classes of tenants. The sum of these particulars we may call P. Now we begin by hoping that P will be equal to A, and, since the particulars often contain acres as well as hides and virgates, we hope also to discover the equation that is involved in the sum. As an example we will take a case in which all goes well. At Cowley a manor defends itself for two hides; in demesne are one and a half hides; two villeins have a half hide. Here A = 2 H. and P = 1-1/2 H. + 1/2 H.; so all is as it should be. But we soon come upon cases in which, though we make no assumption about the relation of the acre to the hide, our P refuses to be equal to our A. Then perhaps we begin to hope that P will be equal to B: in other words, that the sum of the quantities ascribed to lord and tenants will be equal to the number of teamlands. But this is more fallacious than the former hope. We will put a few specimens in a table[1560].

Hides Teamlands Sum of particulars Harrow (Abp. Canterbury) 100 70 46-1/2 H. + 13 V. + 13 A. Stepney (Bp. London) 32 25 18-1/2 H. + 48-1/2 V. Fulham (Bp. London) 40 40 41-1/2 H. + 30 V. Westminster (Abbot) 13-1/2 11 10 H. + 14-1/2 V. + 5 A. Sunbury (Abb. Westminster) 7 6 4 H. + 10-1/2 V. Shepperton (Abb. Westminster) 8 7 3-1/2 H. + 17 V. + 24 A. Feltham (C. Mortain) 12 10 6 H. + 16-1/2 V. Chelsea (Edw. of Salisbury) 2 5 1 H. + 4 V. + 5 A.

[Meaning of the Middlesex entries.]

We seem to have here three independent statements, and, though throughout the county P shows a tendency to keep near to A, still we must not make calculations which suppose that the 'hide' of A is the 'hide' of P. Take Chelsea for example. We must not say: 2 H. = 1 H. + 4 V. + 5 A., and therefore four virgates and five acres make a hide. No, it seems possible that in these Middlesex 'particulars' we do at last touch real agrarian arrangements. At Fulham the bishop has 13 hides in demesne; 5 villeins have 1 hide apiece; 13 villeins have 1 virgate apiece; 34 have a half-virgate apiece; 22 cottiers have in all a half-hide; Frenchmen and London burgesses have 23 hides; so there are 41-1/2 hides and 30 virgates. That we take to be the real arrangement of the manor, though we are far from saying that all its hides are equal. But it gelds for only 40 hides. A virgate can not be a negative quantity. Therefore we need say no more of these Middlesex entries, only in passing let us observe that the discrepancy between P and B is often considerable, and this seems to show that the teamland of these Middlesex jurors is not in very close touch with the agrarian and proprietary allotments.

[Evidence in the Geld Inquests.]

To yet one other quarter we have hopefully turned only to be disappointed, namely, to the so-called Geld Inquests, copies of which are placed at the beginning of the Exeter Domesday. They tell us of a geld that obviously is being levied at the rate of six shillings on the hide, and sometimes they seem to tell us expressly or implicitly the amount that an acre pays. For a moment we may think that we are obtaining valuable results. Thus at Domerham we find that 14 hides minus 4 acres pay £4. 3_s._ 8_d._ We conclude that each acre is taxed at one penny and that 72 A. = 1 H.[1561]. Then at Celeberge 20 H. minus 4 A. is taxed at £5. 19_s._ 6_d._ We conclude that each acre is taxed at three-half-pence and that 48 A. = 1 H.[1562]. But we soon come to sums which are absurd and discover that as regards small quantities these documents are for our present purpose quite useless. For the Wiltshire hundreds we have three different documents. They do not agree in their arithmetic. Probably they represent the efforts of three different computers. Indubitably one or more of them made blunders. To give one example:--one of our documents begins its account of Mere by saying that it contains 85 hides, 1/2 a hide and 1/2 a virgate; the other two documents say 86 hides, 1/2 a hide and 1 virgate[1563]. This is by no means the only instance of such discrepant results. But mere clerical or arithmetical errors are not the only obstacle to our use of these accounts. It soon becomes quite evident that small amounts are dealt with in an irregular fashion. Thrice over we are assured that 15 H. 1/2 V. paid the king £4. 11_s._ 0_d._[1564]; but they should have paid £4. 10_s._ 9_d._, if four virgates make a hide. Thrice over we are assured that 64-1/2 H. paid £19. 6_s._ 10_d._[1565]. All suppositions as to acres and virgates apart, 64-1/2 H. should have paid £19. 7_s._ 0_d_ In Somersetshire the calculations do not speak of acres, but they introduce us to the fertinus or farthing, which is certainly meant to be the quarter of a virgate. Numerous entries show us that 4 fertini = 1 virgate, and yet when a mass of land expressed in terms of hides, virgates and farthings is said to pay a certain sum for geld, we find that the odd farthings are reckoned as paying, sometimes 3_d._, sometimes 4_d._, sometimes 4-2/3_d._, sometimes 5_d._, sometimes 6_d._ per farthing[1566]. So again, when additions are made, odd acres are ignored. We are told that in a certain hundred the barons have 20 hides in demesne, and then that this amount is made up by the following particulars, 8 H. + 1 V. + 3 H. + 3 V + 4-1/2 H. - 4 A. + 3-1/2 H. It is obvious that these particulars when added together do not make 20 hides, though they may well make 20 hides and 4 acres[1567]. A study of these Geld Inquests has brought us reluctantly to the conclusion that, though they amply prove that 4 V. = 1 H., they afford no proof as to the number of acres that are reckoned to the virgate[1568].

[Treatment of small quantities.]

One word to explain that the apparent rudeness with which small figures are treated is not due to any persuasion that they may be safely disregarded, but is rather the natural outcome of a partitionary method of taxation. Little quantities are lost in the process. It is known that a certain hundred should have, for example, 80 hides and a certain vill 5 hides: but when you come to add up the particulars you can not bring out these round figures, perhaps because many years ago a small error was made by some one when an estate of 2-3/4 hides was being divided into 7 shares. If a mistake be made, it can never be corrected; the landowner who has once or twice paid for 47 acres will refuse to pay for 48 and will tell you that the deficient acre does not lie on his land.

[Result of the evidence.]

The ignes fatui which dance over the survey of Middlesex and the Geld Inquests of the south-western counties have for a while led us from our straight path. We have seen that in Cambridgeshire the equation 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. is employed on at least twenty occasions. Now as to the rest of England it must at once be confessed that we have no such convincing evidence. In many counties acres of arable land are but rarely mentioned; parcels of land which geld for less than a hide are generally expressed in terms of hides and virgates; we read, for example, not of so many acres, but of the ninth part of a hide or of two third parts of a virgate. Thus we are compelled for the more part to fall back upon the presumption that the treasury has but one mode of reckoning for the whole of England.

[Evidence from Essex.]

But we would not rest our case altogether upon probability. In Essex we find one fairly clear case in which our equation is used[1569]. Sometimes, again, we read that a tract of land is, or gelds for, or defends itself for x hides and z acres, or for x hides, y virgates and z acres. Now in any entry which takes the first of these forms we have some evidence that z acres are less than one hide, and from any entry which takes the second of these forms we may infer that z acres are less than one virgate. Of course from such a statement as that 'A holds 90 or 115 or 240 acres' we draw no inference. It is common enough in our own day to speak of things costing thirty shillings or eighteen pence. But we never speak of things costing one pound and thirty shillings, or one shilling and eighteen pence, and we should require much proof before we thought so meanly of our ancestors as to suppose that they habitually spoke in this clumsy fashion.

Let us use this test. Happily in Essex we very frequently have a tract of land described as being x hides and z acres.

Now we read of

a half hide and 30 acres[1570], a hide and a half and 31 acres[1571], a half hide and 35 acres[1572], a half hide and 37 acres[1573], a hide and a half and 40 acres[1574], a hide and a half and 45 acres[1575], a half hide and 45 acres[1576], two hides and a half and 45 acres[1577], a half hide and 48 acres[1578], x hides and 80 acres[1579], nine hides and 82 acres[1580].

We have here cited twenty instances in which, as we think, the hide exceeds 60 acres (we might have cited many others) and twelve in which it exceeds 80 acres. We might further adduce instances in which our record speaks of a virgate and 10 acres, a virgate and 15 acres, and even of a virgate and 20 acres[1581], and when we read of two hides less 30 acres and two hides less 40 acres[1582] we infer that a hide probably has not only more but considerably more than the 30, 40 or 48 acres that are allowed to it by Kemble and Eyton. Our argument is based on the belief that men do not habitually adopt extremely cumbrous forms of speech. From a single instance we should draw no inference, and therefore when we just once read of 'three hides and a half and 80 acres' we do not infer that 80 acres are less than half a hide[1583].

[Evidence from Essex continued.]

But more can be made of these returns from Essex. We will take a large number of tracts of land described in the formula 'x hides and z acres'; we will observe the various numbers for which z stands, and if we find some particular number frequently repeating itself we shall be entitled to argue that this number of acres is some very simple fraction of a hide. We will take at hazard 100 consecutive entries which contain this formula--'x hides + z acres,' where x is either an integral number or 1/2. The result is that in 37 cases z is 30, in 12 it is 15, in 8 it is 40; then 35 and 20 occur 5 times; 80, 50, 45, 37, 18, 10 occur thrice, and 38 and 15-1/2 twice; eleven other numbers occur once apiece. There can we think be but one explanation of this. The hide contains that number of acres of which 30 is the quarter, 40 the third, 15 the eighth[1584].

[Further evidence.]

But Essex, it must be confessed, lies next to Cambridgeshire, and for the rest of England we have less evidence. Still there are entries which make against any theory which would give to the hide but 30, 40 or 48 acres. In Hertfordshire we read of 'a hide and a half and 26 acres[1585].' In the same county we read of 'a half virgate and 10 acres,' and this seems to tell of a hide of at least 88 acres[1586]. In Gloucestershire we read of a manor of one hide and are told that 'in this hide, when it is ploughed, there are but (non sunt nisi) 64 acres of land,' whence we may draw the inference that such an acreage was unusually small[1587]. We pass from Mercia into Wessex. In Somersetshire we read of 'three virgates and a half and 5 acres[1588],' in Dorset of 'three virgates and a half and 7 acres[1589],' in Somerset of 'one and a half virgates and 8 acres[1590].'

[Acreage of the fiscal carucate.]

To prove that the fiscal carucate was composed of 120 (fiscal) acres is by no means easy. If, however, we have sojourned for a while in Essex and then cross the border, we can hardly doubt that in East Anglia the carucate bears to the acres the relation that is borne by those hides among which we have been living. Norfolk and Suffolk are carucated counties, but while in the other carucated counties it is usual to express the smaller quantities of land in terms of the bovate (8 bovates making one carucate) and to say nothing of acres, in East Anglia, on the other hand, it is uncommon to mention the bovate--in Suffolk we may even find the virgate[1591]--and men reckon by carucates, half-carucates and acres. We allow the description of Suffolk to fall open where it pleases and observe a hundred consecutive cases in which a plot of land (as distinguished from meadow) is spoken of as containing a certain number of acres. In 22 cases out of the hundred that number is 60, in 8 it, is 30, in 7 it is 20, in 5 it is 40, in 5 it is 15; no other number occurs more than 4 times, and yet the numbers that appear range from 100 to 2. We have tried the same experiment on two hundred cases in Norfolk; in 28 cases the number of acres was 30, in 16 cases it was 60, in 13 it was 40, in 13 it was 16, in 12 it was 20, in 10 it was 80, in 9 it was 15, though the numbers ranged from 1 to 405. Surely the explanation of this must be that 60 acres are half a carucate, that 30 acres are a quarter, that 40 acres are a third, 20 a sixth, 15 an eighth. We have made many similar experiments and always with a similar result; wherever we open the book we find plots of 60 acres and of 30 acres in rich abundance. We use another test. When land is described by the formula 'x carucatae et z acrae,' what values are assigned to z? We find 40 very commonly, 42, 45, 50, 60 (but this is rare, for it is easier to say 'x-1/2 carucates' than 'x carucates and 60 acres') 68, 69, 80 (at least four times), 81, and 100[1592]. On the one hand, then, we have a good deal of evidence that the carucate contains more than 80 acres, some evidence that it contains more than 100 acres, and some that it does not contain many more, for no case have we seen in which z exceeds 100. Perhaps in Norfolk the figure 16 occurs rather more frequently than our theory would expect, but 16 is two-fifteenths of 120, and the figures 32 and 64 occur but rarely. Also it must be confessed that in Derbyshire we hear of 'eleven bovates and a half and eight acres,' also of 'twelve bovates and a half and eight acres[1593].' These entries, to use an argument which we have formerly used in our own favour, seem to imply that half a bovate is more than eight acres and would therefore give us a carucate of at least 144. We can only answer that, though men do not habitually use clumsy modes of reckoning, they do this occasionally[1594].

[Acreage of the fiscal sulung.]

Of the Kentish sulung very little can be discovered from Domesday. Apparently it was divided into 4 yokes (iuga)[1595] and the yoke was probably divided into 4 virgates. We have indeed one statement connecting acres with sulungs which some have thought of great importance. 'In the common land of St. Martin [i.e. the land which belongs to the communitas of the canons of St. Martin] are 400 acres and a half which make two sulungs and a half[1596].' Thence, a small quantity being neglected, the inference has been drawn that the Kentish sulung was composed of 160 acres, while some would read '400 acres and a half' to mean 450 acres and would so get 180 acres for the sulung[1597]. But the entry deals with one particular case and it connects real acres with rateable units:--the canons have 400-1/2 or more probably 450 acres, which are rated at 2-1/2 sulungs. If we passed to another estate, we might find a different relation between the fiscal and the real units. Kent was egregiously undertaxed and as a general rule its fiscal sulung will have many real acres. Turning to the cases in which the geldability of land is expressed in terms of sulungs and acres, or yokes and acres, we can gather no more than that the sulung is greater than 60 acres, so much greater that '3 sulungs less 60 acres[1598]' is a natural phrase, and that the half-sulung is greater than 40[1599] and than 42 acres[1600]. We may suspect that the Exchequer was reckoning 120 (fiscal) acres to the sulung but can not say that this is proved.

[Kemble's theory.]

And now we must glance at certain theories opposed to that which has been here stated. Kemble contends that the hide contained 30 or 33 Saxon which were equal to 40 Norman acres, and that the hide of Domesday Book contains 40 Norman acres[1601]. Now in so far as this doctrine deals with the time before the Conquest, we will postpone our judgment upon it. So far as it deals with the Domesday hide, it is supported by two arguments. One of these is to the effect that England has not room for all the hides that are attributed to it if the hide had many more than 30 or 40 acres; this argument also we will for a while defer. The other[1602] is based on a single passage in the Exeter Domesday relating to the manor of Poleham. That entry seems to involve an equation which can only be solved if 1 virgate = 10 acres. William of Mohun has a manor which in the time of King Edward paid geld for 10 hides; he has in demesne 4 H., 1 V., 6 A. and the villeins have 5-1/2 H., 4 A.[1603] Now three or four such entries would certainly set the matter at rest; but a single entry can not. By way of answer it will be enough to say that the very next entry seems to imply an equation of precisely the same form, but one that is plainly absurd. This same William has a manor called Ham; it paid geld for 5 hides; there were 3 H., 8 A. in demesne and the villains had 2 H. less 12 A. Shall we draw the conclusion that 5 H. = 5 H. - 4 A.? The truth we suspect to be that here, as in Middlesex, geldable units and actual areal units have already begun to perplex each other. Both Poleham and Ham are what we call 'over-rated' manors. It is known that Poleham contains 10 hides and Ham 5 hides, but, when we come to look for the acres that will make up the due tale of hides, we can not find them; for let King William's officers have never so clear a terminology of their own, the country folk will not for ever be distinguishing between 'acres ad geldum' and 'acres ad arandum' But be the explanation what it may, we repeat that the one equation that Kemble could find to support his argument is found in the closest company with an equation which when similarly treated produces a nonsensical result. This is all the direct evidence that he has produced from Domesday Book in favour of the hide of 40 acres. Robertson, while holding that the hide of Mercia contained 120 acres, adopted Kemble's opinion that the hide of Wessex contained 40 without producing any witness from Domesday save only the passage about Poleham[1604]. Eyton reckons 48 'gheld acres' to the 'gheld hide,' but he leaves us utterly at a loss to tell how he came by this computation[1605].

[The ploughland and the plough.]

Another theory we must examine. It is ingenious and, were it true, would throw much light on a dark corner. It starts from the facts disclosed by the survey of the East Riding of Yorkshire[1606]. In that district, it is said, the number of carucates for geld that there are in any manor (this number we will call a) is usually either equal to, or just twice the number (which we call b) of the 'lands for one plough,' or, as we say, teamlands. Further, it can be shown from maps and other modern evidences that the manors in which a = b were manors with two common fields, in other words, were 'two-course manors,' while those in which a = 2b were manors with three common fields, in other words were 'three-course manors.' The suggested explanation is that while the teamland or 'land for one plough' means the amount of land that one plough will till in the course of a year, the 'carucate for geld' is the amount of land which one plough tills in one field in the course of a year. Manor X, let us suppose, is a two-course manor; the whole amount of land which a plough will till there in a year will lie in one field; therefore in this case a = b. Manor Y is a three-course manor; in a given year a plough will there till a certain quantity of land, but half its work will have been done in one field, half in another; therefore in this case a = 2b.

[The Yorkshire carucates.]

Now we must own to doubting the possibility of deciding with any certainty from comparatively modern evidence which (if any) of the Yorkshire vills were under a system of three-course culture in the eleventh century. In the year 1086 many of them were lying and for long years had lain waste either in whole or in part. Thus the first group of examples that is put before us as the foundation for a theory consists of 15 manors the sum of whose carucates for geld is 91-1/4 while the sum of the teamlands is 91-3/4. What was the state of these manors in 1086? Three of them were absolutely waste. The recorded population on the others consisted of four priests, one sokemean, eighty-four villeins and twenty-six bordiers; the number of existing teams was 35-1/2; the total valet of the whole fifteen estates was £7. 1_s._, though they had been worth £72 in King Edward's day[1607]. It is obvious enough that very little land is really being ploughed, and surely it is a most perilous inference that, when culture comes back to these deserted villages, the old state of things will be reproduced, so that we shall be able to decide which of them had three and which had two fields in the days before the devastation. Further, we can not think that, even for the East Riding of Yorkshire, the figures show as much regularity as has been attributed to them. In the first place, there are admittedly many cases in which neither of the two equations of which we have spoken (a = b or a = 2b) is precisely true. We can only say that they are approximately true. Then there are other cases--too many, as we think, to be treated as exceptional--in which a bears to b some very simple ratio which is neither 1:1 nor yet 2:1; it is 3:2, or 4:3, or 5:3.

[Relation between teamlands and fiscal carucates.]

But at any rate, to extend the theory to the whole of Yorkshire, to say nothing of all England, is out of the question. No doubt as a whole Yorkshire was (in the terms that we have used) an 'over-rated' county: that is to say, as a general rule, a, if not equal to, was greater than b. But it can not be said that when a was not equal to b it normally was, or even tended to be equal to 2_b_. We take by chance a page describing the possessions of Count Alan[1608]; it contains 20 entries; in one of these a = b, in one a = 2b, in one b is greater than a; in ten cases the proportion which a bears to b is 3:2, in two it is 4:3, in two it is 5:3, in one 6:5, in one 7:5, in one it is 17:12. In the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham and Derby an application of this doctrine would be ludicrous, for very commonly b is greater than a. What is more, the method of taxation that it presupposes is so unjust that we are loath to attribute it to any one. To tax a man in proportion to the area of the land that he treats as arable, that is a plausibly equitable method; to tax him in proportion to the area that he has ploughed in a given year, that also is a plausibly equitable method; but the present proposal could only be explained as a deliberate effort to tax the three-field system out of existence[1609]. To take the figures that have been suggested to us by the author of this theory, we suppose that X is using a team of oxen in 'a two-course manor'; he has 160 acres of arable land and ploughs 80 of them in every year. Then in another village Y is using a team of oxen according to the three-course system; he has, we are told, 180 acres of arable and ploughs 120 acres in every year. This unfortunate Y is to pay double the amount of geld that is paid by X. We could understand a demand that Y should pay nine shillings when X pays eight, for Y has in all 180 acres of arable and X has 160. We could understand a demand that Y should pay three shillings when X pays two, for Y sows 120 acres a year and X sows 80. But nothing short of a settled desire to extirpate the three-field system will prompt us to exact two shillings from Y for every one that is paid by X. Lastly, we must repeat in passing our protest[1610] against the introduction into this context of those figures which express the aspirations of that enthusiast of the plough, Walter of Henley. That the 'land for one team' of Domesday Book points normally or commonly to an area of arable land containing 160 or 180 acres we can not believe. If we give it on an average 120 acres we may perhaps find room for the recorded team lands, though probably we shall often have to make our acres small; but county after county will refuse to make room for teamlands with 160 or 180 acres[1611]. No doubt the regularity of the Yorkshire figures is remarkable. There are other districts in northern England where we may see some one relation between A and B steadily prevailing. We will call to mind, by way of example, the symmetrical arrangement that we have seen in one of the Rutland wapentakes, where A = 4_B_. This we can not explain, nor will it be explained until Domesday Book has been rearranged by hundreds and vills; we have, however, hazarded a guess as to the quarter in which the explanation may be found[1612]. As to the Yorkshire figures, we think that of all the figures in the record they are the least likely to be telling us the simple truth about the amount of cultivated land.

