Chapter VI: Part I: Territorial Studies (3)

The subject that I now approach is one of the highest interest. I propose to adduce for my theory convincing corroborative evidence by showing that the part which is played in the hidated district of England by the five-hide unit is played in the Danish districts by a unit of six carucates. In other words, where we look in the former for 'v. hidæ', we must learn to look in the latter for 'vi. carucatæ terræ'.

One must dissociate at the outset this six-carucate unit from the 'long hundred', or _Angelicus numerus_, with which Mr Pell confused it. In Mr Stevenson's instructive article on 'The Long Hundred and its use in England',[132] he has clearly explained that this reckoning only applied to a whole hundred, which, if a 'long' hundred, was really 120. Any lesser number was reckoned in our usual manner. This is seen at once in the test passage at Lincoln (D.B., i. 336_a_), where 1,150 houses are reckoned as 'novies centum et lxx.', because 'hic numerus Anglice computatur, id est centum pro cxx'.[133] The persistence, in Lincolnshire, of the long hundred is well shown in the _Inquisitiones post mortem_ on Robert de Ros, 1311, among those printed by Mr Vincent.[134] We there read of 'c. acre terra arrabilis per majorem centenam que valent per annum lx. s. prec' acre vj. den.', at Wyville and Hungerton (on the border of Leicestershire); while at Claxby and Normanby (in the north of the county) we have 'cc. acras per minorem centenam et valent c. s. prec' acre vj. d.' Again, at Gedney (in the south-east), we have 'cc. acre terre arrabilis per majus centum et valent per annum xxiiij. li'. prec' acre ij. s. et iiij^{xx.} acre prati et valet per annum viij. li., prec' acre ij. s. Et cxiij. acre pasture per majus centum et valent per annum ix. li. xix. s. vi. d. prec' acre xviij. d.' On the same property there were due 'ccciiij^{xx.} opera autumpnalia cum falcis, et valent xxxvj. s. viij. d., prec' operis j. den.', so that these also were reckoned by the long hundred.

Mr Stevenson was not aware of this evidence, but admitted that as the Domesday passage refers to 'such a Danish stronghold as Lincolnshire, it is not free from the suspicion of Danish influence'. His own evidence from a sixteenth-century rental[135] is subject to a similar criticism. For the general use, therefore, of the 'long hundred' in England he is compelled to rely on the _Dialogus de Scaccario_ and Howden's description of the new survey of 1198, the 'hide or ploughland' being described in both cases as of a hundred acres, where the 'hundred' must have meant 120. But I venture to think that the use of this reckoning for the ploughland, or archaic 'hide', does not establish its general employment. In Domesday, certainly, it is only at Lincoln that we find it actually recognized, houses being reckoned everywhere else on the usual system.

I think, therefore, that we fairly may hold the _Anglicus numerus_, or long hundred, to have specially prevailed in the 'Danish' districts, which were also assessed, we shall find, in sums of six and twelve. But what was the boundary of this Danish district? It was not the border between Mercia and Wessex, for Mercia was itself divided between the 'six' and the 'five' systems.[136] Of the two adjacent Mercian shires, for instance, of Leicester and Warwick (afterwards united under one sheriff), we find the latter decimal and the former duodecimal. The military service of Warwick and Leicester was arranged on the same method, yet Leicester sent _twelve_ 'burgesses' to the fyrd where Warwick sent _ten_. But, it may be urged, the two shires were divided by the Watling Street, the boundary (under the peace of Wedmore) of Danelaw. Was then the Danelaw the district within which the systems prevailed? No, for the Danelaw, under this treaty, included all Cambridgeshire and other hidated districts. The answer, therefore, which I propound is this: The district in which men measured by carucates, and counted by twelves and sixes, was not the district which the Danes _conquered_, but the district which the Danes _settled_, the district of 'the Five Boroughs'.

Dependent on these 'Five Boroughs' were the four shires of Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln. For two of the Boroughs, Lincoln and Stamford, both belonged to this last shire, which was, indeed, the stronghold of the system.[137] Between Stamford and Cambridge we have the same contrast as between Warwick and Leicester, for while Cambridge was divided into _ten_ wards ('custodiæ'), Stamford was divided into _six_. Lincolnshire, as I have said, was the stronghold of the system, and it is in Lincoln itself that we find Domesday alluding _eo nomine_ to the _Anglicus numerus_, the practice of counting 120 as 100.

