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 (6s. 8d.) that they pay by way of gift on two different occasions early in the reign of Henry of Anjou[1547].

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 1¹⁄₂ 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 = 1¹⁄₂ 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].

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 41¹⁄₂ 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. 3s. 8d. 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. 19s. 6d. 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. 11s. 0d.[1564]; but they should have paid £4. 10s. 9d., if four virgates make a hide. Thrice over we are assured that 64¹⁄₂ H. paid £19. 6s. 10d.[1565]. All suppositions as to acres and virgates apart, 64¹⁄₂ H. should have paid £19. 7s. 0d 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 3d., sometimes 4d., sometimes 4²⁄₃d., sometimes 5d., sometimes 6d. 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 + 4¹⁄₂ H. - 4 A. + 3¹⁄₂ 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 2³⁄₄ 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

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 15¹⁄₂ 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 ‘x¹⁄₂ 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 S^t. Martin [i.e. the land which belongs to the communitas of the canons of S^t. 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 400¹⁄₂ or more probably 450 acres, which are rated at 2¹⁄₂ 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 5¹⁄₂ 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 91¹⁄₄ while the sum of the teamlands is 91³⁄₄. 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 35¹⁄₂; the total valet of the whole fifteen estates was £7. 1s., 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 2b. 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 = 4B. 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.

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.

§ 3. 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 S^t. 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 S^t. 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 S^t. 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:—

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]?