[Sidenote: The fiscal hide of 120 acres.]

We may now briefly recapitulate the evidence which leads us to the old-fashioned belief that King William's Exchequer reckons 120 acres to the hide. There are at the least twenty sums set before us which involve the equation: 1H. = 120A. or 1V. = 30A. We doubt whether there are two sums which involve any one other equation. That there are sums which involve or seem to involve other equations we fully admit; but when a fair allowance has been made for mistranscription, miscalculation, the loss of acres due to partitionary arrangements[1613], and, above all, to a transition from the rateable to the real, from the hidage on the roll to the strips in the fields, we can not think that these cases are sufficiently numerous to shake our faith. We have further seen that in Essex and East Anglia the acres of the fiscal system lie in batches of just those sizes which would be produced if an unit of 120 acres was being broken into halfs, thirds, quarters and fifths. Lastly, 'the rustics' of the twelfth century 'tell us that the hide according to its original constitution consists of a hundred acres[1614]' and probably these rustics reckon by the long hundred.

[Antiquity of the large hide.]

If now we are satisfied about this matter, we seem to be entitled to some inferences about remoter history. The fiscal practice of reckoning 120 acres to the hide can hardly be new. Owing to many causes, among which we recall the partitionary system of taxation, the influence of an equity which would consider value as well as area, and the disturbing forces of privilege and favouritism, the fiscal hide of the Confessor's day has strayed far away from the fields and is no measure of land[1615]. At its worst it is jobbery; at its best a lame compromise between an unit of area and an unit of value. And yet, for all this, it is composed of acres, of 120 acres. The theory that is involved in this mode of calculation is so little in harmony with the existing facts that we can not but believe that it is ancient. It seems to point to a time long gone by when the typical tenement which was to serve as an unit of taxation generally had six score arable acres, little more or less.

FOOTNOTES:

[1340] D. B. i. 307 b, 308.

[1341] It will be convenient for us to adopt this term a 'teamland' as an equivalent for the Terra ad unam carucam of our record, so that 'b teamlands' shall translate _Terra ad b carucas_. The reader is asked to accept this note as an 'interpretation clause.'

[1342] D. B. i. 353.

[1343] D. B. i. 308, Trectone.

[1344] D. B. i. 275 b, Burnulfestune.

[1345] D. B. i 337 b.

[1346] See pp. 400-403.

[1347] We shall not complain of our tools; but Domesday Book is certainly not impeccable. As to its omissions see Eyton, Notes on Domesday (1880); also Round, Feudal England, 43.

[1348] Agricultural Returns, 1895 (Board of Agriculture) p. 34. Tidal water is excluded.

[1349] The received figures are: Middlesex, 149,046, London, 75,442. From older sources we give Middlesex, 180,480: Population Abstract, 1833, vol. i. p. 376.

[1350] For some good remarks on these matters see Eyton, Notes on Domesday. Lincoln, Nottingham and Northampton would require correction because of the treatment that Rutland has received. The boundary of Shropshire has undergone changes. The inclusion of stretches of Welsh ground increases the population without adding to the hidage of some western counties.

[1351] See above, p. 7.

[1352] Thus Leicester is charged with £100. 0_s._ 0_d._, with £99. 19_s._ 11_d._ and with £99. 19_s._ 4_d._

[1353] In 8 Hen. II. several of the counties answer for about £10 less than had formerly been demanded from them.

[1354] The inclusion of the boroughs would have led to many difficulties. London, for example, though no account is taken of it in D. B., seems to have gelded for 1200 hides. (Brit. Mus. MS. Add. 14,252, f. 126.)

[1355] We omit the 'ingeldable carucates' which occur in some hidated counties. This may introduce a little caprice. If the jurors in one of these counties ascribe twelve carucates to a manor, we do not count them. If they had spoken of hides which never gelded, we should have counted them; and yet we may agree with Eyton that the two phrases would mean much the same thing. But this source of error or caprice is not very important in our present context. Thus we take Dorset. Eyton gives it 2321 hides and then by adding 'quasi-hides' brings up the number to 2650. The difference between these two figures is not large when regarded from the point that we are occupying. I have thought that the difficulty would be better met by the warning that Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and Devon contain considerable stretches of unhidated royal demesne, than by my reckoning as hides what Eyton called 'quasi-hides.' In the case of Dorset, Somerset and Stafford I have placed Eyton's figures below my own and signed them with the letter E. I know full well that his are much more accurate than mine. He probably gave to each county that he examined more months than I have given weeks to the whole of England. In comparing our results, it should be remembered that, at least in Staffordshire, he dealt with the county boundary in a manner which, in my ignorance, I dare not adopt.

[1356] My calculations about Leicestershire are more than usually rough, owing to the appearance of the curious 'hide' or 'hundred' or whatever it is. See on the one hand Stevenson, E. H. R. v. 95, and on the other Round, Feudal England, 82. Whether this unit contained 12 or 18 carucates is not of very great importance to us at the moment. But there are other difficulties in Leicestershire. In Cornwall I was compelled to make an assumption as to the peculiar ager or acra of that county; but no reasonable theory about this matter would seriously affect the number of Cornwall's hides.

[1357] The usual formula is: 'Tunc se defendit pro a hidis, modo pro a´.' We place a in Col. IV., a´ in Col. V.

[1358] The usual formula is: 'T. R. E. geldabat pro a hidis; ibi tamen sunt a´ hidae.' We place a in Col. IV. and a´ in Col. V.; and we shall argue hereafter, with some hesitation, that the taxation of this county has been increased under William.

[1359] The words Terra est are written and are followed by a blank space. Many instances in Kent and Sussex.

[1360] On the other hand, when I find a statement about B and none about C, I do not assume that C = B; on the contrary, I read the entry to mean that C = 0. In other words, it is very possible that there should be teamlands without teams; but I do not think that for Domesday's purposes there can be teams (i.e. teams at work) without land that is being ploughed, though it is true that often, and in some counties habitually, C will be slightly greater than B.

[1361] One of the chief difficulties in the way of accurate computation is occasioned by what we may call the complex entries. We start with some such statement as this: 'The Bishop holds Norton. It defends itself for a hides. There is land for b teams. There are d teams on the demesne and the villeins have e teams.' But then we read: 'Of this land [or of these a hides] Roger holds m hides; there are n teams on the demesne and the villeins have o teams.' Here the total number of hides is a, and not a + m; and I think that the total number of teamlands is b, and not b + some unstated number held by Roger; but the total number of teams is d + e + n + o. Entries in this form are not very uncommon, and therefore this explanation seemed to be required.

[1362] Pearson, History of England, ii. 665.

[1363] Col. IX. gives I. divided by II. Col. X. gives I. divided by VI. Col. XI. gives I. divided by VII. Col. XII. gives II. divided by VI. Col. XIII. gives II. divided by VII. Col. XIV. gives VI. divided by VII. Col. XV. gives VIII. divided by VI. [or if there is no VI. for this county, then by VII.].

[1364] In Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford and Shropshire I was compelled to adopt as the divisor the number of teams instead of the number of teamlands. As it is fairly certain that these counties were 'underteamed' (B > C), the resulting quotient (annual value of land actually tilled by a team) should be diminished before it is compared with the figures given for other counties.

[1365] C. S. Taylor, Analysis of Gloucestershire Domesday (Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc. 1887-9).

[1366] But this is intended to include males only: the ancillae are left out.

[1367] Mr Taylor says in his preface: 'The work has occupied a large part of my leisure time for five years.' There is therefore some audacity in my printing my figures beside his. It is clear that we have put different constructions upon some of the composite entries concerning large manors. See below, p. 457. Mr Taylor, like Eyton, computes only 48 'geld acres' to the hide; I reckon 120 acres to the hide; that, however, is in this context a trifling matter.

[1368] Mr Taylor has brought out 15_s._ 5_d._ as the average valet of land tilled by a team. By taking Pearson's valet and my teams I have brought out 15_s._ 0_d._

[1369] For Dorset and Somerset my figures can be checked by Eyton's. For Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall, by the Geld Inquests. These give for Wiltshire (see W. H. Jones, Domesday for Wiltshire, 158 ff.) 3955 H. 3 V.; for Devon (see Devonshire Domesday, ed. Devonsh. Assoc. p. xlix.) 1029 H. 1 V. 3 F.; for Cornwall 401 H. 3 V. 1 F. I give for Wiltshire 4050 H., for Devon 1119 H., for Cornwall 399 H.

[1370] Lincoln, 5·0; Nottingham, 4·4; Derby, 3·9; Surrey, 3·7; Hampshire, 3·6; Middlesex, 3·4; Dorset, 3·3; Cambridge, 3·1; Berkshire, 3·0; Wiltshire, 2·9; Hertford, Northampton, Warwick, Somerset, 2·8; Huntingdon, 2·6; Oxford, 2·5; Bedford and Buckingham, 2·4; Cornwall and Stafford, 2·2; Devon, 2·1. For Kent the figure would be near 3·9, for Sussex near 3·3, for apparently in these counties there was approximate equality between the number of teams and the number of teamlands.

[1371] One word about the meaning of the valets. I think it very clear from thousands of examples that an estate is valued 'as a going concern.' The question that the jurors put to themselves is: 'What will this estate bring in, peopled as it is and stocked as it is?' In other words, they do not endeavour to make abstraction of the villeins, oxen, etc. and to assign to the land what would be its annual value if it were stocked or peopled according to some standard of average culture. Consequently in a few years the value of an estate may leap from one pound to three pounds or to five shillings or even to zero. Eyton, Dorset, 56, has good remarks on this matter.

[1372] Seebohm, Village Community, 85-6. To the contrary Round, in Domesday Studies, i. 209, and Feudal England, 35.

[1373] Round, Feudal England, 35.

[1374] See e.g. D. B. i. 222: 'Terra est 2 car. Has habent ibi 3 sochemanni et 12 bordarii.' ... 'Terra est 3 car. Ibi sunt ipsae cum 9 sochemannis et 9 bordariis.' Ibid. i. 223: 'Terra est 1 car. quam habent ibi 4 bordarii.' Ibid. i. 107 b: 'Terra est 7 car. et tot ibi sunt.'

[1375] D. B. i. 222. Codestoche, Lidintone.

[1376] D. B. i. 289; 339 b, Bechelinge.

[1377] D. B. i. 342 b, Toresbi.

[1378] D. B. i. 339, Agetorne.

[1379] D. B. i. 174, Lappewrte.

[1380] D. B. i. 163, Berchelai.

[1381] D. B. i. 218 b, Stanford. Or let us take this case (D. B. i. 148): 'Terra est 3 car. In dominio est una et 4 villani habent aliam et tercia potest fieri.' Is this third team to be a team of four or a team of eight?

[1382] Seebohm, Village Community, 85.

[1383] As a specimen we take 10 consecutive entries from the royal demesne in Surrey in which it is said that x villeins and y bordiers have z teams. We add half of y to x and divide the result by z. The quotients are 10·3, 4·0, 3·7, 3·5, 3·4, 2·7, 2·2, 1·9, 1·8, 1·4. If we massed the ten cases together, the quotient would be 2·8. We can easily find averages; but, even if we omit cases in which there is an exceptional dearth of oxen, the variations are so considerable that we must not speak of a type or norm.

[1384] Glastonbury Rentalia, 51-2: 'S. tenet 1 virgatam terre ... et si habet 8 boves debet warectare ... 7 acras. Si autem pauciores habet, warectabit pro unoquoque bove octavam partem 7 acrarum.' Ibid. 61: 'R. C. tenet unam virgatam ... et habebit 4 boves cum bobus domini.' Ibid. 68: 'G. tenet dimidiam hidam ... et si habuerit 8 boves...' Ibid. 78: 'L. tenet 5 acras ... et bis debet venire cum 1 bove et cum pluribus si habuerit...' Ibid. 98-9: 'M. tenet 1 virgatam ... si habuerit quatuor boves...' Ibid. 129: 'S. tenet 1 virgatam ... et debet invenire domino 1 carrum et 6 boves ad cariandum fenum.' Ibid. 130: 'M. tenet dimidiam virgatam ... et debet invenire 2 boves.' Ibid. 189: Three cases in which a virgater comes to the boon days with eight oxen. Larking, Domesday of Kent, App. 33: Customs of Hedenham: '...habebit unam virgatam terrae ... item habebit quatuor boves in pasturam domini.'

[1385] D. B. i. 211: 'Terra est dim. car. et unus bos ibi arat.'

[1386] D. B. i. 342 b, Toresbi.

[1387] Pollock, E. H. R. xi. 813. I venture to think that Sir F. Pollock has not answered his own argument (p. 220) for a constant caruca.

[1388] Inq. Com. Cant. 70.

[1389] Another example from a Northamptonshire column (D. B. i. 226) will show what we mean. Let H stand for hides and T for teamlands, and let the virgate be a quarter of a hide, then we have this series: 2 H (5 T), 2-1/2 H (4 T), 4 H (8 T), 1-1/4 H (3 T), 1-7/12 H (4 T), 3/8 H (1/2 T), 1/2 H (1 T), 2-1/2 H (6 T), 1-1/4 H (3 T), 2 H (4 T), 7/8 H (3 T). We see that T is integral where H is fractional.

[1390] Exceptionally we read in Kent (i. 9): 'Terra est dim. car. et ibidem sunt adhuc 30 acrae terrae.' And is not this a rule-proving exception? The jurors can not say simply 'land for half a team and thirty acres.' They say 'land for half a team and there are thirty acres in addition.'

[1391] D. B. iv. 497; Inq. Com. Cant. 97.

[1392] There can be little doubt that this is the right reading. See Round. Feudal England, 134.

[1393] Thus, D. B. ii. 39: 'Tunc 4 carucae in dominio, post et modo 2 ... et 2 carucae possunt restaurari.' To use our symbols, in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk we obtain statements about A and about C, but learn nothing about B, unless this is to be inferred from the increase or decrease that has taken place in C. We shall hereafter argue that, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, the carucates of East Anglia belong to the order A and not to the order B.

[1394] Thus, D. B. i. 231: 'Rad. tenet de episcopo 4 car. terrae in Partenei. Terra est 4 car. In dominio sunt 2 et ... villani habent 2 car.' Just before this we have the other common formula: 'Rad. tenet ... 2 car. terrae in Toniscote. Duae car. possunt esse et ibi sunt.'

[1395] Thus, D. B. i. 231 b: 'Ipsa Comitissa tenuit Dunitone. Ibi 22 car. et dimid. T. R. E. erant ibi 12 car. Modo in dominio sunt 3 et ... villani ... habent 12 car.'

[1396] To me it looks as if the variations were due to a clerk's caprice. The Leicestershire survey fills 30 columns. Not until the top of col. 5 has the compiler, except as a rare exception, the requisite information. Then, after hesitating as to whether he shall adopt the 'x car. possunt esse' formula, he decides in favour of 'Terra est x car.' This we will call Formula I. It reigns throughout cols. 5-13, though broken on three or four occasions by what we will call Formula II, namely 'T. R. E. erant ibi x car.' At the top of col. 14 Formula II. takes possession and keeps it into col. 16. Then I. has a short turn. Then (col. 17) II. is back again. Then follow many alternations. At the top of col. 24, however, a simplified version of II. appears; the express reference to the T. R. E. vanishes, and we have merely 'ibi fuerunt x car.' In the course of col. 26 this is changed to 'ibi x car. fuerunt.' These two versions of II. prevail throughout the last six columns, though there is one short relapse to I. (col. 28).

[1397] The proof of this lies in the Inq. Com. Cant. and the Exon Domesday.

[1398] This appears on a collation of D. B. with the two records mentioned in our last note. See Round, Feudal England, 26.

[1399] D. B. i. 174: 'In omnibus his maneriis non possunt esse plus carucae quam dictum est.'

[1400] When C varies from B, the statement about C will sometimes be introduced by a sed or a tamen which tells us that things are not what they might be expected to be. D. B. i. 77 b: 'Terra est dimid. car. et tamen est ibi 1 car.' D. B. i. 222: 'Terra est dim. car. tamen 2 villani habent 1 car.'

[1401] As a wheat-grower Devon stands in our own day at the very bottom of the English counties. Its average yield per acre in 1885-95 was 21 bushels, while Cambridge's was 32. Next above Devon stands Monmouth and then comes Cornwall.

[1402] Marshall, Review of Reports to Board of Agriculture from Southern Departments, 524: 'The management of the land is uniform; here and there an exception will be found. The whole is convertible, sometimes into arable, and sometimes pasture. Arable is sown with wheat, barley, or oats, as long as it will bear any; and then grass for eight or ten years, until the land is recovered, and capable again of bearing corn.' See also p. 531: the lands go back to the waste 'in tenfold worse condition than [that wherein] they were in a state of nature.' It is just in the country which is not a country of village communities that we find this 'aration of the waste.'

[1403] Some parts of Worcestershire, for example, show a marked deficiency in oxen. On the lands of Osbern Fitz Richard (14 entries) there are about 102 teams, and there 'could be' 32 more. See D. B. i. 176 b. In some parts of Cheshire also there is a great deficiency.

[1404] D. B. i. 122 b: 'Luduham ... Terra 15 car. vel 30 car.' In the Exeter book (D. B. iv. 240) two conflicting estimates are recorded: 'Luduam ... In ea sunt 3 hidae terrae et reddidit gildum pro 1 hida. hanc possunt arare 15 carrucae. hanc tenet Ricardus de Comite. in ea sunt 3 hidae terrae et reddidit gildum pro 1 hida. hanc possunt arare 30 carrucae. hanc tenet Ricardus de Comite.'

[1405] D. B. i. 246 b.

[1406] Often a Yorkshire entry touching a waste vill gives no B. Therefore in my Tables I have omitted the number of the Yorkshire teamlands, lest hasty inferences should be drawn from it. I believe it falls between 5000 and 6000. It is much smaller than A, much greater than C.

[1407] Be it remembered that these waste vills can not send deputations to meet the justices, and that the representatives of the wapentakes may never have seen some of those deserts of which they have to speak. 'All of these vills,' they say on one occasion (i. 301), 'belong to Preston. In sixteen of them there are a few inhabitants; but how many we do not know. The rest are waste.'

[1408] See below, p. 471.

[1409] Devon, 2·1; Cornwall, 2·2; Derby, 3·9; Nottingham, 4·4; Lincoln, 5·0. The figure for Stafford is about as low as that for Cornwall; but Stafford has been devastated. See Eyton, Staffordshire, 30. Kent and Surrey would stand high. Kent would perhaps stand as high as Derby. But Lincoln has no peer, unless it be Norfolk, Suffolk, or Essex. Our reason for not speaking of these last three counties will appear by and by.

[1410] An essay by Mr W. J. Corbett which I had the advantage of seeing some time ago, and which will I hope soon be in print, will throw much new light on this matter.

[1411] I have roughly added up the carucates and teams of Norfolk, a laborious task, and have seen reason to believe that the figures for Suffolk would be of the same kind.

[1412] In dealing with Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk an equation connecting the hide or (as the case may be) carucate with the acre becomes of vast importance. I have throughout assumed that 120 acres make the hide or carucate. If this assumption, about which something will be said hereafter, is unjustified, my whole computation breaks down. Then in Norfolk there are (especially I think in certain particular hundreds) a good many estates for which no extent (real or rateable) is given. I have made no allowance for this. On the other hand, I believe that I have carried to an extreme in Norfolk the principle of including everything. I doubt, for example, whether some of the acres held by the parish churches have not been reckoned twice over. Also both in Essex and Norfolk I reckoned in the lands that are mentioned among the Invasiones, and in so doing ran the danger of counting them for a second time.

[1413] Also we may remark that in many respects the survey of Essex is closely akin to the survey of East Anglia; but in Essex nothing is said about the geldability of vills and therefore, unless the Essex hides and acres belong to the order of geldable units (A), our record tells us nothing as to the geld of Essex: an unacceptable conclusion.