Now in the peculiar district of which I am treating there occurs an important formula which covers Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Notts. Domesday has nothing like it for the other parts of England. Here are the three passages in which we find it recorded:

LINCOLNSHIRE YORKSHIRE DERBY AND NOTTS

Pax manu regis vel Pax data manu regis In Snotingehamscyre
sigillo ejus data, vel sigillo ejus, et in Derbin scyre
si fuerit infracta, si fuerit infracta, pax regis manu vel
emendatur per regi solummodo sigillo data, si
xviii. hundrez. emendatur per xii. fuerit infracta,
Unumquidque hundret hundrez, unumquidque emendatur per xviii.
solvit viii. libras. hundret viii. libras. hundrez, unumquidque
Duodecim hundrez Pax a comite data et hundret viii. libras.
emendant regi et vi. infracta a quolibet Hujus emendationis
comiti.--i. 336_b._ ipsi comiti per vi. habet rex ii. partes,
hundrez emendatur, comes terciam. Id est
unumquidque viii. xii. hundred emendant
libras--i. 298_b._ regi et vi. comiti--i.
280_b._

For comparison with these three passages we may turn to the charter of immunities confirmed to York Cathedral by Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II. We there read:

Si quis enim quemlibet cujuscumque facinoris aut flagitii
reum et convictum infra atrium ecclesiæ caperet et retineret,
universali judicio vi. _hundreth_ emendabit; si vero infra
ecclesiam xii. _hundreth_ infra chorum xviii. ... _In
hundreth_ viii. _libræ continentur_.[138]

As there were _twelve_ carucates in the 'Hundred', so it paid _twelve_ marcs, which, if we can trust the above explanation, themselves came to be termed a 'Hundred'. Moreover, the 'Hundreds' themselves were grouped in multiples of _six_. So too the Yorkshire thegn who held _six_ Manors or less paid three marcs to the sheriff; if he held more than six, _twelve_ marcs to the king (_Domesday_, i. 289_b_).

It is a special feature of the 'Danish' district that each territorial 'Hundred' contained twelve 'carucatæ terræ'. This point is all-important. Just as a 'Hundred' to an Anglo-Saxon suggested one hundred 'hides', so to the Danes of this district it suggested twelve 'carucates'. Nay, to the men of Lincolnshire there could be no more question that twelve carucates made a 'Hundred' than there could be now, among ourselves that twelve pence make a shilling. If we turn to the Lindsey Survey,[139] a generation later than Domesday, we obtain proof to that effect. We find that Survey, in three instances, adding up all the estates of a tenant within a Wapentake, and giving us the result in 'Hundreds' and 'carucates'. Here are the actual figures:

_Car._ _Bov._ _Car._ _Bov._ _Car._ _Bov._

2 4 12 0 12 0
2 0 10 0 11 4
2 4 10 6 3 0
11 0 8 0 1 0
5 0 6 0 2 0
11 0 1 4 3 0
8 6 0 4 3 4
1 0
0 6
2 0
1 6
-------- -------- ----------
H. 3 6 6[140] H. 4 0 6[141] H. 3 5 4[142]

Now we must observe that these 'Hundreds' are not _districts_ with 'a local habitation and a name'; they are merely sums of twelve carucates produced by compound addition. We further find, at the head of the survey of each Wapentake, a note that it is reckoned to contain so many 'Hundreds', with the explanation, in some instances that in each 'Hundred' were 'xii. carucatæ terræ'.[143] But even here the real unit is shown to be 'six carucates', for several Wapentakes contain an odd 'half-hundred', while in that of Horncastle this is actually entered as 'six carucates'.

Here are the nineteen Wapentakes, with the number of Hundreds assigned to each, and the number of 'carucatæ terræ' that such Hundreds would imply:

West Trithing

_Wapentake_ _Hundreds_ _Car. terr._

Manley []-1/2
Aslacoe 7-1/2 90
Lawress 12 144
Corringham 5 60
Axholme 4 48
Well 7 84

North Trithing

Walshcroft 8 96
Haverstoe 7-1/2 90
Bradley 3-1/2[144] [and 3 bov.] 42-3/8
Ludborough 3 36
Yarborough 14 168
Bolingbroke 8 96
Gartree 6 72

South Trithing

Candleshoe 10 120
Calceworth 10 120
Wraghoe 9 108
Hill 6 72
Lothesk 10 120
Horncastle 6-1/2 78

All the above, it will be seen, are multiples of the six-carucate unit. That the aggregate of recorded 'carucatæ terræ' appears to differ, though slightly, from the totals here given only shows how vain is the argument that, because the recorded aggregates of Hundreds may often be uneven figures, there could therefore have been no system at work such as I contend there was. Clerical error and special alterations have both to be allowed for.

