Chapter XIII: XIV XV XVI (6)

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