[1414] Dorset, 15, 23-24.

[1415] In Dorset 22,000 acres are 'designedly omitted'; in Somerset nearly 178,000; in Staffordshire nearly 246,000. Mr C. S. Taylor puts the deficiency in Gloucestershire at 200,000 or thereabouts.

[1416] See above, p. 370.

[1417] D. B. ii. 160 b: A certain vill is 1 league 10 perches long, and 1 league 4-1/2 feet wide. Surely such a statement would never come from men who could use and were intending to use a system of superficial measurement.

[1418] D. B. ii. 170. Or take Westbruge (ii. 206): Two carucates; two teams and a half; 'this vill is 5 furlongs in length by 3 in breadth.' If every inch of the vill is ploughed, the carucate can only have 75 acres, and each team tills but 60. I have noted many cases in which this method will not leave 120 acres for the team.

[1419] D. B. i. 310.

[1420] D. B. i. 307 b.

[1421] D. B. i. 310. In these Yorkshire cases it is needless for us to raise the question whether the totum that is being measured is the manor or the vill.

[1422] D. B. ii. 118 b.

[1423] D. B. i. 303 b (Yorkshire, Oleslec).

[1424] D. B. i. 303 b (Othelai).

[1425] D. B. i. 346 b (Bastune); 4 carucates for geld; land for 4 teams; arable land 8 quar. by 8.

[1426] D. B. i. 346 b (Langetof); 6 carucates for geld; land for 6 teams; arable land 15 quar. long and 9 wide.

[1427] D. B. i. 248 b (Rolvestune); 2-1/2 hides; land for 8 teams; 18 teams existing; arable land 2 leagues long and 1 [league] wide. Eyton (Staffordshire, 48) has a long note on this entry which makes against his doctrine that the teamland is 120 acres. He suggests that the statement by linear measure is a correction of the previous statement that there is land for 8 teams. Unfortunately, as we have seen, this entry does not stand alone. Morgan, op. cit. 34, speaks of some of these entries. Those which he mentions and which we have not noticed do not seem quite to the point. Thus (D. B. i. 263 b) of Edesberie we read 'land for 6 ploughs ... this land is a league long and equally wide.' We are not here expressly told that all the 'land' thus measured by lineal measure is arable. The cases of Dictune, Winetun, Grif and Bernodebi, which he then cites, are beside the mark, for what is here measured by lineal measure seems to be the whole area of the manor.

[1428] To make safer, I take the Dorset and Somerset teamlands from Eyton, the Gloucester teams from Mr Taylor. In the modern statistics the 'arable' covers 'bare fallow' and 'grasses under rotation'; the 'permanent pasture' includes 'grass for hay,' but excludes 'mountain and heath land used for grazing'; the total acreage includes everything but 'tidal water.' To bring up the particulars to the total, we should have to add (1) a little for orchards and market gardens, and having thus obtained the sum of all the land that is within the purview of the Board of Agriculture, we should still have to add (2) the sites of towns, houses, factories, etc., (3) tenements of less than an acre whereof no statistics are obtained, (4) roads, railways, etc., (5) waste not used for pasture, rocks, sea-shore, etc., (6) non-tidal water. The area not accounted for by our figures will be smallest in an inland county which has no large towns; it will be raised by sea-shore or by manufacturing industry.

[1429] Agricultural Returns, 1895, p. xiii: 'The actual loss of arable area in the interval covered by the last two decades ... is 2,137,000 acres.'

[1430] Mr Seebohm, Village Community, p. 103, seems to think that D. B. testifies to no more than 5 million acres of arable. But, even if we stop at the Humber, we shall have 9 million if a team tills 120.

[1431] D. B. ii. 116: T. R. E. there were 1320 burgenses.

[1432] D. B. ii 372.

[1433] It seems probable that in many cases the parish priest is reckoned among the townsmen, the villani.

[1434] See above, p. 20.

[1435] While historical economists can still dispute as to whether the population in 1346 was 5 millions, or only 2-1/2 (Cunningham, Eng. Industry, i. 301) guesses about 1085 are premature. M. Fabre has lately estimated the population of England under Henry II. at 2,880,000. But as to this calculation, see Liebermann, Eng. Hist. Rev. xi. 746.

[1436] See above, p. 366.

[1437] Walter of Henley, pp. 67, 71.

[1438] Walter of Henley, p. 19.

[1439] Rogers, Hist. Agric. i. 50-1.

[1440] Tour in the Southern Counties, ed. 3 (1767), p. 158. See also p. 242.

[1441] Agricultural Returns, 1895, p. 239. The figures given under the year 1894 which express the average yield of a statute acre in imperial bushels are for Australasia, 8·18; India, 9·00; Russia in Europe, 10·76; United States, 12·79. Apparently in South Australia 1,577,000 acres can produce as little as 7,781,000 bushels. As I understand, Sir J. B. Lawes and Sir J. H. Gilbert reckon that for an unmanured acre in England 16 bushels would be an average return, but that if the same acre is continuously sown with wheat, the yield will decline at the rate of nearly a quarter of a bushel every year. See Journ. Agricult. Soc., 3rd Ser. vol. iv. p. 87.

[1442] This calculus was officially adopted in 1891; see a paper by Sir J. B. Lawes and Sir J. H. Gilbert in Journ. Agric. Soc., 3rd Ser., vol iv. p. 102. I desire to express my thanks to the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture for directing my attention to this paper.

[1443] I understand that the average number of loaves that can be made from 280 lbs. of flour may be put at about 90.

[1444] Agricultural Returns, 1895, pp. 166, 90, 198. The old rough estimate of a quarter of wheat per head is much too high; the average is about 5·65 bushels. See the paper cited in note 1442. Now-a-days we can further allot to each inhabitant of the United Kingdom an amount of cereal matter other than wheat, to wit, barley, oats, beans, peas, maize, etc. which would take for its production perhaps as much as 1·5 times the area of the land that is required for the growth of the wheat that we have allotted to him. But much of this only feeds him by feeding animals that he eats; much only feeds him very indirectly by feeding horses engaged in the production or transport of food; and some of it can not be said to feed him at all. Then, on the other hand, large quantities of potatoes, sugar and rice are being eaten.

[1445] Wheat, oats, barley and peas are mentioned in D. B.; also rye (i. 257 b).

[1446] Hale, Worcester Register, p. civ.

[1447] Boldon Book, D. B. iv. 580-5. So in D. B. i. 69 the sheriff of Wiltshire receives equal quantities of wheat and malt and a larger quantity of oats. See also D. B. i. 179 b.

[1448] Domesday of St. Paul's, 164*. See also Cart. Rams. iii. 231.

[1449] Ibid, cxxxiv. 173.

[1450] Ibid. 173.

[1451] Calculations are difficult and may be misleading, not only because of the variability of medieval measures, but also because of the varying strength of beer. Mr Steele, the Chief Inspector of Excise, has been good enough to inform me that a bushel of unmalted barley weighing 42 lbs. would yield about 19·5 gallons of beer at 58°. The figures from St. Paul's seem to point to a strong brew, since they apparently derive but 8 gallons from the bushel of mixed grain. The ordinances of cent. xiii. (Statutes, i. 200, 202) seem to suppose that, outside the cities, the brewer, after deducting expenses and profit, could sell 8 to 12 gallons of beer for the price of a bushel of barley. If we suppose that the bushel of barley gives 18 gallons, the man who drinks his gallon a day consumes 20 bushels a year, and when the acre yields but 6 bushels of wheat, it will hardly yield more than 7 of barley. There is valuable learning in J. Bickerdyke, The Curiosities of Ale, pp. 54, 106, 154.

[1452] As to both meat and drink see Ine 70, § 1; T. 460, 468, 471, 473, 474; E. 118; Æthelstan, II. 1. § 1; D. B. i. 169, rents of the shrievalty of Wiltshire. Attempts to measure the flood of beer break down before the uncertain content of the amber, modius, sextarius, etc. In particular I can not believe that the amber of ale contained (Schmid, p. 530; Robertson, Hist. Essays, 68) 4 of our bushels; but, do all we can to reduce it, the allowance of beer seems large.

[1453] D. B. ii. 162 b: Cheltenham and King's Barton.

[1454] D. B. i. 205. The abbot of Peterborough is bound to find pasture for 120 pigs for the abbot of Thorney. If he can not do this, he must feed and fatten 60 pigs with corn (_de annona pascit et impinguat 60 porcos_).

[1455] Walter of Henley, 13. Every week each ox is to have 3-1/2 garbs of oats, and 10 garbs would yield a bushel.

[1456] Now-a-days the average acre in England will produce about 29 bushels of wheat or 40 of oats. Agricultural Returns, 1895, pp. 66, 70.

[1457] See above, p. 398.

[1458] Rogers, op. cit. i. 51.

[1459] Clearly so in some cases. See e. g. the first entry in Inq. Com. Cant. The teams of lord and villeins having been mentioned, we then read that the 'pecunia in dominio' consists of so many pigs, sheep, etc. Moreover, if all the cattle not of the plough were enumerated under the title animalia, there would not be nearly enough to renew the number of beasts of the plough. Again, when the capacity of the wood is stated in terms of the pigs that it will maintain, the number thus given will in general vastly exceed the number of pigs whose existence is recorded. Lastly, we see that at Crediton (iv. 107) where the lord has but 57 pigs, he receives every year 150 pigs from certain porcarii, whose herds are not counted. Throughout Sussex the lord takes one pig from every villein who has seven (i. 16 b). See also Morgan, op. cit. 56.

[1460] See above, p. 76.

[1461] Before we have gone through a tenth of the account of Essex, we have read of 'wood for' near 10,000 pigs. If the woods were full and this rate were maintained throughout the country, the swine of England would be as numerous T. R. W. as they now are. No doubt Essex was exceptionally wooded and many woods were understocked; still this mode of reckoning the capacity of wood-land would only occur to men who were accustomed to see large herds.

[1462] In the thirteenth century it is common to find that the acre of meadow is deemed to be twice or three times as valuable as the best arable acre of the same village, and a much higher ratio is sometimes found.

[1463] This appears from the parallel account of Westley given in D. B. and Inq. Com. Cant. (p. 19) where 'pratum 2 bobus' = '2 ac. prati.' Entries such as the following are not uncommon (I. C. C. p. 13): 'Terra est 4 car.; in dominio est una et villani habent 3 car. Pratum 1 car.' See Morgan, op. cit. 53-5.

[1464] Eyton, Dorset, 146.

[1465] In the above table all vaccae, animalia and animalia ociosa are reckoned in the third column. I believe that the two last of these terms cover all beasts of the bovine race that are not beasts of the plough. The horses are mostly runcini and are kept for agricultural purposes. It may be doubted whether destriers and palfreys are enumerated.

[1466] Rot. Hund. ii. 570, 575. The calculation which gave these results was laborious; but I believe that they are pretty correct.

[1467] On the whole, the valet of D. B., so far as it is precise, seems to me an answer to the question, What rent would a firmarius pay for this estate stocked as it is? But there are many difficulties.

[1468] See the important but difficult account of the mill at Arundel: D. B. i. 23.

[1469] Hall, Court Life, 221-3. The Glastonbury Inquests (Roxburgh Club) show that 36_d._ is the settled price for the ox.

[1470] Rogers, Hist. Agric. i. 226, 342.

[1471] See above, p. 382.

[1472] Inq. Com. Cant. 38.

[1473] Or a little less.

[1474] Perhaps too small. One estate was valued in Essex.

[1475] See above, p. 443.

[1476] Domesday of St. Paul's, 59, 64, 69. See above, p. 399 note 1339.

[1477] Hanssen, Abhandlungen, i. 163.

[1478] After making an allowance of 22,000 for Suffolk (which I have not counted) and adding 500 for the land between Ribble and Mersey (which owing to some difficult problems, I have omitted), the sum would fall a little short of 68,000. The hides of London and other boroughs would raise the total. Pearson, History, i. 658, guessed 90,000 to 100,000.

[1479] Above, p. 3.

[1480] As to the magnum pondus Normannorum, see Crawford Charters, 78.

[1481] D. B. i. 351.

[1482] D. B. i. 77.

[1483] D. B. i. 165, Alvestone.

[1484] D. B. i. 165 b, Malgeresberiae.

[1485] D. B. i. 252 b, Wenloch.

[1486] D. B. i. 40 b.

[1487] D. B. i. 32: 'postquam habuit pro 16 hidis ad libitum Heraldi.'

[1488] Round, in Domesday Studies, i. 98-110.

[1489] K. 642 (iii. 203).

[1490] D. B. i. 41.

[1491] See above, p. 362.

[1492] I have chosen 'subpartitioned,' because 'repartitioned' might have introduced the idea of periodical or occasional rearrangement, and this it is desirable to exclude in the present state of our knowledge.

[1493] See a speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer reported in The Times for 10 July, 1896.

[1494] Round, Feudal England, 50.

[1495] See also Pollock, E. H. R. xi. 222.

[1496] D. B. i. 172.

[1497] See above, p. 268.

[1498] The estate at Matma which is in the Dodingtree hundred will be accounted for below.

[1499] Possibly this and the four next entries should be omitted.

[1500] We here omit the estates at Hamton and Bengeworth, about which the churches of Worcester and Evesham were disputing, for we believe that they have already been included in the Worcester estate of Cropthorn. See Round in Domesday Studies, ii. 545.

[1501] Perhaps add 5 hides at Suchelei; but apparently these have been already included in the account of the King's Land.

[1502] A large hundred called Halfshire Hundred was formed. In Latin records it is Hundredum Dimidii Comitatus. For some light on the constitution of Dodingtree, see Round, Feudal England, 61.

[1503] 'In Huntedunescyre sunt dccc hide et dimid.' This means eight and a half hundreds.

[1504] Leges Anglorum, p. 7.

[1505] On a re-count I made 1185.

[1506] Mr Charles Taylor gives 2595. See above, p. 412. Therefore I have once more gone through the county with his book before me. The difference between us is not altogether due to my faulty arithmetic; but arises from the different constructions that we put upon a few composite entries. In particular I can not allow the bishop of Worcester anything like the 231 hides that Mr Taylor gives him. When I find an entry in this form: 'Sancta Maria tenet H. Ibi sunt x hidae ... De hac terra huius manerii Turstinus tenet y hidas in O,' I believe that x includes y, and this no matter how far the place called O may be from the place called H. My 2388 is I think a trifle too low; but I believe the number lies very close to 2400 on one side or the other.

[1507] Ellis, Introduction, i. 184.

[1508] Feudal England, 148.

[1509] After a re-count I think that my 1356 is a little too large, and should not be surprised if the 2663-1/2 had been exactly halved.

[1510] See above, p. 451. This is but one instance. Several other hundreds had been similarly relieved. See Round, Feudal England, 51.

[1511] My 500 (or a trifle more) for Cheshire does not include the land between the Ribble and the Mersey. The figures given for that district are, as is well known, very difficult. If we take the final statement (D. B. i. 270) about the 79 'hides' as a grand total and hold that each of these contains 6 carucates (Feudal England, 86) and that each of these carucates pays geld equivalent to that of one ordinary hide, then we have here 474 units to be added to the Cestrian 500, and yet more northerly lands may have been gelding along with Chester in Cnut's day.

[1512] The various copies disagree as to whether Herefordshire shall have 1200 or 1500 hides. My figure stands about halfway between these two; but many hides were not gelding in 1086. I can not bring the Warwickshire hides down to 1200.

[1513] I take the numbers of the hundreds from Dr Stubbs, Const. Hist. 106. I take them thence in order that I may not be tempted to make them rounder than they are.

[1514] See above, p. 457.

[1515] Mr C. S. Taylor, op. cit. 31, finds 41.

[1516] Round, Feudal England, 44 ff.

[1517] Both statements might be illustrated from the Dorsetshire accounts. Between 2 and 8 Hen. II. the geld seems to rise from £228. 5_s._ to £248. 5_s._ but there is a blunder in the addition of the pardons in the latter roll. I believe that Mr Round has already mentioned this case somewhere. The correspondence between the Pipe Rolls and Domesday is sufficiently close to warrant our saying that the story told by Orderic of a new and severer valuation made by Rufus can have but little, if any, truth behind it. See Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 327.

[1518] The common formula is: 'T. R. E. geldabat pro a hidis; ibi tamen sunt a´ hidae' and a´ is largely greater than a. I infer that a´ represents a new and increased assessment, for the Geld Inquest seems to show Cornwall paying for 401 hides and a fraction while I make a´=399.

[1519] For these three counties we can not give any B, but must draw inferences from C. Clearly in Hereford C was often thought to be much less than B.

[1520] As already said (above, p. 420) what we take to be Leicester's equivalent for B is sometimes given by an unusual formula.

[1521] Rogers, Hist. Agricult. i. 110.

[1522] Yorkshire Lay Subsidy (Yorksh. Archæol. Soc.) p. xxxii.

[1523] Total acreage under all kinds of crops, bare fallow and grass, excluding (1) nursery gardens, (2) woods and plantations, (3) mountain and heath land.

[1524] Powell, East Anglia Rising, 121-3.

[1525] As we are giving or trying to give the fullest number of hides whose existence is attested by D. B., and not the number gelding in 1086, we compare with it the values given by Pearson (Hist. Engl. i. 665) for the T. R. E. His values for the T. R. W. are given above, p. 401.

[1526] Suffolk and Norfolk are omitted because the relation between their carucates and the villar geld pence is as yet uncertain. Stafford does not provide valuits enough to give a stable average; but in general the valets and valuits for its hides are high. I have excluded (1) royal demesne, (2) cases in which there is any talk of 'waste,' (3) cases in which a particular manor is obviously privileged. In Lincolnshire it is difficult to obtain good figures, because of the way in which the sokes are valued.

[1527] See above, p. 386, note 1304.

[1528] Werhard's testament, K. 230 (i. 297), tells us of a great estate of 100 hides at Otford, of 30 hides at Graveney and so forth. The figures are so little in harmony with D. B. and with the other Canterbury charters that we may suspect the 100 manses at Otford of covering many smaller estates, each of which appears elsewhere with a name of its own.

[1529] In D. B. i. 12 b St. Augustin holds 30 solins at Norborne. In 618 Eadbald of Kent, K. 6 (i. 9), gave 30 aratra at Nortburne; but the deed is spurious. In D. B. 5 b, Rochester has 3 solins at Totesclive, 6 at Hallinges, 2-1/2 at Coclestane, 3 at Mellingetes, 6 at Bronlei. In 788 Offa, K. 152 (i. 183), gave 6 aratra at Trottesclib. Egbert, K. 160 (i. 193), gave 10 at Hallingas. In 880 Æthelstan, K. 312 (ii. 109), B. ii. 168, gave 3 at Cucolanstan. Edmund, K. 409 (ii. 265), gave 3 at Meallingas. In 998 Æthelred, K. 700 (iii. 305), gave 6 at Brunleage. The Rochester deeds therefore may point to some reduction; but they do not tell of any startling change.

[1530] Meitzen, op. cit. ii. 101, holds that the Euti who invaded Kent fitted themselves into an agrarian framework prepared by Celts. They came not, like the great mass of Saxons and Angles, from a country in which villages of the Germanic type had grown up, but from an originally Celtic land, which they while still in the pastoral state had seized and subjugated. It is an interesting though hazardous speculation. Certainly some cause or another keeps Kent apart from the rest of England.

[1531] Thus, K. 371 (ii. 207): Æthelstan gives to the church of Exeter 6 perticae (yard-lands?). B. ii. 433: he gives one cassate to St Petroc. K. 787 (iv. 115): the Confessor gives a pertica and a half in Cornwall. Crawford Charters, pp. 1-43: Æthelheard gives 20 cassates at Crediton; that is, a dozen of our parishes. Ibid. p. 9: a single yard of land is gaged for 30 mancuses of gold. K. 1306 (vi. 163): in 739 Æthelred gives 3 perticae to Athelney. K. 1324 (vi. 188): Cnut gives to Athelney duas mansas siue (= et) unam perticam.

[1532] K. 1143 (v. 278); B. ii. 527. For the arepennis see Meitzen, op. cit. i. 278, where an explanation derived from the Irish laws is given of its name.

[1533] See above, p. 451.

[1534] The lords of Cambridgeshire may have done good service during the campaign in the Isle of Ely.

[1535] Pearson's valuit is £491; his valet £736.

[1536] The appearance of the curious hida may lead to the guess that if the geld be at two shillings, it is the Leicestershire hida, not the Leicestershire carucata which pays this sum. But (1) if the hida contains 18, or even 12, carucates we shall then have on our hands a case of extreme under-taxation; and (2) this will not account for the fact that an exceedingly small value is given to the land that a team ploughs.