It has never, so far as I know, been pointed out that these Lindsey Trithings were so arranged as to contain an approximately equal number of 'Hundreds'. So far as it is possible now to reckon them, the South Trithing contained 51-1/2, the North Trithing 51-1/2, and the West Trithing 49-1/2. Fifty 'Hundreds' would represent 600 _carucatæ_; and it is, to say the least, a singular coincidence that, in the archaic territorial list that has hitherto baffled investigation, the North Gyrwa, South Gyrwa, and Spalda are reckoned each at 600 hides.[145]

I shall now give some instances of Lindsey townships assessed on the basis of the six-carucate unit:

_Car._ _Bov._

Willoughton 3 5-1/2
" 2 2-1/2
--------------
6 0

Faldingworth 2 4
" 1 0
" 2 4
-------------
6 0

Reepham 0 4
" 0 6
" 4 6
-------------
6 0

Thoresway 0 2
" 5 6
-------------
6 0

Benniworth 2 4
" 3 4
-------------
6 0

Thorganby 1 7
" 0 5
" 1 6
" 0 6
" 1 0
-------------
6 0

Beelsby 4 4
" 1 0
" 0 4
-------------
6 0

Riby 1 4
" 4 4
-------------
6 0

Rigsby 3 6
" 2 2
-------------
6 0

South Kelsey 4 4
Thornton le Moor 1 4
-------------
6 0

These instances will illustrate the value of the Lindsey Survey in enabling us to group the fractional assessments which appear in Domesday Book. Here are some other varieties:

_Car._ _Bov._

Dunholm 5 3
" 2 5
" 2 0
" 2 0
-------------
12 0

Glentham 3 0
" 0 10
Glentham and Caenby 7 6
-------------
12 0

Scotton 0 4
" 0 4
" 2 0
" 6 0
-------------
9 0

Irby-on-Humber 1 4
" 1 0
" 0 4
-------------
3 0

Somerby 2 4
" 0 6
-------------
3 0

Barrow-on-Humber 11 0
" 1 0
-------------
12 0
-------------

South Elkington 4 0
" 8 0
-------------
12 0

Winteringham 11 0
" 1 0
-------------
12 0

Nun Ormsby 2 2
" 4 4
" 2 2
-------------
9 0

Croxby 0 3
" 0 5
" 1 0
" 1 0
-------------
3 0

Worlaby 2 2
" 0 6
-------------
3 0

Lastly, to complete the parallel with the Leicestershire Hundreds _infra_, we may take this case (_cf._ p. 65, note 122):

Claxby and Well 14
Claxby 10
--
24

Precisely the same system prevailed in Holland as in Lindsey, for the 'Testa de Nevill' preserves for us the constituents of a Holland Wapentake, that of 'Elhou':

Pinchbeck 12
Spalding 12
Weston 6
Moulton 6
Whaplode and Holbeach 18
Fleet 6
Gedney 8} 12
Lutton 4}
Sutton 9-3/4} 12
Tydd 2-1/4}
----
84

The Lindsey Survey would describe such a Wapentake as containing 'Seven Hundreds'.

Crossing the border from Lincolnshire into Rutland (_i.e._ the Rutland of Domesday), we find the same system at work that meets us in the Lindsey Survey. We read:

In Alfnodestou Wapent' sunt ii. Hundrez. In unoquoque [sunt]
xii. carucatæ ad geldum.... In Martinesleie Wap' est i.
hundret, in quo xii. carucatæ ad geldum.--_D.B._, i. 293_b._

On analysing the contents of these Wapentakes, we find this statement fully borne out, the former containing twenty-four, and the latter twelve, 'carucatæ terræ'. These are carefully contrasted throughout with the 'terra carucæ' or areal measure.[146]

In Yorkshire, Notts and Derby, we have less direct evidence. Sawley, in Derbyshire, has indeed been alleged to be entered in Domesday as a Hundred of twelve carucates, but Domesday does not justify this assertion being made.[147] I would rather trust to the notable formula, which, as I explained at the outset, is common to these counties for proof that they also were arranged in 'Hundreds' of twelve carucates.