[1537] D. B. i. 233.

[1538] At the end of the account of the land between Ribble and Mersey (i. 240) we are told that there were altogether 79 hidae which T. R. E. were worth £145. 2_s._ 2_d._ This would give a very small value for the carucate, if the hida of this district had six carucates; and in many cases 2_s._ 8_d._ is the value assigned to the carucate. If to a two-shilling geld the hida paid but two shillings, this is a bad, though not unprecedented, case of under-taxation. On the other hand, if the carucate paid two shillings, its value has been stated in some abnormal fashion. I do not think it out of the question that the hidae of Leicestershire and Lancashire are modern arrangements designed to give relief in some manner or another to districts which have been too heavily burdened with carucates.

[1539] It may, however, have been applied to the conquered West Wales from an early time. See above, p. 467.

[1540] See above, p. 427.

[1541] D. B. i. 293 b.

[1542] And two sokemen with two teams.

[1543] The artificiality or traditionality of the teamland is even more obvious in D. B. than it is in our statement. At Okeham are 4 hides; land for 16 teams. The men have 37. The king has 2 in his demesne 'et tamen aliae quatuor possunt esse.' So what is land for 16 teams is not only stocked but insufficiently stocked with 39. The manor of one carucate held by Leuenot seems to be another infringement of the traditional scheme, unless that carucate has been already reckoned among the four at Okeham.

[1544] Many other instances suggesting the artificiality of B might be given from northern counties; e.g. in Northampton (i. 227) we have five consecutive entries in which A = 2, 2, 2, 0·5, 4; B = 5, 5, 5, 1·25, 10; C = 3, 2, 5, 1, 8. See also Round, Feudal England, 90.

[1545] D. B. i. 323 b.

[1546] D. B. i. 299 Walesgrif £56; 299 b Poclinton £56; 309 Ghellinghes £56; 305 Witebi £112. It will be remembered that, as our hundred-weight (112 lbs) shows, 112 can be called a hundred.

[1547] Pipe Rolls, 2. 3. 4. 5. Hen. II. In a few cases the earlier donum includes a composition 'for murders and pleas.' That from Yorkshire is partly paid by York, that from Gloucestershire by Gloucester.

[1548] Nearly.

[1549] Except the 'hides,' if hides they be, of Leicestershire and Lancashire.

[1550] D. B. i. 35 (Surrey).

[1551] D. B. i. 49 b (Hants).

[1552] D. B. i. 364 (Lincoln).

[1553] See above, p. 394.

[1554] This part of the evidence is set out in Mr Round's Feudal England, 37-44. I have gone through all the calculations. His results are hardly different from those which I have obtained and therefore I dwell no longer on this part of the case, for it has been well stated.

[1555] D. B. i. 192; iv. 107. The Inquisitio Eliensis puts the number of cottiers at 18, while Domesday gives 28. See Hamilton's edition, p. 119.

[1556] Downham, Witchford, Sutton, 'Helle,' Wilburton, Stretham, Stuntney, Doddington.

[1557] Wichford, D. B. i. 192; iv. 507; Hamilton, 119.

[1558] Witcham, Whittlesey, Lindon, Wentworth, Chatteris, Wisbeach, Littleport.

[1559] Wisbeach, 3-1/2 H. + 1 V. + 150 A. + 2-1/2 H. = 10 H.

[1560] In giving the sum of the particulars I add hides to hides, virgates to virgates, acres to acres, but I make no assumption as to the number of acres or virgates in the hide.

[1561] D. B. iv. 4, 9, 16.

[1562] D. B. iv. 22.

[1563] D. B. iv. 1, 6, 13.

[1564] D. B. iv. 3, 8, 15 (Melchesham).

[1565] D. B. iv. 3-4, 9, 15 (Chinbrige).

[1566] D. B. iv. 61-2-3.

[1567] D. B. iv. 23 (Hunesberge); see also Langeberge on the same page.

[1568] Round in Domesday Studies, i. 212: 'I have worked through the Inquisitio Geldi with this special object, but found to my disappointment that the odd acres which paid geld on this occasion did not pay at a uniform rate, some paying twice as much as others.'

[1569] D. B. ii. 19: 'Ratendunam tenuit S. Adelred T. R. E. ... pro 20 hidis. Modo pro 16 hidis et dimidia.... Et 30 acras tenet Siward de S. Adelred. Modo tenet Ranulfus Piperellus de rege, set hundret testatur de abbatia. Et 3 hidas et 30 acras quas tenuit ecclesia et Leuesunus de ea T. R. E. modo tenet Eudo de abbate.' I think that this involves the statement:

16-1/2 H. + 30 A. + 3 H. + 30 A. = 20 H.

[1570] D. B. ii. 3, 11, 33, 63 b, 78 b, and in many other places.

[1571] Ibid. 31.

[1572] Ibid. 6 b, 42 b.

[1573] Ibid. 46.

[1574] Ibid. 48.

[1575] Ibid. 6 b, 49, 60.

[1576] Ibid. 43.

[1577] Ibid. 74.

[1578] Ibid. 1 b.

[1579] Ibid. 11 b, 30 b, 31, 47 b.

[1580] Ibid. 72.

[1581] Ibid. 21 b.

[1582] Ibid. 16, 15.

[1583] D. B. ii. 79.

[1584] Some other fractions into which a hide would easily break by inheritance and partition can be expressed in various ways. Thus two-thirds of a hide can be expressed as 80 A. or as 'half a hide and 20 acres.' Three-quarters of a hide appears sometimes as 'half a hide and 30 A.,' sometimes as 'a hide less 30 A.' We might add to our other arguments derived from Essex that used by Morgan (op. cit., p. 31). It seems fairly clear that the holding of Roger 'God Bless the Dames', which is called 3 V. in one place is called 1/2 H. + 30 A. in another place (D. B. iv. 21 b, 96 b).

[1585] D. B. i. 141 b, Wallingtone.

[1586] D. B. i. 141, Stuterehele.

[1587] D. B. i. 165. There is here a transition from geldable area to real area. This land is rated at a hide, but when you come to plough it, you will find only 64 acres.

[1588] D. B. i. 93 b, Dudesham; iv. 396.

[1589] D. B. i. 79 b. Eyton, Dorset, 16, says that this is a clumsy way of describing 1 H. + 1 A. Round, Domesday Studies, i. 213, makes some just remarks on Eyton's treatment of this passage.

[1590] D. B. i. 95 b, Ecewiche; iv. 333.

[1591] D. B. ii. 389 (Cratingas). In Northamptonshire also there is talk of virgates; e.g. D. B. 225 b, 226 b: 3V. - 1 B.; 2 V. + 1 B.

[1592] D. B. ii. 377 b.

[1593] D. B. i. 276 b, 278.

[1594] If I hold two and a half acres in one place and three roods in a neighbouring place and you ask me how much land I have, I may tell you that I have two and a half acres and three roods. If you ask me how much money I have in my purse, I may tell you that I have half-a-crown and three shillings. But returns to governmental inquiries would not be habitually made in this way.

[1595] D. B. i. 13: 'pro uno solin se defendit; tria iuga sunt infra divisionem Hugonis et quartum iugum est extra.'

[1596] D. B. i. 2.

[1597] Elton, Tenures of Kent, 133-4.

[1598] D. B. i. 12 b.

[1599] D. B. i. 9 b.

[1600] D. B. i. 12.

[1601] Kemble, Saxons, ch. iv. and App. B.

[1602] Saxons, i. 490.

[1603] D. B. iv. 42. Cf. D. B. i. 81 b.

[1604] Robertson, Hist. Essays, 95, 96. He has entirely misunderstood the entry touching the hundred of Ailestebba. The equation involved in it is merely the following: 16 H. (i.e. 10 + 4-1/2 + 1-1/2) + 37 H. + 20 H. = 73 H.

[1605] Eyton, Dorset, 15; Bound in Domesday Studies, i. 213.

[1606] Dr Isaac Taylor, The Ploughland and the Plough, in Domesday Studies, i. 143. Of this paper there is an excellent review by W. H. Stevenson in Engl. Hist. Rev. v. 142.

[1607] Domesday Studies, 150; D. B. i. 324.

[1608] D. B. i. 311 b.

[1609] Round, Feudal England, 60.

[1610] See above, p. 397.

[1611] See above, pp. 402, 435.

[1612] See above, p. 471.

[1613] See above, p. 480.

[1614] Dial. de Scac. i. 17.

[1615] The appearance in D. B. of a few 'hides' which apparently consist altogether of wood-land (e.g. ii. 55 b) is one of the many signs that the fiscal hide has diverged from its original pattern. A block of wood-land would not be 'the land of one family.'

§ 3. Beyond Domesday.

[The hide beyond Domesday.]

We have now seen a good deal of evidence which tends to prove that the hide has had for its model a tenement comprising 120 acres of arable land or thereabouts. Some slight evidence of this we have seen on the face of the Anglo-Saxon land-books[1616]. A little more evidence pointing in the same direction we have seen in the manorial extents of a later day[1617]. And now we have argued that the fiscal hide of the Conqueror's day is composed of 120 (fiscal) acres. From all this we are inclined to infer that the hide has, if we may so speak, started by being a tenement which, if it attained its ideal, would comprise a long-hundred of arable acre-strips, and thence to infer that in the very old days of conquest and settlement the free family or the free house-father commonly and normally possessed a tenement of this large size.

We have now to confess that this theory is open to attack, and must endeavour to defend it, or rather to explain why we think that, when all objections have been weighed, the balance of probability still inclines in its favour.

[Arguments in favour of the small hide.]

That all along from Bede's day downwards Englishmen have had in their minds a typical tenement and have been making this idea the framework of their scheme of government can not be doubted. Nor can we doubt that this idea has had some foundation in fact. It could not occur to any one except in a country where a large and preponderant number of tenements really, if roughly, conformed to a single type. Therefore the contest must be, and indeed has been, between the champions of different typical tenements, and in the main there are but two theories in the field. The one would give the Anglo-Saxon hide its long-hundred of acres, the other would concede to it but some thirty or forty, and would in effect equate it with the virgate rather than with the hide of later days[1618]. Perhaps we may briefly state the arguments which have been urged in favour of this small hide by saying that small hides are requisite (1) if we are to find room enough within the appropriate areal boundaries for the hides that are distributed by Domesday Book and the Anglo-Saxon charters, (2) if we are to explain the large quantities of hides or family-lands which are assigned to divers districts by Bede and by that ancient document which we call The Tribal Hidage, (3) if we are to bring our own typical tenement into line with the typical tenement of Germany, (4) if we are not to overdo our family or house-father with arable acres and bushels of corn.

[Continuity in the hide of the land-books.]

A 'name-shifting' must be postulated. Somehow or another, what was the hide becomes the virgate, while the name 'hide' is transferred to a much larger unit. Now in such a name-shifting there is nothing that is very improbable, if we approach the matter a priori. Thought has been poor and language has been poor. The term 'yard of land' may, as we have seen[1619], stand for a quarter-acre or for a much larger space. But this particular name-shifting seems to us improbable in a high degree. For when did it happen? Surely it did not happen after the Norman Conquest. We have from Edward the Confessor quite enough documents to warrant our saying with certainty that the hides and manses of his charters are the hides of Domesday Book. Suppose for a moment that all these parchments were forged after the Conquest, this would only strengthen our case, for stupid indeed must the forger have been who did not remember that if he was to make a title-deed for the abbey's lands he must multiply the hides by four or thereabouts. This argument will carry us far. We trace the stream of land-books back from Edward to Cnut, to Æthelred, to Edgar, to Offa, nay, to the very days of Bede; nowhere can we see any such breach of continuity as that which would appear had the hypothetical name-shifting taken place. The forgers know nothing of it. Boldly they make the first Christian kings bestow upon the church just about the number of manses that the church has in the eleventh century if the manse be Domesday's hide.

[Examples from charters of Chertsey.]

Both points might be illustrated by the Chertsey charters. In Domesday Book St. Peter of Chertsey is credited with many hides in divers parts of Surrey[1620]. A charter is forthcoming whereby Edward the Confessor confirms the abbey's possession of these estates[1621], and in the main the number of 'manses' that this charter locates in any village is the number of 'hides' that the abbey will have there in the year 1086. The two lists are not and ought not to be identical, for there have been rearrangements; but obviously the manse of the one is the hide of the other. Then the monks have books which profess to come from the seventh century[1622] and to show how Frithwald the kingling of Surrey endowed their monastery. These books may be forgeries; but the scale on which they are forged is the scale of the Confessor's charter and of Domesday Book. It has been thought that they are as old as Edgar's day[1623]; but at any rate their makers did not suppose that in order to tell a profitable story they must portray Frithwald bestowing four manses for every hide that the abbey possessed.

[Examples from charters of Malmesbury.]

Or look we at the estates of St. Aldhelm. The monks of Malmesbury have a book from the Confessor[1624] which agrees very accurately, perhaps too accurately, with the Domesday record[1625]. The latter ascribes to their house (among other lands) 10 hides at Dauntsey, 5 at Somerford, 5 at Norton, 30 at Kemble 35 at Purton. The Confessor has confirmed to them (among other lands) 10 'hides' at Dauntsey given by Æthelwulf, 5 at Somerford and 5 at Norton given by Æthelstan, 30 at Kemble and 35 at Purton given by Ceadwealla. Then behind this book are older books. Here is one dated in 931 by which Æthelstan gives quinque mansas at Somerford and quinque mansas at Norton[1626]. Here is another dated in 850 by which Æthelwulf gives decem mansiones at Dauntsey[1627]. Here is a third by which in 796 Egfrith restores that terram xxxv manentium at Purton[1628]. Here from 682, from the days of Aldhelm himself, is a deed of Ceadwealla bestowing xxxii cassatos at Kemble[1629]. It is pretty; it is much too pretty; but it is good proof that the Malmesbury monks know nothing of any change in the conveyancer's unit[1630].

[Permanence of the hidation.]

If we examine any reputable set of land-books, those of Worcester, for example, or those of Abingdon and try to trace the history of those very hides the existence of which is chronicled by Domesday Book, we shall often fail. This was to be expected. Any one who has 'read with a conveyancer' will know that many difficulties are apt to arise when an attempt is made to identify the piece of land described in one with that described in another and much older document. In the days before the Conquest many causes were perplexing our task. We have spoken of them before, but will recall them to memory. New assessments were sometimes made, and thenceforth an estate which had formerly contained five hides might be spoken of as having only four. New villages were formed, and the hides which had been attributed to one place would thenceforth be attributed to another. Great landlords enjoyed a large power of rearranging their lands, not only for the purposes of their own economy, but also for the purposes of public finance. In some cases they had collected their estates into a few gigantic maneria each of which would pay a single round sum to the king[1631]. Lastly, the kings gave and the kings took away. The disendowment of churches and simple spoliation were not unknown; exchanges were frequent; no series of land-books is complete. But when some allowance has been made for the effects of these causes, we shall see plainly that, if the charters are to account for the facts displayed by Domesday Book, then the manses of the charters, even of the earliest charters, can not have been of much less extent than the hides of the Norman record. We know of no case in which a church, whatever its wealth of genuine and spurious parchments, could make a title to many more manses than the hides that it had in 1086[1632].

[Gifts of villages.]

Another test of continuity may be applied. In the Conqueror's day a village in the south of England will very commonly be rated at five or some low multiple of five hides, ten, fifteen or twenty[1633]. Now we have argued above that the land-book of an Anglo-Saxon king generally, though not always, disposes of an integral village or several integral villages, and if we look at the land-books we shall commonly see that the manses or hides which they describe as being at a single place are in number five or some low multiple of five. We open the second volume of the Codex Diplomaticus and analyze the first hundred instances of royal gifts which do not bear a condemnatory asterisk and which are not gifts of small plots in or about the towns of Canterbury and Rochester. In date these land-books range from A.D. 840 to A.D. 956. In sixty out of a hundred cases the number of manses is 5 or a multiple of 5. In eighteen it is 5; in sixteen 10; in six 15; in thirteen 20; in three 25; in one 30; in one 80; in two 100. There are a few small gifts; one of a yokelet; six of 1 manse; four of 2 manses; five of 3. The great bulk of the gifts range from 5 to 25 manses. Only four out of 100 exceed 25; of these four, one is of 30, another of 80, while two are of 100. At this rate of progress and if the manse had no more than some 30 acres, we shall have extreme difficulty in accounting for the large territories which on the eve of the Conquest were held by the churches of Wessex, and by those very churches which have left us cartularies that are only too ample. This is not all. If these manses were but yard-lands, then, unless we suppose that the average village was a tiny cluster, it is plain enough that the kings did not usually give away integral villages, and yet a church's lordship of integral villages and even of divers contiguous villages is one of the surest and most impressive traits that the Conqueror's record reveals.

[Gifts of manses in villages.]

Parenthetically we may admit that the king is not always giving away a whole village. Nasse has contended that when a land-book professes to dispose of a certain number (x) of manses at the place called X, and then sets forth the boundaries of X, we must not infer that the whole of the land that lies within those boundaries is comprised in the grant[1634]. The proof of this consists of a few instances in which, to all appearance, two different tracts of land are conveyed by two different books and yet the boundaries stated in those two books are the same. We will allege one instance additional to those that have been mentioned by others. In 969 Bishop Oswald of Worcester gave to his man Æthelweard seven manses, whereof five lay in the place called Tedington. The book which effected this conveyance states the bounds of Tedington[1635]. In 977 the same bishop gave to his man Eadric three manses at Tedington by a book which describes the boundaries of that place in just the same manner as that in which they were set forth by the earlier charter[1636]. Some care, however, should be taken before we assume that the two deeds which deal with land at X dispose of different tracts; for book-land had a way of returning to the king who gave it; also the gift of one king was sometimes confirmed by another; and even if the one book purports to convey x and the other y manses, we must call to mind the possibility that there has been a reassessment or a clerical error. Still it seems to be fairly well proved that there are cases in which the x manses which the donor gives are but some of the manses that lie within the meres drawn by his deed of gift. This certainly deserves remark. At first sight nothing could look more foolish than that we should painfully define the limits of the village territory and yet leave undefined the limits of that part of the village territory which we are giving away. But this practice is explicable if we remember the nature of a manse in a village. It consists of many scattered strips of arable land and of rights over uncultivated waste. To define the limits of the whole territory is important, for the donee should know how far his cattle can wander without trespass. To specify each acre-strip would, on the other hand, be a tedious task and would serve no profitable end. However, there can be little doubt that very generally what a charter bestows is the whole of the land of which the boundaries are described, and therefore the whole territory of a village or of several neighbouring villages.

[The largest gifts.]

But at the moment the charters which will be the most instructive will be those which attribute to a single place some large number of hides. In these the champions of a small hide have found their stronghold. They see perhaps 100 hides ascribed to the place called X; they look for that place in modern maps and gazetteers and then tell us that in order to pack our 100 hides within the parochial boundary we must reduce the size of the hide to 30 acres at the most.

[The Winchester estate at at Chilcombe.]

The dangers that beset this process may be well illustrated by the documents relating to one of the most interesting estates in all England, the great Chilcombe estate of the church of Winchester, which stretched for many a mile from the gates of the royal city of the West Saxon kings. Let us follow the story as the monks told it in a series of charters, few of which have escaped Kemble's asterisk. In the first days of English Christianity, Cynegils, king of the West Saxons, gave the Chilcombe valley to St. Birinus. King after king confirmed the gift, but it was never put into writing until the days of Æthelwulf. He declared by charter that this land should defend itself for one hide. This was part of that great tithing operation which puzzles the modern historian[1637]. In 908 Edward the Elder confirmed this act by a charter in which he declared that the land at Chilcombe (including that at Nursling and Chilbolton) contained 100 manses, but that the whole was to be reckoned as a single manse. He also remarked that the land included many villae[1638]. The next book comes from Æthelstan; the whole valley (vallis illuster Ciltecumb appellata) with all its appendages was to owe the service of a single manse[1639]. Two charters were obtained from Edgar. However much land there might be at Chilcombe, it was to defend itself for one hide[1640]. A writ of similar import, which Kemble has accepted, was issued by Æthelred the Unready[1641]. It said that there were a hundred hides at Chilcombe and proceeded to allot them thus:--

Æstun 4 Easton Afintun and Ufintun 5 Avington and Ovington Ticceburn 25 Titchbourne Cymestun 5 Kilmiston Stoke 5 Bishopstoke Brombrygce and Oterburn 5 Brambridge and Otterbourne Twyfyrde 20 Twyford Ceolbandingtun 20 Chilbolton Hnutscilling 5 Nursling

This territory extends along the left-hand bank of the Itchen from Kilmiston to Titchbourne, thence past Ovington, Avington, Easton, Chilcombe, and Winchester itself, Twyford, Brambridge, Otterbourne to Bishopstoke. If we journeyed by straight lines from village to village we should find that our course was a long twenty miles. Then, to complete the 100 hides, Nursling which is near Southampton and Chilbolton which is near Andover are thrown in. But all these lands lie 'into Ciltecumbe.'

[The many hides at Chilcombe.]

It is to be feared that these charters tell lies invented by those who wished to evade their share of national burdens. And they seem to have failed in their object, for in the Confessor's day, though a very large estate at 'Chilcombe' with nine churches upon it was rated at but one hide, several of the other villages that we have mentioned were separately assessed[1642]. But to lie themselves into an immunity from taxes, this the monks might hope to do; to lie themselves into the possession of square leagues of land, this would have been an impossible feat, and the solid fact remains that their church was the lord of a spacious and continuous block of territory in the very heart of the old West Saxon realm, just outside the gates of the royal burg, along the Itchen river, the land that would be seized and settled at the earliest moment. The best explanation that they could give of this fact was that the first Christian kings had bestowed mile after mile of land upon the minster. What better theory have we[1643]?

[The Winchester estates at Downton and Taunton.]

The truth seems to be that some of the very earliest gifts of land that were made to the churches might, if we have regard to the size of the existing kingdoms, be fairly called the cession of provinces, the cession of large governmental and jurisdictional districts. The bishops want a revenue, and in the earliest days a large district must be ceded if even a modest revenue is to be produced, for all that the king has to give away is the chieftain's right to live at the expense of the folk and to receive the proceeds of justice. Therefore not only whole villages but whole hundreds were given. Chilcombe was by no means the only vast estate that the bishop of the West Saxons acquired in very early days. Domesday Book shows us how at Downton in Wiltshire the church of Winchester has had a round 100 hides[1644]. For these 100 hides we have a series of charters which professes to begin in the days when the men of Wessex were accepting the new faith. They bear the names of Cenwealla[1645], Egbert[1646], Edward[1647], Æthelstan[1648], Edred[1649], Edgar[1650], and Æthelred[1651]. Kemble has accepted the last four of them. They tell a consistent story. There were 100 manses at Downton, or, to speak more accurately, 55 at Downton itself and 45 at Ebbesborne (the modern Bishopston) on the other side of the Avon[1652]. We might speak of other extensive tracts, of Farnham where there have been 60 hides[1653], of Alresford where there have been 51[1654], of Mitcheldever where there have been 106[1655], of Taunton where there have been 54 and more[1656]. Whenever the West Saxons conquer new lands they cede a wide province to their bishop. But perhaps we have already said more than enough of these cessions, though in our eyes they are very important; they are among the first manifestations of incipient feudalism and feudalism brings manorialism in its train. We have recurred to them here because the Winchester charters which describe them testify strongly to the continuity of the hide and also indicate the weak point in the arguments that are urged by the advocates of little hides[1657].

[Kemble and the Taunton estate.]

Kemble has argued that it is impossible for us to allow the hide of Domesday Book or the hide or manse of the charters as many as 120 acres. Take a village, discover how many hides are ascribed to it, discover how many acres it has at the present day, you will often find that the whole territory of the village will not suffice to supply the requisite number of hides if the hide is to have 120 or even 60 acres. Kemble illustrates this method by taking nine vills in Somerset and Devon. One of them is Taunton. Modern Taunton, he says, has 2730 acres, the Tantone of 1086 had 65 hides[1658]; multiply 65 even by so low a figure as 40 and you will nearly exhaust all Taunton's soil[1658]. This argument involves the assumption that the limits of modern Taunton include the whole land that is ascribed to 'Tantone' in the Conqueror's geld-book. Strangely different was the result to which Eyton came after a minute examination of the whole survey of Somersetshire. The 'Tantone' of Domesday covers some thirteen or fourteen villages and is now represented not by 2730 but by 24,000 acres[1659]. The editor of the Anglo-Saxon charters should have guessed that many hides 'lay in' Taunton which as a matter of physical geography were far off from the walls of the bishop's burg[1660]. There are counties in which the list of the places that are mentioned in Domesday is so nearly identical with the list of our modern parishes, that no very great risk would be run if we circumspectly pursued Kemble's method; but just in those counties to which he applied it the risk is immeasurably great, for it is the land where many villages are often collected into one great manerium and all their hides are spoken of as lying in one place. Not until we have compared the whole survey of the county with the whole of its modern map, are we entitled to make even a guess as to the amount of land that a place-name covers. Often enough in those shires where there are large and ancient ecclesiastical estates, those shires in which the feudal and manorial development began earliest and has gone furthest, hides 'are' in law where they are not in fact. They 'lie into' the hall at which they geld or the moot-stow to which they render soke, and this may be far distant from their natural bed[1661].

[Difficulty of identifying parcels.]

As we go backwards this danger is complicated by another, namely, by the growth of new villages. The village of Hamton has been a large village with 20 hides. Some of its arable land has lain two or three miles from the clustered steads. A partition of its fields is made and a new cluster of steads is formed; for housebuilding is not a lengthy or costly process. And so Little Hamton or 'Other' Hamton with 5 hides splits off from the old Hamton which has 15. We must not now try to force 20 hides into the territory of either village[1662]. And as this danger increases, the other hardly diminishes, for we come to the time when a king will sometimes give a large jurisdictional district and call it all by one name. If the once heathen Osric of the Hwiccas gave to a church '100 manentes adjoining the city that is called the Hot Baths,' he in all probability gave away the 'hundred' of Bath; he gave Bath itself and a territory which in the eleventh century was the site of a dozen villages[1663]. We have the best reason for believing that when a king of the eighth century says that he is giving 20 manses in the place called Cridie he is giving his rights over a tract which comprises ten or twelve of our modern parishes and more than the whole of the modern hundred of Crediton[1664].

[The numerous hides in ancient documents.]

We have given above some figures which will enable our readers to compare the hides and the teamlands of a county with its modern acreage. Also we have confessed to thinking that we can hardly concede to every teamland that Domesday mentions 120 statute acres of arable land[1665]. On the other hand, we do not think that there would in general be much difficulty in finding 120 arable acres for every fiscal hide, though perhaps in the south the average size of the acre would be small[1666]. However, we have admitted, or rather contended, that before the middle of the eleventh century the hides of the fiscal system had strayed far away from the original type, and the sight of an over-hided vill would not disconcert us. But unfortunately we can not be content with such results as we have as yet attained. We have already seen that the hides attributed to a district show a tendency to increase their number as we trace them backwards[1667], and there are certain old documents which deal out hides so lavishly that we must seriously face the question whether, notwithstanding the continuity of the land-books, we must not suppose that some large change has taken place in the character of the typical tenement.

[The Burghal Hidage.]

We have said above that we have inherited three ancient documents which distribute hides among districts. We call them in order of date (1) The Tribal Hidage, (2) The Burghal Hidage, (3) The County Hidage. Of the youngest we have spoken. We must now attend to that which holds the middle place. It states that large round numbers of hides belong to certain places, which seem to be strongholds. The sense in which a large number of hides might belong to a burh will be clear to those who have read the foregoing pages[1668]. This document has only come down to us in a corrupt form, but it has come from a remote time and seems to represent a scheme of West-Saxon defence which was antiquated long years before the coming of the Normans. We will give its effect, preserving the most important variants and adding within brackets some guesses of our own.

THE BURGHAL HIDAGE[1669] Hides. to Heorepeburan, Heorewburan[1670] 324 to Hastingecestre [Hastings] 15 or 500 to Lathe, Lawe [Lewes][1671] 1300 to Burhham [Burpham near Arundel] 726 to Cisseceastre [Chichester] 1500 to Portecheastre [Porchester] 650 to Hamtona and to Wincestre [Southampton and Winchester] 2400 to Piltone, Pistone[1672], Wiltone [Wilton] 1400 to Tysanbyring [Tisbury][1673] 700 to Soraflesbyring, Soraflesburieg, Sceaftesbyrig [Shaftesbury] 700 to Thoriham, Tweonham, Twenham [Twyneham][1674] 470 to Weareham [Wareham] 1600 to Brydian [Bridport or more probably Bredy][1675] 1760 to Excencestre [Exeter] 734 to Halganwille, Hallgan Wylla [Halwell][1676] 300 to Hlidan, Hlida [Lidford] 140 to Wiltone Wisbearstaple, Piltone wið Bearstaple [Pilton[1677] with Barnstaple] 360 to Weted, Weced [Watchet][1678] 513 to Orenbrege, Oxenebrege, Axanbrige [Axbridge] 400 to Lenge, Lengen [Lyng][1679] 100 to Langiord, Langport [Langport] 600 to Bathan, Badecan, Baderan [Bath] 3200(?) to Malmesberinge [Malmesbury] 1500 to Croccegelate, Croccagelada [Cricklade] 1003 or 1300 to Oxeforde and to Wallingeforde [Oxford and Wallingford] 2400 to Buckingham and to Sceaftelege, Sceafteslege, Steaftesege [Buckingham and ?][1680] 600 or 1500 to Eschingum and to Suthringa geweorc [Southwark and Eashing][1681] 1800

These figures having been stated, we are told that they make a total of 27,070 hides[1682]. And then we read 'et triginta[1683] to Astsexum [al. Westsexum], and to Wygraceastrum mcc, hydas. to Wæringewice [al. Parlingewice] feower and xxiiii. hund hyda.'

[Meaning of The Burghal Hidage.]

Apparently we start at some burg in the extreme east of Sussex, go through Hastings, Lewes, Burpham, Chichester, Porchester, and then pass through Hampshire, through the south of Wiltshire, through Dorset to Devon, keeping always well to the south. Then in Devon we turn to the north and retrace our steps by moving to the east along a more northerly route than that which we followed in the first instance. In short, we make a round of Wessex and end at Southwark. This done, we cast up the number of hides and find them to be somewhat more than 27,000. Then in what may be a postscript the remark is made that to Essex and Worcester belong 1200 hides (probably 1200 apiece) and to Warwick 2404. The writer seems to know Wessex pretty thoroughly; of the rest of England he (if he added the postscript) has little to tell us. We might perhaps imagine him drawing up this statement under Edward the Elder[1684]. He hears reports of what has been done to make Essex defensible and of two famous burgs built in Mercia; but the military system of Wessex he knows[1685]. Of a military system it is that he is telling us. He does not take the counties of Wessex one by one; he visits the burgs, and his tour through them takes him twice through Wiltshire: westwards along a southerly and eastwards along a northerly line.

It is an artificial system that he discloses to us. The 324 hides allotted to 'Heorepeburan' (a place that eludes us) may seem insufficiently round until we add it to the 726 given to 'Burhham.' The Wiltshire burgs seem to be grouped thus:--

Wilton 1400} Tisbury 700} 2800} Shaftesbury 700} } 5600 Malmesbury 1500} 2800} Cricklade 1300}

[The Burghal Hidage and later documents.]

To compare these figures with those given in Domesday Book and in The County Hidage is not a straightforward task, for the military districts of 900 may not have been coincident with the counties of 1086, and, for example, Bath may have been supported partly by Gloucestershire and partly by Somerset[1686]. The best comparison that we can make is the following:--

Burghal Hidage County Hidage Domesday Book Sussex[1687] 4350 3474 Surrey[1688] 1800 (or 3600) 1830 Hampshire[1689] 3520 2588 Berkshire[1690] 2400 2473 Wiltshire[1691] 5600 4800 4050 Dorset[1692] 3360 2321 Somerset[1693] 4813 2951 Devon[1694] 1534 1119 Oxford 2400 2400 2412 Buckingham 1500 2074 Essex(?) 1200 2650 Worcester 1200 1200 1189 Warwick 2404 1200 1338

There is discord here, but also there is concord. According to our reckoning, the Oxfordshire and Berkshire of Domesday Book have just about 2400 hides apiece; then The County Hidage gives Oxfordshire 2400; and The Burghal Hidage gives 2400 to Oxford and 2400 to Wallingford. Both documents give 1200 to Worcester, and this is very close to the number that Domesday Book assigns. Next we see that, with hardly an exception[1695], all the aberrations of our Burghal Hidage from Domesday Book lie in one direction. They all point to great reductions of hidage, which seem to have been distributed with a fairly even hand. Further, in the case of Wiltshire we see a progressive abatement. The hidage is lowered from 5600 to 4800 and then to a little over 4000, and the first reduction seems to have relieved the shire of just one-seventh of its hides.

[Criticism of The Burghal Hidage.]

Now it seems to us that, on the one hand, we must reckon with this document as with one which, however much it may have been distorted by copyists, is or once was a truthful, and possibly an official record, and that, on the other hand, we can reckon with it and yet retain that notion of the hide which we have been elaborating. In a general way it both gives support to and receives support from the evidence that has already come before us. We have seen reductions of hidage or carucatage made in Yorkshire and Leicestershire after the Domesday survey; we have seen reductions in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Cambridge, Northamptonshire. Here we come upon earlier reductions. They are large; but still they are not of such a kind as to make us think that any great change has taken place in men's idea of a normal and typical hide. For one thing, we might be rash if we denied that during that miserable tenth century both the population and the wealth of Wessex were declining, for, despite its Æthelstan and Edgar, a miserable time it was. A real extinction of many a 'real hide' there may have been. But our main explanation will be that, by a process which is gradual and yet catastrophic, the ancient exaggerated estimates of population and wealth are being brought into correspondence with the humbler facts.

[The Tribal Hidage.]

We must now turn to a more famous and yet older document, namely that which we call The Tribal Hidage[1696]. It assigns large round quantities of hides to various districts, or rather to various peoples, whose very names would otherwise have been unknown to us. We are not about to add to the commentaries that have been written upon it; but its general scheme seems to be fairly plain. It begins by allotting to Myrcna land 30,000 hides. On this follow eighteen more or less obscure names to each of which a sum of hides is assigned; 36,100 hides are distributed between them. Then a grand total of 66,100 is stated. Ten other more or less obscure names follow, and 19,000 hides are thus disposed of. Then we have more intelligible entries:--'East Engle 30,000. East Sexena 7,000. Cantwarena 15,000. South Sexena 7,000. West Sexena 100,000.' Then we are told that the complete sum is 242,700, a statement which is not true as the figures stand, for they amount to 244,100. The broad features, therefore, of this system seem to be these:--It ascribes to Wessex 100,000 hides, to Sussex 7,000, to Kent 15,000, to Essex 7,000, to East Anglia 30,000, to Mercia 30,000, to the rest of England 55,100. Apparently we must look for this rest of England outside Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex and East Anglia and outside the Mercians' land, though this last term is probably used in an old and therefore narrow sense. The least obscure of the obscure names that are put before us, those of the dwellers in the Peak, the dwellers in Elmet and the men of Lindsey, seem to point to the same conclusion[1697].

[Criticism of The Tribal Hidage.]

Now our first remark about this document will perhaps be either that it is wild nonsense, or that its 'hide' has for its type something very different from the model that has served for those hides of which we have hitherto been reading. Domesday will not allow the whole of England 70,000 hides (carucates, sulungs) and now we are asked to accommodate more than 240,000. Kent is to have 15,000 hides instead of 1200 sulungs. Even the gulf between The Burghal Hidage and this Tribal Hidage is enormous. The one would attribute less than 4500 hides to the Sussex burgs, the other would burden the South Saxons with 7000. In the older document Wessex has 100,000 hides, while in the younger the burgs of Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and Devon have as their contributories less than a quarter of that number. The suspicion can not but cross our mind that the 'hides' of The Tribal Hidage are yard-lands, or, in other words have for their moulding idea rather a tenement of 30 than a tenement of 120 arable acres[1698].

[Bede's hidage.]

Before we decide this important question we must give audience to Bede, whose testimony seems to point in the same direction. As already said, he uses one and the same unit, namely, the land of a family, whenever he speaks of a tract of soil, whether that tract be the territory of a large tribe or an estate that is granted to a monastery. He gives 7000 of these units to the South Saxons, 5000 to the South Mercians, 7000 to the North Mercians, 960 to Anglesey, 300 and more to Man, 600 to Thanet, 1200 to Wight, 600 to the Isle of Ely, 87 to the promontory of Selsey, 5 to Iona. Then he tells how Alchfrid bestowed on Wilfrid the land of 10 families at Stanford and a monastery of 30 families at Ripon, and in various other cases we hear of a prelate acquiring the land of 20, 12, 10, 8 families or of one family[1699].

[Criticism of Bede's hidage.]

Now we must notice that in their estimates of one large province there is a certain agreement between the Ecclesiastical History and The Tribal Hidage. Both give the South Saxons 7000 hides or families[1700]. What are we then to say? If we suppose that Bede is speaking to us of tenements which tend to conform to the hide of 120 arable acres his statements must fly far beyond their mark. For example, the Isle of Wight is to have 1200 hides, and yet, according to Domesday Book, the whole of Hampshire including that island will not have 3000 hides, nor 3000 'teamlands,' nor 3000 teams. Bede's Wight contains as many hides as the Worcestershire or the Herefordshire of Domesday. He allots 600 of his units to the Isle of Ely, which in 1086 had about 80 hides and 126 teamlands. He allots another 600 of his units to the Isle of Thanet, which in 1086 had about 66 sulungs and 93 teamlands[1701].

[Bede and the large hide.]

We have now reached the critical point in our essay. Before us lie two paths and it is hardly too much to say that our whole conception of early English history depends on the choice that we make. Either as we pursue our retrogressive course through the centuries there comes a time when the hide of 120 acres gives place to some other and much smaller typical tenement, or the men of Bede's day grossly exaggerated the number of the hides that there were in England and the various parts thereof.

[Continuity of the hide in the land-books.]

We make our choice. We refuse to abandon the large hide. In the first place, we call to mind the continuity of the charters. They have begun to flow in Bede's day; they never cease to flow until they debouch in Domesday Book. They know but one tenemental unit. To describe it they use Bede's phrase, and his translator's phrases. It is the hiwisc, the terra unius familiae, the terra unius manentis, the manse, the hide[1702]. Between this and the acre they know nothing except the yard of land. Of it they speak but seldom, and it can only be explained as being a yard in every acre of a hide. No moment can we fix when an old mode of reckoning by reference to small tenements is superseded by references to a fourfold larger model.

[Gradual reduction of hidage.]

In the second place, we have been prepared for exaggeration. We have seen the hides steadily increasing in number as we passed from Domesday Book to The County Hidage and thence to The Burghal Hidage, and what may we not expect in the remote age that we have now reached? Even in the days of The Burghal Hidage there was a kingdom of England. There was a king of the English who was trying to coordinate his various dominions in one common scheme of national defence. But now we have penetrated to an age when there is no English nation. The gens Anglorum whose ecclesiastical history is being written is but a loose congeries of kindred folks. Rude indeed will be the guesses made at such a time about the strength of tribes and the wealth of countries. The South Mercians are a folk of 5000 families, 'so they say':--that is all that Bede can tell us about them. It is not likely that they have underestimated their numbers. When there is a kingdom of England, when there is a crushing tax called 'danegeld,' then the day will have come when a county will, if it can, 'conceal' its hides. At an earlier time the various folks will brag of their strength and there will be none to mitigate their boasts.

Moreover we can not put our finger on the spot where the breach of continuity occurs. In 1086 Sussex has about 3100 teamlands; it has about 3500 hides. The Burghal Hidage would burden it with nearly 4500, and now we are required to give it 7000. There is no place where we can see its hides suddenly multiplied or divided by four.

[Over-estimates of hidage.]

Dare we set any limit to the power of exaggeration? In much later days when England had long been strongly governed and accurate fiscal rolls were being carefully stored in the treasury, men believed in 60,000 knight's fees; royal ministers believed in 32,000; and yet we now see good reason for doubting whether there were more than 5000[1703]. In the reign of Edward III. the collective wisdom of the nation supposed, and acted upon the supposition, that there were more than 40,000 parishes in England, and then made the humiliating discovery that there were less than 9000[1704]. We hear that the same error was current in the days of Wolsey. Men still believed in those 40,000 parishes[1705]. Such numbers as these stood written in ancient manuscripts, some of which seem to have taken our Tribal Hidage as a base for calculations[1706]. These traditional numbers will not be lightly abandoned, though their falsehood might be proved by a few days' labour spent among the official archives. Counting hides is repulsive work. If then these things happen in an age which is much closer to our own than to Bede's, ought we not to be surprised at the moderation of those current estimates of tribal strength that he reports?

[Size of Bede's hide.]