The prevalence, however, of assessment by sixes, threes, and twelves, meets us on every side, as does, in hidated districts, the assessments by fives and tens. At the outset, for instance, of the survey of Yorkshire we have the district 'gelding' with the city assessed at eighty-four (12×7) carucates (which would be described in Lincolnshire as seven 'Hundreds'). We have two lists of the details, which are given here.[148]

_Car. terræ_ _Car. terræ_

Archbishop 6 Archbishop 6
Osboldeuuic 6 Osboldeuuic 6
Stocthun 6 Stochetun 6
Sa'bura 3 Sa'bure 3
Heuuarde 6 Heuuorde 6
Ditto 3
Fuleford 10 Fuleforde 10
Round the City 3 Round the City 3
Cliftune 18 Cliftune 18
Roudclif 3 Roudeclif 3
Ouertun 5 Ouertune 5
Sceltun 9 Scheltune 9
Mortun 3 Mortune 3
Wichistun 1 Wichintun 3
---- ----
'84' '84'

These lists have a value independent of their illustration of the arrangement in threes and sixes. They show how Domesday breaks down, when it supplies a check upon its own evidence, by failing to make its details agree with its total; and they further show by the discrepancy between them how easily error may arise, and how rash it must be to argue from a single case.[149]

Yorkshire presents other traces, in its Hundreds, of the same system. Thus the townships in the Hundred of 'Toreshou' follow one another in this order: 18, 18, 20, 6, 18, 8, 12, 12 (8+4), 6, 18, 8, 18, etc. (_infra_, p. 80).

But my strong evidence is found in an invaluable survey of Leicestershire, unknown till now to historians,[150] which does for the carucated districts just what the _Inq. Com. Cant._ does for the hidated ones. Here we find the townships grouped in small blocks of from six to twenty-four 'carucatæ terræ', as a rule with almost monotonous regularity. And these blocks are further combined in small local Hundreds, of which the very existence is unknown to historians and antiquaries,[151] and which are usually multiples, like the Lincolnshire Wapentake, of the six-carucate unit.

It will be remembered that in the case of Cambridgeshire, I selected for my first two examples a Hundred of 50 hides, composed of 5 Vills assessed at 10 hides each, and a Hundred of 70 hides, composed of 7 Vills, assessed at 10 hides each. In Leicestershire, precisely in the same manner, I shall begin with the simplest forms and select Hundreds of 36 and 48 carucates, composed of Vills uniformly assessed at 12 carucates each.

HUNDRED OF SCALFORD

Scalford 12 (11-1/2 + 1/2)
Goadby 12 (6 + 6)
Knipton 12 (8-3/4 + 3-1/4)
----
36

HUNDRED OF KIBWORTH

Kibworth (Beauchamp) 12
Kibworth (Harcourt) 12
'Bocton' 12
Carlton 12 (10 + 1-1/4 + 3/4)
----
48

From these we may advance to other combinations:

HUNDRED OF HARBY

Harby and Plungar 18
Stathern 18
----
36

HUNDRED OF TONG

Tong 12
Kegworth 15} 18
Worthington 3}
'Dominicum' 12
----
42

HUNDRED OF LANGTON

Langton (1) } { 14-1/2 (11-1/4 + 3-1/4)
Thorp (Langton) } 24 { 3-3/4
Langton (2) } { 5-3/4

Tur Langton } { 12
Shangton } 24 { 12 (10 + 2)
----
48

With these types as clues we are in a position to assert that where the total assessment of a Hundred varies but slightly from a multiple of six, there must have been some slight error in one of the figures. Thus Hundreds of 35-1/2, 34-13/16 carucates, etc., may be safely assumed to have been Hundreds of 36 carucates; those of 41, 43-7/8, etc., would be of 42 carucates; those of 48-7/8, 50, etc., would be of 48 carucates. These slight discrepancies, precisely as in Lincolnshire, are accounted for by Vills of 6 or 12 carucates, being entered as of 5-7/8, 5-13/16, 6-3/4, or 11-7/8, 13, etc. Thus:

HUNDRED OF EASTWELL

_Vills_ _Carucates_
Eastwell 12 (2 + 6 + 4)
Eaton 12-1/4 (3-1/4 + 9/16 + 8-7/16)
Branston 12 (7-1/2 + 4-1/2)
-------
36-1/4

The most usual Leicestershire Hundreds are those of 36, 42, and 48 carucates, which, be it observed, would be described in the language of the Lindsey Survey as 'Wapentakes' of 3, 3-1/2, and 4 'Hundreds' respectively. The name may be different: the thing is the same.[152]

It will have been seen by this Survey that the 'Vills', single or grouped, were assessed precisely as in Cambridgeshire, save that there the assessment was reckoned in fives and tens, while here it was in sixes and twelves.

VIII. THE LEICESTERSHIRE 'HIDA'

The case of Leicestershire introduces us to a very curious point. Leicestershire is not one of those counties to which the singular formula that I discussed above refers. This suggests that it was not arranged in 'Hundreds' of twelve carucates. The above Survey confirms this, for it shows us Hundreds resembling in character those found in the hidated districts. But although the twelve-carucate unit of the 'Hundred' is not found in Leicestershire, we do find in it a group-unit, and that unit is the _hida_. Just as we have seen the Hundred used in two wholly different senses, so also was the 'hida'. The quite peculiar way in which 'hida' occurs in Leicestershire (which was not a hidated but carucated district) completely baffled Mr Eyton, and was misunderstood by Mr Pell.[153] Both writers failed to observe not only that the use of 'hida' is here of a peculiar character, but also that the normal 'hida' of Domesday (from which they could not emancipate themselves) would be quite out of place in this carucated district.

The first point to grasp is that this Leicestershire 'hida' was a term which, locally I mean, explained itself. It is used at least a dozen times in the Survey of Leicestershire without any mention of its contents. Those contents must have been, therefore, familiar and fixed. But what were those contents? Three incidental notices enable us to determine them:

231 (_a_), 2: 'Ibi est i. hida et iiii^{ta.} pars i. hidæ. Ibi
sunt xxii. car' terræ et dimidia.'

236 (_a_), 1: 'II. partes unius hidæ, id est xii. car' terræ.'

237 (_a_), 2: 'II. partes unius hidæ, id est xii. car' terræ.'

Just as the 'Hundred' of Lincolnshire was a sum of twelve carucates, so the 'Hide' of Leicestershire was a sum of _eighteen carucates_.[154] Working in the light of this discovery (for as such I claim it), we find that the other 'hides', thus interpreted, give us an aggregate of 'carucates' obviously suitable to the recorded ploughlands.[155] It may, however, be fairly asked why Domesday should speak in one place of half a 'hide', and in another of nine 'carucates'; in one place of a hide and a third, and in another of twenty-four carucates. The answer is that the singular love of variety which distinguishes Domesday in Cambridgeshire (as we saw) is at work here also. For instance, two equal estates are thus described: 'Willelmus iiii. car' terræ et dimidiam et iii. bovatas, et Rogerus iiii. car' terræ et vii. bovatas' (fo. 234_a_). The same instinct which led the scribe to enter these seven bovates as half a carucate _plus_ three bovates, led him also to enter ten and a half carucates as half a hide _plus_ a carucate and a half (fo. 237_a_).

But to the rule I have established there is a single exception. We read of 'Medeltone' in this shire: 'Ibi sunt vii. hidæ et una carucata terræ et una bovata. In unaquaque hida sunt xiiii. carucatæ terræ et dimidia' (fo. 235_b_). The actual formula employed is unique for the shire, and the figures are specially given as an exception. But, with singular perversity, Domesday students have always been inclined to pitch upon the exceptions as representing the rule, forgetting that it was precisely in exceptional cases that figures had to be given. In normal cases they would have been superfluous.

Several years have elapsed since I wrote the above explanation, but I have decided to publish it exactly as it originally stood. In the meanwhile, however, Mr Stevenson has dealt with the subject in an article on 'The Hundreds of Domesday: the Hundred of Land' (1890).[156] He has advanced the ingenious theory that the Leicestershire 'hida' was only a clerical error for H[undred], and that it was really that 'Hundred' of _twelve_ carucates which we meet with in the Lindsey Survey. To prove this, he reads an entry on 236_a_, 1, as 'Ogerus Brito tenet in Cilebe de rege ii. partes unius hidæ, id est xii. car[ucatæ] terræ', and claims that this gloss defines the 'hida' as a 'hundred' of twelve carucates. I confess that to me such a rendering is in the highest degree non-natural. If we speak of 'two-thirds of a yard, that is twenty-four inches', we should clearly imply that the yard itself was thirty-six inches, not twenty-four. Similarly, I claim to render the 'gloss' as implying that the 'hida' itself contained eighteen carucatæ, not twelve.[157] If I am right, Mr Stevenson's suggestion that this 'hida' was really a 'Hundred' also falls to the ground.