Thirdly, when Bede speaks not of a large province, but of an estate acquired by a prelate, then his story seems to require that 'the land of one family' should be that big tenemental unit, the manse or hide of the land-books. Let us take by way of example the largest act of liberality that he records. King Oswy, going to battle, promises that if he be victorious he will devote to God his daughter with twelve estates for the endowment of monasteries. He is victorious; he fulfils his vow. He gives twelve estates, six in Deira, six in Bernicia; each consists of 'the possessions of ten families.' His daughter enters Hild's monastery at Hartlepool. Two years afterwards she acquires an estate of ten families at Streanaeshalch and founds a monastery there. According to our reading of the story, Oswy bestows twelve 'ten-hide vills'; he gives, that is, his rights, his superiority, over twelve villages of about the average size, some of which are in Deira, some in Bernicia. It is a handsome gift made on a grand occasion and in return for a magnificent victory; but it is on the scale of those gifts whereof we read in the West Saxon and Mercian land-books, where the hides are given away by fives and tens, fifteens and twenties. We feel no temptation to make thirty-acre yard-lands of the units that Oswy distributed. Were we to do this, we should see him bestowing not entire villages (for a village of two-and-a-half hides would, at all events in later days, be abnormally small) but a few of the tenements that lie in one village and a few of those that lie in another, and such a gift would not be like those gifts that the oldest land-books record. And so we think that the unit which Bede employs is our large hide. When he speaks of the estates given to those churches with whose affairs he is conversant, he will state the hidage correctly; but when it comes to the hidage of Sussex or Kent, he will report current beliefs which are far from the truth. This is what we see in later days. The officers at the Exchequer know perfectly well that this man has fifty knight's fees and that man five, but opine that there are 32,000, or, may be, 60,000 fees in England[1707].

[Evidence from Iona.]

Observe how moderate Bede's estimate of hidage is when he speaks of a small parcel of land of which he had heard much, when he speaks of the holy island of Hii or Iona. A Pictish king gave it to Columba, who received it as a site for a monastery. 'Neque enim magna est, sed quasi familiarum quinque, iuxta aestimationem Anglorum[1708] 'It is not a large island; we might compare its size with that of one of our English five-hide túns.' The comparison would be apt. Iona has 1300 Scotch acres or thereabouts[1708]. Plough 600 acres; there will be ample pasture left[1710]. If, however, we interpreted his statement about the 7000 hides of Sussex in a similar fashion, the result would be ridiculous. The South Saxons had not 840,000 acres of arable; our Sussex has not 940,000 acres of any kind; their Sussex was thickly wooded. The contrast, however, is not between two measures; it is between knowledge and ignorance. Bede's name is and ought to be venerated, and to accuse him of talking nonsense may seem to some an act of sacrilege. But about these matters he could only tell what was told him, and we may be sure that his informants, were, to say the least, no better provided with statistics than were the statesmen of the fourteenth century[1711].

[Evidence from Selsey.]

Also there is one case in which we have what may be called a very ancient, though not a contemporary, exposition of Bede's words. He tells us that Æthelwealh king of the South Saxons gave to Wilfrid the land of 87 families called Selsey[1712]. Then there comes to us from Chichester the copy of a land-book which professes to tell us more touching the whereabouts of these 87 hides[1713]. Ceadwealla with the approval of Archbishop Wilfrid gives to a Bishop Wilfrid a little land for the construction of a monastery in the place called Selsey: 'that is to say 55 tributarii in the places that are called Seolesige, Medeminige, Wihttringes, Iccannore, Bridham and Egesauude and also Bessenheie, Brimfastun and Sidelesham with the other villae thereto belonging and their appurtenances; also the land named Aldingburne and Lydesige 6 cassati, and in Geinstedisgate 6, and in Mundham 8, and in Amberla and Hohtun 8, and in Uualdham 4: that is 32 tributarii.' This instrument bears date 683. Another purporting to come from 957 describes the land in much the same fashion[1714]. Where, let us ask, did the makers of these charters propose to locate the 87 hides? Some, though not all, of the places that they mentioned can be easily found on the map. We see Selsey itself; hard by are Medmeny or Medmerry, Wittering, Itchenor, Birdham and Siddlesham. At these and some other places that are not now to be found were 55 hides. Then we go further afield and discover Aldingbourn, Lidsey, Mundham, Amberley, Houghton and perhaps Upper Waltham. But we have travelled far. At Amberley and Houghton we are fifteen miles as the crow flies from Selsey[1715]. Apparently then, the 87 hides consist of a solid block of villages at and around Selsey itself and of more distant villages that are dotted about in the neighbourhood. Be it granted that these land-books are forgeries; still in all probability they are a good deal older than Domesday Book[1716]. Be it granted that the number of 87 hides was suggested to the forgers by the words of Bede[1717]. Still we must ask what meaning they gave to those words. They distributed the 87 hides over a territory which is at least eighteen miles in diameter[1718]. Now it is by no means unlikely that Æthelwealh's gift really included some villages that were remote from Selsey. We have seen before now that lands in one village may 'lie into' another and a distant village which is the moot-stow of a 'hundred.' But at any rate the forgers were not going to attempt the impossible task of cramming 'the land of 87 families' into the Selsey peninsula.

[Conclusion in favour of the large hide.]

Therefore, in spite of Bede and The Tribal Hidage, we still remain faithful to the big hide. We have seen reason for believing that in the oldest days the real number of the 'real' hides was largely over-estimated. It would be an interesting, though perhaps an unanswerable, question whether any governmental or fiscal arrangements were ever based upon these inflated figures. A negative answer would seem the more probable. In Bede's day there was no one to tax all England or to force upon all England a scheme of national defence. So soon as anything that we could dare to call a government of England came into being, the truth, the unpleasant truth, would become apparent bit by bit. All along bits of the truth were well enough known. The number of hides in a village was known to the villagers; the kingling knew the number of hides that contributed to his maintenance. As the folks were fused together, these dispersed bits of truth would be slowly pieced into a whole, though for a long while the work of coordination would be hampered by old mythical estimates. Perhaps The Burghal Hidage may represent one of the first attempts to arrange for political purposes the hides of a large province. There is still exaggeration, and, unfortunately for us, new causes of perplexity are introduced as the older disappear. On the one hand, statesmen are beginning to know something about the facts; on the other hand, they are beginning to perceive that tenements of equal size are often of very unequal value, and to give the name hide to whatever is taxed as such. Also there is privilege to be reckoned with, and there is jobbery. It is a tangled skein. And yet they are holding fast the equation 1H. = 120A.

[Continental analogies.]

There is, however, another point of view from which the evidence should be examined, though a point to which we can not climb. How will our big hide assort with the evidence that comes to us from abroad? Only a few words about this question can we hazard.

[The German Hufe.]

If we look to the villages of Germany, or at any rate of some parts of Germany, we see that the typical fully endowed peasant holds a mass of dispersed acre-strips, a Hufe, hoba mansus which, while it falls far short of our hide, closely resembles our virgate. The resemblance is close. As our virgate is compounded of acres, so this Hufe is compounded of acres, or day's-works, or mornings (Morgen). When the time for accurate measurement comes, these day-work-units differ somewhat widely in extent as we pass from one district to another. The English statute acre is, as we have already said[1719], an unusually large day-work-unit. It contains 40.46 ares, while in Germany, if there is nothing exceptional in the case, the Morgen will have no more than from 25 to 30 ares[1720]. This notwithstanding, the Hufe, is generally supposed to contain either 30 or else 60 Morgen, the former reckoning being the commoner. In the one case it would resemble our virgate, in the other our half-hide.

[Sidenote: The Königshufe.]

Then, however, we see--and it has occurred to us that some solution of our difficulty might lie in this quarter--that in Germany there appears sporadically a unit much larger than the ordinary Hufe, which is known as a Königshufe or mansus regalis. This is sometimes reckoned to contain 160, but sometimes 120 Morgen. It seems to be an unit accurately measured by a virga regalis of 4·70 meters and to contain 21,600 square virgae. In size it would closely resemble an English hide of 120 statute acres; the one would contain 47·736, the other 48·56 hectares. To explain the appearance of these large units by the side of the ordinary Hufen, it has been said that as the Emperor or German king reigned over wide territories and had much land to give away, he felt the need of some accurate standard for the measurement of his own gifts, so that he might be able to dispose of 'five manses' or 'ten manses' in some distant province and yet know exactly what he was doing. This theory, however, does not tell us why the unit that was thus chosen and called a king's Hufe or 'royal manse' was much larger than an ordinary manse or Hufe, and we seem invited to suppose that at some time or another a notion had prevailed that when an allotment of land in a village was made to a king, he should have for his tenement twice or thrice or four times as many strips as would fall to the lot of the common man[1721].

[Sidenote: The English hide and the Königshufe.]

The suggestion then might be made that the manse, terra unius familiae, terra unius manentis, of our English documents is not the typical manse of the common man, but the typical king's-manse. We might construct the following story:--When England was being settled, the practice was to give the common man about 30 acres to his manse, but to give the king 120. Thus in the administration of the royal lands a 'manse' would stand for this large unit. Then this same unit was employed in the computation of the feorm, victus or pastus that was due to the king from other lands, and finally the royal reckoning got so much the upper hand that when men spoke of a 'manse' or a 'family land' they meant thereby, not the typical estate of the common man, but a four times larger unit which was thrust upon their notice by fiscal arrangements.

[The large hide on the Continent.]

Some such suggestion as this may deserve consideration if all simpler theories break down. But it is not easily acceptable. It supposes that in a very early and rude age a natural use of words was utterly and tracelessly expelled by a highly technical and artificial use. This might happen in a much governed country which was full of royal officials; we can hardly conceive it happening in the England of the seventh and eighth centuries. Moreover, the continental evidence does not lie all on one side. There was, for instance, one district in Northern Germany where the term Hufe was given to an area that was but a trifle smaller than 120 acres of our statute measure[1722]. Also there are the large Scandinavian allotments to be considered. Even in Gaul on the estates of St. Germain the mansus ingenuilis sometimes contained, if Guérard's calculations are correct, fully as much arable land as we are giving to the hide[1723]. Nor, though we may dispute about the degree of difference, can it be doubted that the Germanic conquest of a Britain that the legions had deserted was catastrophic when compared with the slow process by which the Franks and other tribes gained the mastery in Gaul. Just in the matter of agrarian allotment this difference might show itself in a striking form. The more barbarous a man is, the more land he must have to feed himself withal, if corn is to be his staple food. There were no ecclesiastics in England to maintain the continuity of agricultural tradition. Also the heathen Germans in England had a far better chance of providing themselves with slaves than had their cousins on the mainland. Also it seems very possible that throughout the wide and always growing realm of the Frankish king, the fiscal nomenclature would be fixed by the usages which obtained in the richest and most civilized of those lands over which he reigned, and that the 'manse' that was taken as the unit for taxation was really a much smaller tenement than supported a family in the wilder and ruder east. Besides, when in Frankland a tax is imposed which closely resembles and may have been the model for our danegeld, the mansus ingenuilis pays twice as much as the mansus servilis[1724]. This suggests that the Frankish statesmen have two different typical tenements in their minds, whereas in England all the hides pay equally.

[The large hide not too large.]

No doubt at first sight 120 arable acres seem a huge tenement for the maintenance of one family. But, though the last word on this matter can not be spoken by those ignorant alike of agriculture and physiology, still they may be able to forward the formation of a sound judgment by calling attention to some points which might otherwise be neglected. In the first place, our 'acre' is a variable whose history is not yet written. Perhaps when written it will tell us that the oldest English acres fell decidedly short of the measure that now bears that name and even that a rod of 12 feet was not very uncommon. Secondly, when our fancy is catering for thriftless barbarians, we must remember that the good years will not compensate for the bad. Every harvest, however poor, must support the race for a twelvemonth. Thirdly, we must think away that atmosphere of secure expectation in which we live. When wars and blood-feuds and marauding forays are common, men must try to raise much food if they would eat a little. Fourthly, we must not light-heartedly transport the three-course or even the two-course programme of agriculture into the days of conquest and settlement. It is not impossible that no more than one-third of the arable was sown in any year[1725]. Fifthly, we may doubt whether Arthur Young was further in advance of Walter of Henley than Walter was of the wild heathen among whom the hides were allotted; and yet Walter, with all his learned talk of marl and manure, of second-fallowing and additional furrows, faced the possibility of garnering but six bushels from an acre[1726]. Sixthly, we have to provide for men who love to drink themselves drunk with beer[1727]. Their fields of barley will be wide, for their thirst is unquenchable. Seventhly, without speaking of 'house-communities,' we may reasonably guess that the household was much larger in the seventh than it was in the eleventh century. We might expect to find married brothers or even married cousins under one roof. Eighthly, there seems no reason why we should not allow the free family some slaves: perhaps a couple of huts inhabited by slaves; there had been war enough. Ninthly, the villein of the thirteenth century will often possess a full virgate of 30 acres, and yet will spend quite half his time in cultivating his lord's demesne. Tenthly, in Domesday Book the case of the villanus who holds an integral hide is by no means unknown[1728], nor the case of the villanus who has a full team of oxen. When all this has been thought over, let judgment be given. Meanwhile we can not abandon that belief to which the evidence has brought us, namely, that the normal tenement of the German settler was a hide, the type of which had 120 acres of arable, little more or less.

[The large hide and the manor.]

If we are right about this matter, then, as already said[1729], some important consequences follow. We may once and for all dismiss as a dream any theory which would teach us that from the first the main and normal constitutive cell in the social structure of the English people has been the manor. To call the ceorl's tenement of 120 acres a manor, though it may have a few slaves to till it, would be a grotesque misuse of words, nor, if there is to be clear thinking, shall we call it an embryo manor, for by no gradual process can a manor be developed from it. There must be a coagulation of some three or four such tenements into a single proprietary unit before that name can be fairly earned. That from the first there were units which by some stretch of language might be called manors is possible. The noble man, the eorl, may have usually had at least those five hides which in later days were regarded as the proper endowment for a thegn, and these large estates may have been cultivated somewhat after the manorial fashion by the slaves and freed-men of their owners. But the language of Bede and of the charters assures us that the arrangement which has been prevalent enough to be typical has been that which gave to each free family, to each house-father, to each tax-payer (tributarius) one hide and no more; but no less. Such a use of words is not engendered by rarities and anomalies.

[Last words.]

However, we would not end this essay upon a discord. Therefore a last and peaceful word. There is every reason why the explorers of ancient English history should be hopeful. We are beginning to learn that there are intricate problems to be solved and yet that they are not insoluble. A century hence the student's materials will not be in the shape in which he finds them now. In the first place, the substance of Domesday Book will have been rearranged. Those villages and hundreds which the Norman clerks tore into shreds will have been reconstituted and pictured in maps, for many men from over all England will have come within King William's spell, will have bowed themselves to him and become that man's men. Then there will be a critical edition of the Anglo-Saxon charters in which the philologist and the palæographer, the annalist and the formulist will have winnowed the grain of truth from the chaff of imposture. Instead of a few photographed village maps, there will be many; the history of land-measures and of field-systems will have been elaborated. Above all, by slow degrees the thoughts of our forefathers, their common thoughts about common things, will have become thinkable once more. There are discoveries to be made; but also there are habits to be formed.

FOOTNOTES:

[1616] See above, p. 389.

[1617] See above, p. 393.

[1618] Dr Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 79, has endeavoured to find a _via media_. To me it seems that his suggestion is open to almost all the objections that can be urged against our Big Hide, for he seems prepared to give the normal household of the oldest day its 120 acres. Mr Seebohm's adhesion to the party of the Big Hide is of importance, for I can not but think that a small hide (which afterwards was called a virgate) would have assorted better with his general theory. Conversely, it is curious that Kemble, the champion of the free ceorls, was also the champion, if not the inventor, of the Little Hide.

[1619] See above, p. 385.

[1620] D. B. i. 32 b.

[1621] K. 812 (iv. 151).

[1622] K. 986-988 (v. 14-21); B. i. 55-9, 64.

[1623] Plummer, Bede, ii. 217.

[1624] K. 917 (iv. 165).

[1625] D. B. i. 66 b, 67.

[1626] K. 355 (ii. 179).

[1627] K. 263 (ii. 35). Accepted by Kemble.

[1628] K. 174 (i. 209).

[1629] K. 24 (i. 28).

[1630] It is fair to say that the instances here given are picked instances and that the Malmesbury title to some other lands is not so exceedingly neat.

[1631] See above, p. 112.

[1632] This is so even in the case of the Kentish churches, see above, p. 466. The Chronicle of Abingdon affords good materials for comparison with D. B. As a general rule the charters will account for just about the right number of manses, if the manses are to be the hides. There are exceptions; but not more than might be fairly explained by changes such as those recorded in the following words (Chron. Abingd. i. 270):--'Fuerunt autem Witham, Seouecurt, Henstesie, Eatun membra de Cumenora temporibus Eadgari regis Angliae, habentes cassatos xxv; nunc vero Hensteseie membrum est de Bertona; Witheham et Seouecurt militibus datae; Eatun omnìmodo ablata.' See also an excellent paper by Mr C. S. Taylor, The Pre-Domesday Hide of Gloucestershire, Trans. Brist, and Glouc. Archæol. Soc. vol. xvíii.

[1633] Round, Feudal England, 44 ff.

[1634] Nasse, Agricultural Community, Engl. transl., 23-5. Seebohm, Village Community. 111.

[1635] K. 552 (iii. 35).

[1636] K. 617 (iii. 164).

[1637] Charter of Æthelwulf, K. 1057 (v. 113); T. p. 115; H. & S. 646. We should not be surprised if at least one part of the mysterious 'decimation' turned out to be an early act of 'beneficial hidation.'

[1638] Charter of Edward, K. 342 (ii. 153).

[1639] Charter of Æthelstan, K. 1113 (v. 224).

[1640] Charters of Edgar, K. 512 (ii. 401); K. 583 (iii. 111).

[1641] Writ of Æthelred, K. 642 (iii. 203).

[1642] D. B. i. 40-41.

[1643] Kitchin, Winchester, 7: 'Cenwalh built the church, the parent of Winchester cathedral ... The monks at once set themselves to ennoble toil, to wed tillage with culture; and it is interesting to note that the first endowment of the Church in Wessex fell to them in the form of a great grant of all the land for some leagues around the city, given for the building of the church.' Did the monks till the land for some leagues around the city? I think not. Was it all occupied by their serfs? I think not. What was given was a superiority. One last question:--Did the monks really ennoble toil by appropriating its proceeds?

[1644] D. B. i. 65 b: 'Episcopus Wintoniensis tenet Duntone. T. R. E. geldavit pro 100 hidis tribus minus. Duae ex his non sunt episcopi, quia ablatae fuerunt cum aliis tribus de aecclesia et de manu episcopi tempore Cnut Regis.'

[1645] K. 985 (v. 12).

[1646] K. 1036 (v. 80).

[1647] K. 342 (ii. 153).

[1648] K. 1108 (v. 211).

[1649] K. 421 (ii. 287).

[1650] K. 599 (iii. 139).

[1651] K. 698 (iii. 299).

[1652] As to the limits of Downton, see W. H. Jones, Domesday for Wiltshire, 213.

[1653] D. B. i. 31; K. 1058 (v. 114); 1093 (v. 176); 605 (iii. 149).

[1654] D. B. i. 40. Forty hides said to have been given by Cenwealla. K. 997 (v. 39); 1039 (v. 85); 1086 (v. 162); 1090 (v. 162); 601 (iii. 144).

[1655] D. B. i. 42 b. This belongs to the New Minster. In K. 336 (ii. 144) Edward the Elder is made to give 'quendam fundum quem indigenae Myceldefer appellant cum suo hundredo et appendicibus, habens centum cassatos et aecclesiam.' The territory has 100 hides and is a 'hundred.'

[1656] D. B. i. 87 b. K. 1002 (v. 44); 1051-2 (v. 99, 101); 1084 (v. 157); 374 (ii. 209); 598 (iii. 136).

[1657] They are hardly the worse witnesses about this matter for having been much 'improved.' They do not look like late forgeries. Those which bear the earliest dates seem to be treated as genuine in charters of the tenth century which are not (if anything that comes from Winchester is not) suspected.

[1658] Kemble, Saxons, i. 487; D. B. i. 87 b.

[1659] Eyton, Somerset, ii. 34.

[1660] See above, p. 499, note 1656.

[1661] Compare, for instance, the account of the estates of the Bishop of Wells, D. B. i. 89, with the charter ascribed to the Confessor, K. 816 (iv. 163). In the former we read of 50 hides at Wells; in the latter we see that these hides cover 24 villages or hamlets, each of which has its name. According to Eyton (Somerset, 24) this estate extends over nearly 22,000 acres. The Malmesbury charter, K. 817 (iv. 165) is another good illustration. Kemble's identifications were hasty and have fared ill at the hands of those who have made local researches. A few examples follow:--Keynsham, 50 H. = 3330 A. (Kemble), 11,138 A. and more (Eyton). Dowlish, 9 H. = 680 A. (Kemble), 1282 (Eyton). Road, 9 H. = 1010 A. (Kemble), 1664 (Eyton). Portishead, 11 H. = 1610 (Kemble), 2093 (Eyton). The instances that Kemble gives (vol. i. p. 106) from the A.-S. land-books are equally unfortunate. Thus he reads of 50 H. at Brokenborough, Wilts, and seeks for them all in a modern parish which has 2950 A.; but the Domesday manor of this name covered 'at least 6000 or perhaps 7000 acres' (W. H. Jones, Domesday for Wilts, p. xxvii.). In several instances Kemble tries to force into a single parish all the hides of a hundred which takes its name from that parish.

[1662] Hanssen, Abhandlungen, i. 499.

[1663] See above, p. 229, and Mr Taylor's paper there mentioned.

[1664] Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Charters, 43. Compare D. B. i. 101 b. In the Confessor's time 'Crediton' gelded for 15 hides. There was land for 185 teams, and teams to that number existed. There were 264 villeins, 73 bordiers and 40 serfs. Æthelheard's charter suggests either that in his day this part of Devon was very sparsely peopled, or that already, under a system of partitionary taxation, a small number of fiscal units had been cast upon a poor district. When at a later time Eadnoth bishop of Crediton mortgages a yardland for 30 mancuses of gold (Ibid. p. 5), this yardland will be a fiscal virgate of wide extent. See above, p. 467, note 1531.

[1665] See above, p. 445.

[1666] See above, p. 400.

[1667] See above, p. 458.

[1668] See above, p. 188.

[1669] Birch, Cart. Sax. iii. 671; Munimenta Gildhallae, ii. 627; Gale, Scriptores xv., i. 748; Liebermann, Leges Anglorum, 9. 10.

[1670] This we can not find. If Kent were included in the scheme, we should read of Canterbury, Rochester etc. Therefore we probably start in Sussex, but at some point east of Hastings. In any case, unless a name has dropped out, we can not make the five Sussex burgs correspond to the six rapes of a later day, which, going from east to west, are Hastings, Pevensey, Lewes, Bramber, Arundel, Chichester.

[1671] See the Læwe, Læwes of K. 499, 1237.

[1672] A confusion of P and W is common.

[1673] Tisbury lies between Wilton and Shaftesbury. See K. 104, 641. Mr Stevenson suggests that the word may be Cysanbyrig, thereby being meant Chiselbury Camp. This also lies in the right quarter.

[1674] Tweoxneam, A.-S. Chron. ann. 901.

[1675] See Bridian in K. 656. Bredy lies about eight miles west of Dorchester. It seems to contain a 'Kingston.'

[1676] There is a Halwell a little to the south of Totness. Already in 1018 (Crawford Charters, pp. 9, 79) the Devonshire burgs are Exeter, Lidford, Totness and Barnstaple.

[1677] Pilton lies close to Barnstaple.

[1678] A.-S. Chron. ann. 915: 'be eastan Weced.'

[1679] A little to the west of Langport; close to Athelney. A.-S. Chron. ann. 878: 'And þæs on Eastron worhte Ælfred cyning lytle werede geweorc æt Æþelinga eigge.' Green, Conquest of England, 110. Observe that a very small district is assigned to Lyng.

[1680] After seeing Oxford and Wallingford together, we should naturally expect Bedford with Buckingham. See A.-S. Chron. ann. 918-9. Or we might look for Hertford. Ibid. ann. 913.

[1681] Eashing is a tithing in the parish of Godalming. See King Alfred's will (K. 314): 'æt Æscengum.' Eashing may have been supplanted by Guildford.

[1682] Taking in the particulars the figures which seem the more probable, we make a larger total.

[1683] If Essex is meant this figure seems impossibly small. Gale gives 'Ast Saxhum et Wygeaceastrum 1200 hidas.' This may give Essex and Worcester 1200 hides apiece.

[1684] Mr Stevenson tells me that, though the document is very corrupt, some of the verbal forms seem to speak of this date.

[1685] Such a document is apt to be tampered with. Some bits of it may be older than other bits, but the reign of Edward the Elder seems the latest to which we could ascribe its core. If we compare it with the list of Domesday boroughs we shall be struck by the absence of Dorchester, Bridport, Ilchester, Totness, Hertford, Bedford and Guildford, as well as by the appearance of Burpham, Tisbury, Bredy, Halwell, Watchet, Lyng and Eashing.

[1686] See above, p. 189, note 747.

[1687] 'Heorepeburan,' Hastings, Lewes, Burpham, Chichester.

[1688] Eashing, Southwark.

[1689] Porchester, Southampton, Winchester, Twyneham.

[1690] Wallingford.

[1691] Wilton, Tisbury, Shaftesbury, Malmesbury, Cricklade.

[1692] Wareham, Bredy.

[1693] Watchet, Axbridge, Lyng, Langport, Bath.

[1694] Exeter, Halwell, Lidford, Barnstaple.

[1695] A good deal of doubt hangs over the entries touching Buckingham, Essex and Warwick.

[1696] Birch, Cartularium, i. 414; Birch, Journal Brit. Archæol. Assoc. xl. 29 (1884); Earle, Land Charters, 458; Liebermann, Leges Anglorum, 8; Stevenson, Engl. Hist. Rev., 1889, 354.

[1697] Unless the mention of Wessex is interpolated (and if it be interpolated then the grand total has been tampered with) it is difficult to suppose that 'Wiht gara 600' points to the Isle of Wight, 'Gifla 300' to the district round Ilchester, or the like. I owe this observation to Mr W. J. Corbett.

[1698] It is a little curious that if we multiply the 244,100 hides by 120 we obtain 29,292,000, a figure which is not very far off from the 32,543,890 which gives the total acreage (tidal water excepted) of modern England. However, it is in the highest degree improbable that the computer of hides was aiming at pure areal measurement. Nor could his credit be saved in that way, for the area of Kent is to that of Sussex as 975:932, not as 15:7. The total of 'cultivated land' in England is less than 25 million acres, that of arable is less than 12 million.

[1699] Bede, Hist. Eccl. ii. 9 (ed. Plummer, i. 97): '... Meuanias insulas ... quarum prior ... nongentarum lx. familiarum mensuram iuxta aestimationem Anglorum, secunda trecentarum et ultra spatium tenet.' Ibid. iii. 24 (p. 180): '... regnum Australium Merciorum, qui sunt, ut dicunt, familiarum quinque millium ... Aquilonaribus Merciis quorum terra est familiarum vii. milium.' Ibid. i. 25 (p. 45): 'Est autem ad orientalem Cantiae plagam Tanatos insula non modica, id est, magnitudinis iuxta consuetudinem aestimationis Anglorum familiarum sexcentarum (þæt is syx hund hida micel æfter Angel cynnes æhta).' Ibid. iv. 13 (p. 230): 'ad provinciam Australium Saxonum, quae post Cantuarios ad austrum et ad occidentem usque ad Occidentales Saxones pertingit, habens terram familiarum septem millium (is þæs landes seofen þusendo [hida]).' Ibid. iv. 14 (p. 237): 'Est autem mensura eiusdem insulae [Vectae] iuxta aestimationem Anglorum mille ducentarum familiarum: unde data est episcopo possessio terrae trecentarum familiarum (æfter Angel cynnes æhta twelf hund hida, and he þa þam biscop gesealde on æht þreo hund hida).' Ibid. iv. 17 (p. 246): 'Est autem Elge in provincia Orientalium Anglorum regio familiarum circiter sexcentarum (six hund hida) in similitudinem insulae.' Ibid. iii. 25 (pp. 182-3): 'donaverat monasterium quadraginta familiarum in loco qui dicitur Inrhypum.' Ibid. v. 19: 'mox donavit terram decem familiarum in loco qui dicitur Stanford, et non multo post monasterium triginta familiarum in loco qui vocatur Inrhypum (tyn hiwisca landes on þære stowe þe is cweðon Stanford ... minster xxx. hiwisca).' Ibid. iv. 13 (p. 232): 'donavit ... Uilfrido terram lxxxvii. familiarum (seofan and hund eahtig hida landes) ... vocabulo Selæseu.' Historia Abbatum (p. 380): 'terram octo familiarum iuxta fluvium Fresca ab Aldfrido rege ... comparavit ... terram xx. familiarum in loco qui incolarum lingua Ad villam Sambuce vocatur ... accepit ... Terram decem familiarum quam ab Aldfrido rege in possessionem aceeperat in loco villae quae Daltun nuncupatur ...' Hist. Eccl. iv. 21 (p. 253): 'accepit locum unius familiae ad septentrionalem plagam Uiuri fluminis (onfeng heo anes hiwscipes stowe to norð dæle Wire ðære ea).' Ibid. iii. 4 (p. 133): 'Neque enim magna est [Iona] sed quasi familiarum quinque, iuxta aestimationem Anglorum.' Ibid. iii. 24 (p. 178): 'Singulae vero possessiones x. erant familiarum, id est simul omnes cxx.'

[1700] If the 'Wiht gara 600' of The Tribal Hidage refers to Wight, we have here a discord, for Bede gives the Island 1200. The North and South Mercians have together but 1200 according to Bede; the Mercians have 30,000 according to The Tribal Hidage: but the territory of 'the Mercians' is a variable.

[1701] B. i. 4 b, 12; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 135.

[1702] See above, p. 359.

[1703] Round, Feudal England, 289.

[1704] Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 422--3; Rot. Parl. ii. 302.

[1705] Bright, Hist. Engl. ii. 386; Hall's Chronicle, ed. 1809, p. 656.

[1706] Some of them seem to start from The Tribal Hidage and take the number of hides to be 303,201 (Liebermann, Leges Anglorum, 10). Divide this by 5 to find the knight's fees. You have 60,640. In MS. Camb. Univ. Ii. vi. 25, f. 108 we find 60,215 knight's fees, 45,011 parish churches, 52,080 vills. Another note, printed by Hearne, Rob. of Avesbury, 264, gives 53,215 knight's fees, 46,822 parish churches, 52,285 vills.

[1707] Bede, Hist. Eccl. iii. 24 (p. 178): 'donatis insuper xii. possessiunculis terrarum, in quibus ablato studio militiae terrestris, ad exercendam militiam caelestem, supplicandumque pro pace gentis eius aeterna, devotioni sedulae monachorum locus facultasque suppeteret ... Singulae vero possessiones x. erant familiarum, id est simul omnes cxx.' In these villages there have been men who owed military service; they are not being ousted from their homes; they are being turned over as tenants to the church; henceforth they will no longer be bound to fight, and in consideration of this precious immunity, they will have to supply the monks with provender. That is how I read this passage. Others can and will read it to mean something very different. But if Bede were speaking of decuriae of slaves, how could there be talk of military service? The slaves would not fight, and if the slaves belonged to eorls who fought, then how comes it that Oswy can expropriate his nobles?

[1708] Hist. Eccl. iii. 4 (p. 133).

[1709] Keith Johnston, Gazetteer.

[1709] I do not suggest, nor does Bede suggest, that Hii was laid out in hides. He is speaking only of size.

[1711] Bede gives to Anglesey the size of 960 families, to Man that of 300 'or more.' Anglesey has 175,836 acres; Man 145,011. Anglesey in 1895 had 'under all kinds of crops, bare fallow and grass (mountain and heath land excluded)' 152,004 acres. Man 96,098. Anglesey had 24,798 acres growing corn crops and 9,305 growing green crops, while the corresponding figures for Man were 22,666 and 11,580. Rationalistic explanation of Bede's statements would be useless. He is reporting vague guesses.

[1712] Hist. Eccl. iv. 13 (p. 232): 'Quo tempore Rex Ædilualch donavit reverentissimo antistiti Vilfrido terram lxxxvii familiarum, ubi suos homines, qui exules vagabantur, recipere posset, vocabulo Selæsu, quod dicitur Latine Insula Vituli Marini.' Bede goes on to describe the Selsey peninsula and Wilfrid's foundation of a monastery. Wilfrid proceeded to convert the men who were given him. They included two hundred and fifty male and female slaves whom he set at liberty.

[1713] K. 992 (v. 32); B. i. 98.

[1714] K. 464 (ii. 341). The 55 hides are reduced to 42, no mention is made of Medemenige, Egesauude or Bessanheie, and the 32 hides are somewhat differently distributed.

[1715] D. B. i. 17. The Bp of Chichester has 24 hides at Amberley.

[1716] I infer this from the thorough discrepancy that there is between these charters and D. B. A forger at work after or soon before the Conquest would have arranged the church's estates in a manner similar to that which we see in King William's record.

[1717] As a matter of fact, however, it is not very easy to reconcile the earlier charter with Bede's story. The charter makes the land proceed from the West-Saxon Ceadwealla and says nothing of Æthelwealh, who, according to Bede, was the donor. Mr Plummer, Bedae Opera, ii. 226, says that the forger betrays his hand by calling Wilfrid _arch_bishop. Really he seems to cut Wilfrid into two, making of him (1) an archbishop, and (2) a bishop of the South Saxons. See the attestations.

[1718] In D. B. i. 17 the bishop's manor at Selsey has but 10 hides and but 7 teamlands.

[1719] See above, p. 378.

[1720] Meitzen, op. cit. ii. 563.

[1721] Meitzen, op. cit., ii. 553-69; iii. 557-61; Lamprecht, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben, i. 348.

[1722] Meitzen, op. cit. ii. 566. The Kalenberger Hufe was a measure prevalent in the district of Braunschweig-Lüneberg. It contained 180 Morgen or 47.147 hectares. A hide made of 120 statute acres would contain about 48.56 hectares. Apparently Dr Meitzen (ii. 113) has found no difficulty in accepting a hide of 120 acres as the normal share of the English settler. See also Lamprecht, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben, i. 348.

[1723] Polyptyque de l'abbaye de S. Germain des Prés, ed. Longnon, i. 102.

[1724] Pertz, Leges, i. 536; Ann. Bertin. (ed. Waitz) 81, 135; Richter, Annalen, ii. 400, 443; Dümmler, Gesch. d. Ostfränk. Reichs, i. 585.

[1725] Meitzen, op. cit. ii. 592-3.

[1726] See above, p. 438.

[1727] Tacitus, Germania, c. 15, 23. The very lenient treatment by Abp Theodore of the monk who gets drunk upon a festival tells a curious tale: Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 177; Robertson, Hist. Essays, 68.

[1728] Thus, e.g., D. B. i. 127, Fuleham: 'ibi 5 villani, quisque 1 hidam.'

[1729] See above, p. 360.

INDEX.

Abbots, Secular, 242

Abingdon, Church of, 254, 295, 494

Abington, Vill of, 11

Acre, 369, 373-386, 518

Acre, Fiscal, 475-490

Acreage, Medieval statements of, 392

Acreage of counties, 407

Adultery, 281

Advocatus of church, 303

Agrarian morphology, 15, 16, 222, 362

Aids of boroughs, 174-176

Aids of counties, 473

Alfred's army, 189

Alfred, Will of Ealdorman, 245

Alfred, Will of King, 254

Alienable superiority, The King's, 241, 357

Alienation, Lord's consent to, 296

Alleu, Franc, 171

Almende, 348

Alodial ownership, 154

Alodium, 153, 256

Altitonantis, 268, 452

Amber (measure), 440

Amerciamenta hominum, 277

Anathema in land books, 230, 251

Ancient demesne, 65, 167, 255

Ancillae, 34

Angild, 274, 282, 290

Anglesey, 513

Anglo-Saxon history, Fundamental questions of, 221

Arable and appurtenances, 388

Arable, Extent of, 435-441

Arable, Reallotment of, 346-8

Archiductor, 306

Arenga of A.-S. book, 243

Arepennis, 375, 467

Armingford Hundred, 11, 12, 451

Army, Constitution of the, 156-7, 308

Arpentum, 375, 467

Ascripticii, 51, 53

Aston and Cote, 354

Athelney, Fort at, 188, 503

Attestation and consent, 247-252

Augustin's, St, Canterbury, 466

Automatic adjustment of taxes, 207

Avera, 130, 138, 169, 240

Aylesbury, 180

Balk, 364

Barley, 439

Barley-corns, 369

Bath, 229, 501

Battle Abbey, 97, 281

Beasts, Number of, 441

Bede, 228, 233, 242, 251, 358, 509-515

Beds or selions, 379, 383

Beer, Consumption of, 439, 519

Benefice, Ecclesiastical, 152

Beneficial hidation, 264, 448

Beneficium, 152, 300-1

Beneficium oblatum, 75

Berewicks, 114, 333

Bergholt, 90

Berkeley, 113

Berkshire, 79, 156, 505

Bishop, Soldiers of a, 306

Bishop's cross, 251

Bishops-land, 286

Blythburg, 96

Blything, Hundred of, 96

Bodenregal, 240

Book-land, 154, 242, 244-258, 293

Boon-days, 77

Bordarii, 23-25, 38-41, 107, 363

Borough, 172-219

Boundaries in charters, 495

Bourg, The French, 214

Bovate, 395

Bracton on villeinage, 61

Brewing, 440

Bridge-work, 187

Broughton, Court at, 99

Brungar's case, 104

Buckingham, 176, 180, 196

Burbium, 214

Burgage tenure, 198

Burgesses, 179, 190

Burghal Hidage, The, 187, 455, 502-6, 515

Burh, 183-6

Burh-bót, 186-8

Burh-bryce, 183-4

Burh-geat, 184, 190

Burh-gemót, 185

Burh-grið, 88, 184

Burh-riht, 214

Burhwaras, 190

Buri, 36, 329

Bury and barrow, 183

Cambridge, 181, 187, 191, 211

Cambridgeshire, 10, 12, 13, 62, 129-139, 445, 468, 476

Cambridgeshire Inquest, 1, 10

Campus, 380

Canterbury, 89, 184, 191, 201

Canterbury, Church of, 87, 97, 228, 466

Carucage of 1198, 127

Carucate, 395, 404, 483

Casati, 335, 359

Castle guard, 151

Causa of gifts, 293

Celtic rural economy, 338

Celtic villages, 15, 222, 467

Censarii, 57

Ceorl, The, 30, 44, 58

Cervisarii, 57

Charter and writ, 262-4

Chattels of the boor, 38

Chertsey, Church of, 492

Cheshire, 458

Chester, 188, 211

Chief, Tenants in, 170

Chilcombe, 449, 496

Church-right, 229, 242

Churches, Lands of the, 227-9, 253

Churches, Ownership of, 144

Church-scot, 290, 305, 321

Civitas, 183

Classification of mankind, 23, 30, 122, 140

Cniht, 8, 191, 303, 309

Cnihts, Gilds of, 191

Cnut, Laws of, 55, 87, 239, 261, 282

Cnut's geld, 3, 55, 446

Cnut's writs, 260

Co-aration, 142, 149

Cognizance, Claims of, 93, 97, 282-293

Colchester, 198, 201

Coleness, Hundred of, 355

Coliberti, 28, 33, 36, 329

Collective liability, 208

Coloni, 51

Colonization of villages, 365, 501

Colonization under Ine, 238, 367

Comes, 8

Comital manors, 167

Commendation, 67-75, 102, 104, 326

Common fields, 15, 379

Common property of burgesses, 200

Common, Rights of, 143, 202, 348, 352

Communalism, 149, 203, 341

Community, The borough, 198, 200

Community, The village, 142-150, 340-356

Compound householders, 125

Confessor, see Edward

Conqueror, Writs of the, 266

Conquest, Norman, Effects of, 60, 135, 172

Consent of Witan, 247-252

Consuetudines, 67-8, 76-9

Continuity of hidation, 491, 509

Contract, Free, 171

Convertible husbandry, 366, 425

Conveyance in court, 323

Co-ownership, 143-4, 341

Cornage, 147

Cornwall, 410, 425, 428, 463, 467

Corporation, 204-209, 253, 341, 349, 351

Corroboration of land-books, 251

Cotarii, 23-25, 38-41

Cotlif, 334

Cotseti, 39

Cotsetla, 328

Counties, Detached pieces of, 9

Counties, Farms of, 169

Counties, Geld of, in cent. xi. 448-475

Counties, Geld of, in cent. xii. 7, 474

Counties, Populousness of, 19, 20

County Hidage, The, 455

County towns, 176

Court, Borough, 185, 210

Court, Seignorial, 91, 94, 275-8

Court, Suit of, 85, 95, 140, 322

Crediton, 113, 228, 501

Criminal and civil, 83

Criminal law and revenue, 79

Criminal law and serfage, 29, 32

Crosses on charters, 251, 262-5

Crown, Pleas of the, 82, 261, 282

Cultura, 380

Curia, 94, 110, 125

Cursing clause, 230, 262

Customary acres, 373-6

Customary land, 78

Dairy farming, 115

Danegeld, see Geld

Danelaw, The, 139

Danish influence, 139, 339, 395, 397

Day's labour, 377

Dearer birth, 163

Decuriae of slaves, 361, 512

Deer-hays, 169, 240, 307

Default of justice, 284

Default of service, 159

Defence, 123

Delegation of franchises, 84, 289

Demesne, Ancient, 65, 167

Demesne and geld, 55

Demesne, Boroughs on royal, 218

Demesne land of manor, 119

Denmark, King's feorm in, 238

Derby, 200

Derbyshire, 90, 108, 166, 427

Devastation of villages, 363

Devonshire, 116, 215, 425, 428, 463, 467

Dialogus de Scaccario, on villeinage, 53, 61

Diet of Englishmen, 440

Diplomatics, 247-252, 262-5

Dispositive and evidentiary, 263

Divine service, Tenure by, 151

Division of acres, 384

Dog-bread, 146, 440

Dominium, 224

Dominium and dominicum, 53-4

Dominium and imperium, 342

Dona of boroughs, 174-176

Dona of counties, 473

Doomsmen, 95, 97, 102, 211

Dorset, 175, 461

Double hide, 393

Dover, 193, 209

Downton, 498

Drengage, 308

Dunwich, 96

Duxford, 136

Earl, 8, 168-170

Earl, Third penny of, 95

Eashing, 503

East and West, 22, 199, 339

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 279-282

Economic grades, 41

Edmund, Abbey of St., 55, 88, 240

Edward the Confessor and the geld, 3

Edward the Confessor's charters, 259, 491

Edward the Elder builds burgs, 186, 504

Edwardi Lex, 52

Ell (measure), 372

Ely, Church of, 77, 89, 92, 162, 269

Ely, Isle of, 476, 509

Embryo manors, 139, 519

Emendable crimes, 89

Eminent domain, 342

Enfranchisement, 31

English and French, 62

Epping Forest, 356

Escheat propter defectum, 295

Escheat propter delictum, 103, 295

Essex, 35, 64, 116, 363, 430, 480

Estrays, 148

Ethel, 256

Euti, 467

Evesham, Church of, 235, 453

Exaggeration, Medieval, 510

Exchequer Domesday, 2

Exeter, 156, 201

Exon Domesday, 2

Extra-hundredal places, 9

Fallowing, 399

Familiae, Terra unius, 358

Family, Size of, 437, 519

Famine, 364, 518

Fareham, 449

Farm of manors, 62, 146

Farthingland, 479

Fealty, 59, 293

Fee farm, 152

Feet as measures, 369

Feldgrasswirtschaft, 425

Feorm, The king's, 234, 318, 324

Fertinus, 479

Festuca, 323

Feudalism, 223, 240, 307

Feudalism and clerical claims, 280

Feudalism and vassalism, 171

Feudum, 152-5, 301, 318

Field systems, 365, 425, 437, 486, 51

Fiht-wite, 88

Firma burgi, 204

Fission of vills, 14, 365, 367

Five hide unit, 121, 156-164

Fleta, 397

Flurzwang, 347

Fold-soke, 76, 91, 442

Foldworthiness, 77, 91

Folk-land, 244-258

Food of beasts, 441

Food of the nation, 436, 518

Foreign precedents, 230, 249, 321

Forensic service, 50

Forest measures, 372, 376

Forfeiture of land, 103, 295

Forfeitures, The six, 88

Franchise, 1, 43, 50, 82

Francigena, 46

Francus, 46

Frankalmoin, 151

Frankish danegeld, 518

Frankish gifts of land, 297

Frankish manors, 321

Frankish military service, 161

Freda, 278

Freedom, see Liberty

Free-holding, 46-50

Free men, see Liberi homines

Free villages, 129, 339, 352

Freizügigkeit, 42, 51

French diplomatics, 265

French law of seignorial justice, 82, 94, 284

Freóls-bóc, 270

Frigesoca, 93

Furlong, 372, 379

Fyrdwite, 159, 161

Fyrdworthiness, 160

Gablaltores, 57

Gafol-land, 44

Gebúr, 28, 36, 59, 328

Geld, 3-8, 24, 54, 120-129, 206-8, 324, 391, 408, 446-490

Geld in cent. xii. 6, 460, 474

Geld Inquests, 478

Geneat, 59, 327

Genossenschaft, 342

Geography of D. B., 9, 407

Gerefa, The, 327, 392

German burgs, 189

Gersuma, 57, 147

Gift and loan, 299, 317

Gifts of land, 293

Gilds, 191, 201

Gloucester, 182, 205

Gloucestershire, 205, 395, 412

Goad (measure), 372, 377

Goats, 442

Godwin, House of, 168

Grantham, 213

Grass-swine, 57

Halimot, 82, 86, 91

Hall, The, 109-110, 125

Hám, 332

Hamlets, 15-16

Hamton, The suit about, 85, 124, 158

Hampshire, 153, 155

Harold, Rapacity of, 168

Harrow (Middlesex), 112

Hawgavel, 204

Hawks, Prices of, 169

Haws in boroughs, 114, 182, 196

Head-penny, 33

Hearth-penny, 38

Heir-land, 257

Heming's Cartulary, 227

Henley, Walter of, 378, 397, 438, 441, 488, 519

Henry the Fowler, 189

Herdwicks, 333

Hereford, 199, 209

Heriot, 73, 155, 199, 298

Hertfordshire, 137-8

Heyford, Map of, 382

Hide, The, 336, 357-520

Hide, The, of Leicestershire, 468-470

Highways, Royal, 87

Hiwisc, 358

Hiwscipe, 358

Holtding, 355

Homage, 69

Homines dei, 275

Honour and manor, 81

Horses, 442

Hospites, 60

House communities, 349

House-peace and soke, 99

Hufe, German, 387, 515

Hundred, Elder of the, 147

Hundredal soke, 90, 94

Hundred-moot, 93, 97

Hundreds, 90, 148, 259, 267, 287, 451-5, 459

Huntingdon, 204

Husting, 211

Hyldáð, 69

Idealism, Archaic, 389

Ideas, Legal, 9, 224

Identification of parcels, 493

Immunists, 277

Immunity, The English, 270, 292

Immunity, The Frankish, 278

Inclosure of common fields, 16, 436

Ine's foster, 237

Ine's laws, 237, 320, 332

Infangennethef, 82, 276

Ingeldable carucates, 409

Inheritance, 145

Inheritance, Precarious, 309

Inland, 55, 121, 331

Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiae, 1

Inquisitio Eliensis, 1

Intercommoning of vills, 355

Intermixed manors, 136

Intermixed strips, 337

Inward, 130, 169, 240

Iona, 512

Ipswich, 211

Iron, Dues paid in, 45

Judices, 211

Jurisdiction, 101, 277

Justice, Feudal and Franchisal, 80

Justice, Seignorial, 52, 80-107, 258-292, 310

Kalenberg Hufe, 517

Kent, 360, 466, 484

Kind, Payments in, 57

King and crown, 167, 253, 300

King as immunist, 276

King as landlord, 65, 166-7

King's land, 231-258, 351

King's thegns, 162

Kingship, Elective, 254

Kinship, 349

Knight, see Cniht

Knight's fees, Number of, 511

Knight's service, 151

Königshufe, 516

Læn-land, 75, 160, 301-318

Læt, The Kentish, 27

Laeti, 27, 37

Land, Kinds of, 257

Land-books, 226-258, 261, 286-8, 520

Land-cóp, 323

Land-loans, 75

Landríca, 59, 125

Language, Legal, 225, 267

Law Latin, 267

Lawmen, 88, 211

Leases, 301-318

Leges Edwardi on township, 148

Leges Henrici on serfage, 30

" " on soke, 80

Lehn, The German, 301

Lehnrecht, 171, 311

Leicester, 156, 197, 218

Leicestershire, 409, 421, 468

Leis Williame on serfage, 51

Leominster, 56, 58

Letters patent, 263

Lewisham, 58

Lex equitandi, 305

Liberalis homo, 43, 59

Liber burgus, 217

Liberi homines, 23, 66-7, 90, 104

Liberties within boroughs, 210

Liberty, 42-47

Lincoln, 211

Lincoln, Church of, 92, 103

Lincolnshire, 90, 106, 139, 147, 428, 445

Linear measurement, 432

Little Domesday, 1

Loaf-eaters, 29

Loan and gift, 299, 317

Locus standi of villeins in court, 52

London, 174, 178, 180, 184, 191, 409

Lord and man, 67, 285-9

Lord, Duty of finding a, 70

Lord's responsibility for crime, 38

Lord's responsibility for taxes, 24, 54, 59, 122-128, 323

Lordless villages, 141, 149

Lordship and landlordship, 104, 172

Lug (measure), 372

Lyng (Somerset), 188, 503

Lysing, The Danish, 44

Mainpast, 29

Maintenance of quarrels, 71

Malmesbury, Church of, 72, 492

Man, Isle of, 513

Man-bót, 31, 54, 70

Manentes, 335, 359

Manerium, 64, 107, 500

Manor, 107-128, 326-340, 519

Manor and vill, 129-150, 334

Manorial organization, 319, 360, 391, 519

Mansa, 108, 359

Mansio, 109

Mansus indominicatus, 320

Mansus ingenuilis, 517

Mantal, Swedish, 387

Manumission, 31

Manure, 76, 442

Manusfirma, 309

Maps, 15, 16, 362, 381-3

Mark, The German, 354, 368

Market, 192-6

Marriage and wardship, 310

Marshland Fen, 367

Meadows, 348, 443

Measures, 368

Mediatization of boroughs, 212-218

Mellitarii, 57

Merchant gilds, 191

Merchet, 199

Mercia, Hides of, 507, 510

Merovingian Gaul, 224

Middlesex, 477

Migrantibus, Lex Salica de, 350

Miles, 8, 163

Military service, 156-164, 235, 273, 294

Mills, 144

Mill-soke, 77

Mixed tribunals, 275

Modern conveyances, 232

Monasticism, 325

Money rents in D. B., 57

Moneyers, 195

Moot-worthiness, 260

Morgen, 377, 516

Movability of land, 10, 13

Mufflae, 31

Mund and soke, 100

Mural houses, 188

Nation, Lands of the, 252

Nativi, 51

New vills, 14, 365, 367

Night's farm, 146, 169, 236-8, 319

Nottinghamshire, 90, 108, 127, 166, 427

Norfolk, 106, 146, 429, 483

Norman perches, 376

Norman tenures, 154

Northampton, 204, 208

Northamptonshire, 204, 457, 468

Northamptonshire Geld Roll, 2, 457

Northumberland, 7

Norwich, 192, 199, 200

Nucleated villages, 15

Oaths of thegns, 163

Oaths of villeins, 53

Oats, 439, 441

Office and property, 168

Ordeal, 281

Orwell, 63, 95, 129, 133, 136, 352

Oswald, St., 268, 289, 304-313

Oswald's law, 85, 227, 267-9, 308-310, 424

Oswy's gift, 511

Overrating and underrating, 447, 461

Ownership, Ancient and modern, 397

Ownership and superiority, 231, 342

Ownership, Limited, 299

Ox, Price of, 44, 444

Oxford, 156, 179, 188, 198, 202

Oxfordshire, 92, 169, 445, 505

Oxgang, 395

Pannage, 57, 307

Parage, 143

Pardons of geld, 8

Parishes, Modern, 12, 499

Parishes, Number of, 511

Parliamentary boroughs, 173

Partible inheritance, 145

Partitionary taxation, 120, 206, 391, 450, 480

Pasture, 143, 170, 203, 348, 442, 446

Pastus, The King's, 234, 272

Patria potestas, 349

Patronage of church, 303

Peace of borough, 184, 193

Peculium, 28

Penal stipulation, 230

Penenden, The suit at, 87

Perch (measure), 372-9, 518

Pershore, Church of, 290, 452

Persona ficta, 353, 356

Pertica, 274

Peter pence, 59, 125, 288

Petroc, Church of St., 55

Pipe Rolls, Geld in, 400, 460

Placita et forisfacturae, 84, 94

Plan of D. B., 9

Plough, 142, 373

Ploughgang, 395

Ploughing, A day's, 378

Ploughing, A year's, 398, 435

Poleham, 485

Police of vills, 147

Population, 17-22, 408, 437

Port and burh, 195

Portmen, 195, 212

Portreeve, 202

Pound and hide, 465

Precarium, 300

Prediality of serfage, 28

Prices, 44, 169, 365, 444

Priest of village, 148, 437

Protection and commendation, 70

Provender rents, 146, 236, 316, 440

Pursuit of fugitive serfs, 42, 51

Purveyance, 239

Quasi hides, 409

Radchenistres, 44, 56, 66, 305

Radmanni, 57, 305

Ramsey, Church of, 260, 319, 393

Rapes of Sussex, 409

Recedere, 47, 68, 152, 162

Rectitudines, 37, 327

Reductions of hidage, 410, 506, 510

Redemption of land, 60

Reeve of borough, 209

Regio, 167

Relief, 153, 155, 310

Rents, Money, in D. B., 57

Restraint on alienation, 296

Reveland, 169

Ribble and Mersey, Land between, 458

Ridingmen, 305, 307

Rochester, Church of, 466

Rod or perch, 372-9

Rogatio testium, 250

Roman law, 224, 303

Roman taxation, 470

Roman villa, 327, 337

Romney, 89

Rood (measure), 372, 382

Rothley, 114

Rounceys, 442

Royal boroughs, 182

Rutland, 471

Sake, 84

Sale of chattels, 147, 194

Sale of land, 47, 100, 105, 144

Sale of slaves, 33

Salica, Ownership in Lex, 347, 350

Salisbury, The oath at, 172

Sanford, Hundred of, 90

Sawston, 136, 387, 443

Scattered steads (Einzelhöfe), 15, 16, 140

Seal, 265

Secularizations, 301

Sedgebarrow, 227

Seignory over commended men, 74

Selions, 383

Selsey, 228, 234, 513

Semibos, 142

Senior and Vassus, 283, 300

Serfage, see Servi

Serfage, Transmission of, 31

Serjeanty, 151, 162

Servi, 23-25, 26-36, 325, 519

Servi, Price of, 44

Services due from book-land, 294

Services of geneat, 328-332

Services of Oswald's tenants, 306

Services of sokemen, 76

Services of villeins, 56

Sextarius, 365

Sheep, 442

Sheriff, 8, 205, 255

Sheriff, Revenues of, 169

Shots in fields, 380

Shrewsbury, 199, 207

Singulare pretium, 274

Sinuous furrows, 379

Slavery, see Servi

Socage, Tenure in, 66

Sochemanni, 23-25, 62, 66-79, 95, 104, 125-6, 134-5, 213

Soke, 67-69, 80-107, 115, 258-292

Solta et persolta, 290

Somerset, 116, 166, 177, 215, 367, 479

Southwark, 98

Square measure, 370, 432

Staffordshire, 426

Stages, Theory of normal, 345

Stamford, 199, 200, 211

Staines, 111, 181

Staninghaw, 181

Statistical Tables, 400-3

Statistics, Domesday, 399

Stipulation, 250

Stock on manors, 116, 422

Stoke by Hisseburn, 330

Strip-holding, 337, 346

Sub-commendation, 74

Subinfeudation, 155

Subsidiary liability, 126

Suburbium, 214

Suffolk, 62, 77, 106, 117, 125-6, 147, 429, 483

Suit of court, 85, 95, 140, 322

Suitors borrowed, 95, 102

Sulung, 360, 395, 466, 484

Sunbury, 111

Superficial measurement, 370, 432

Surnames of vills, 14, 365, 367

Sussex, 510, 513

Swine, 419, 442

Tacitus on land-tenure, 347

Tackley, Map of, 381

Tagwerk, 377

Tailla, 57, 147

Taunton, 87, 102, 113, 158, 214, 272, 276, 499

Team, Plough, 142, 372, 416

Teamland, 404, 418-446

Tenure, Dependent, 46, 73, 151, 154, 171, 317

Tenure in boroughs, 178

Tenure, Kinds of, 151

Terminology of D. B., 8

Terra ad unam carucam, 404, 418-446

Testamentary power, 242, 297

Teste meipso, 264

Testimony of villeins, 53

Tewkesbury, 55

Thanet, Isle of, 509

Thegn, 64-5, 160-6

Thegnage, 308

Theow, 26-36

Thing and person, 27

Third penny, 95, 170

Three field system, 365, 486

Three life leases, 303

Thumbs as measures, 369

Tidenham, 330

Tithe, 322

Torksey, 177

Township, see Vill

Township moot, 21, 350

Townsmen, 59, 140, 288

Trevs, Celtic, 15, 340

Tribal Hidage, The, 455, 506-8

Tributarii, 335, 359

Tributum, 234, 239, 272

Trinoda necessitas, 240, 270-4

Tún, 59, 110

Twelfhindi, 44

Twelve-fold bót, 290, 322

Two field system, 365, 486

Ulna, The king's, 370

Undersettles, 41

Unhidated estates, 448

Uniformity of villages, 390

Usufruct, 299

Utware, 158

Values, Domesday, 411, 444, 463-473

Vassallus, 293

Vavassores, 81

Vendible soke, 100

Verge of the palace, 184

Vicecomes, 8

Victus, The king's, 234

Vicus, 333

Vill and borough, 173, 185, 216

Vill and village, 11-21, 129-150, 346-356

Villa and vicus, 333

Villa, The Roman, 221, 327, 337

Villages, Detached portions of, 367

Villani, 23, 36-66, 125-6, 172, 324

Villani, Teams of, 416

Villani and Servi, 26, 30, 172

Vineyards, 375

Virga regalis, 375, 516

Virgate, 384-7, 391

Wallingford, 98, 176, 179, 193

Wall-work, 188

Wara, 123

Wardship and marriage, 310

Warnode, 123

Warranty of man by lord, 71

Warwick, 98, 156, 209, 218

Warwickshire, 169, 459

Washingwell, The grant of, 245, 255

Week-work, 77

Well, Wapentake of, 103

Wergild of ceorl, 44

Wergild of serf, 31

Wergild of thegn, 16

Wessex, Hides of, 507

Westminster, Church of, 111, 290, 452

Westminster Hall, 192

Wetherley, Hundred of, 95, 131

Wheat, Yield of, 437

Whittlesford, 444-5

Wicks, 115, 333

Wight, Isle of, 233, 509

Wiggenhall, 367

Wihtræd, Privilege of, 271

Wikarii, 115

Wiltshire, 175, 215, 475, 479

Winchcombe, 174, 180

Winchester, 178, 180, 182, 190-1

Winchester, Church of, 272, 331, 496-9

Wintoniensis, Codex, 331, 499

Witan, 247-252

Wites, Ecclesiastical, 281

Wites, The right to, 87, 259, 274-9

Withdrawal from lord, 47, 48, 68, 100, 142, 153, 162

Witnesses of charters, 247-252, 262-4

Wong, 380

Woods, 348, 419

Worcester, 190, 194

Worcester, Church of, 88, 158-160, 194, 227, 424, 452

Worcestershire, 88, 159, 169, 267-8, 451, 506

Words of inheritance, 297

Works and rents, 57-8, 77

Writ and charter, 262-4

Wye, Hundred of, 97

Yard, 372, 385

Yardland, 385

Yield of corn, 437, 441, 444, 519

Yoke, 360

York, 211

York, Church of, 87

Yorkshire, 139, 397, 426, 468, 486

Young, Arthur, 378, 438

=Cambridge:=

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

The 3rd note on p. 79 is referenced twice on the page. Only the second reference seems pertinent. The first instance has been removed. This occurs, presumably purposefully, in several other places, particularly in tabular data.

Punctuation which was obviously missing has been supplied. The following table lists any corrections made or possible printer errors that should be noted. The bracketed text indicates what has been removed, added or noted.

p. viii. deme[ns]e/deme[sn]e Corrected.

p. 96 ad tercium denarium.['] Added.

p. 121 such [as] we are familiar with sic

p. 128 [']in Berningham a free man Added.

p. 200 we read ["/']Lagemanni et burgenses Corrected.

p. 391 in the thirteenth century when[,] we begin Deleted.

p. 396 terrae et 1 virg.['] Added.

p. 440 Domesday of St. Paul's, 164[*] Purpose of Note 1448 asterisk?

p. 448 royal estates do not stand alone[.] Added.

p. 552 Deme[ns]e/Deme[sn]e Corrected.