After careful study of the Domesday Survey of Leicestershire, I definitely hold that in that county 'carucata terræ' was the geld-carucate and 'terra _x_ car[ucis]' the actual ploughlands.[158] Now there are only three instances in which the Survey records the assessment both in terms of the 'hida' and in 'carucatæ terræ', and in all three the figures support my own theory. The Abbot of Coventry's Burbage estate (231_a_, 2), where a 'hide' and a quarter equates 22-1/2 'carucatæ terræ', is a test-case, and Mr Stevenson there takes refuge in a suggested 'beneficial hidation'. The exact formula, no doubt, is peculiar, but reference to the text shows that 's[un]t' has been interpolated between 'ibi' and 'xxii.' I suspect that the scribe had written 'ibi' (from the force of habit) when he ought to have written 'id est'.

I close this portion of my essay by applying my own theory to the case of 'Erendesbi' (Arnesby). The relative entries are:

'Episcopus Constantiensis tenet in Erendesber iii^{as.}
car[ucatas] terræ et dim. et unam bovatam (231).'

'W[illelmus] Pevrel tenet dim. hidam et iii. bovatas terræ in
Erendesbi (235).'

Put into figures they work out:

_Car._ _Bov._

Bishop of Coutances 2-1/2 1
William Peverel 9 3
------------
12 0

So that Arnesby was a typical Vill assessed at twelve carucates.[159]

IX. THE LANCASHIRE 'HIDA'

There is one other case of a peculiar 'hide' in Domesday. This is that which is found in the land 'between Ribble and Mersey', that district of which the description offers so many peculiarities. We find it divided into six hundreds, and of the 'hides' in the first, that of (West) Derby, we read: 'In unaquaque hida sunt vi. carucatæ terræ' (i. 269_b_). Whether or not that explanation applies, as is believed, to the whole district, we have here again a 'Danish' place-name brought into direct relation with the six-carucate unit. On the opposite bank of the Mersey lay the Wirral peninsula, in which this system of assessment cannot be traced.

Mr Green alluded to the Danish 'byes' as found, by exception, 'about Wirral in Cheshire',[160] and held that Norsemen from the Isle of Man had founded 'the little group of northern villages which we find in the Cheshire peninsula of the Wirral'.[161] I cannot find them myself. In his 'Notes on the Domesday Survey, so far as it relates to the Hundred of Wirral'[162] (1893), Mr Fergusson Irvine, in a paper which shows, though somewhat discursive, how much can only be done by intelligent local research, has collated all the Domesday entries. 'Raby' is the one place I can there find in the peninsula with the 'bye' termination; while out of fifty-one entries twenty refer to places with the English termination 'tone', and the Anglo-Saxon test-words 'ham' and 'ford' are found in four others. There were, doubtless, Norse elements in the peninsula, but they were not strong enough to change the place-names or divide the land on their own system. In the same way, Chester had its 'lawmen', though it was not one of the Five Boroughs, nor is what I have termed the Scandinavian formula applied to Cheshire in Domesday. So, too, there were lawmen at Cambridge, and their heriot included eight pounds,[163] which occur in the above formula as the twelve marcs of the Danish 'Hundred'. Yet the whole system of Cambridgeshire was non-Danish. It was only, in short, where the northern invaders had settled down as a people that they were strong enough to divide the land anew and organize the whole assessment on their own system.

X. THE YORKSHIRE UNIT

We have seen that the unit of assessment for the carucated districts of England was 'vi. carucatæ terræ', just as five hides was the old unit in the south. We have also seen that the former reckoning extended over those districts which the Danish immigrants had settled. There remains the question whether the Danes had merely substituted six for five in the pre-existing arrangement, or had made a wholly new one for themselves based on actual area.

It is _primâ facie_ not probable that they can have adopted the latter course, for the uniformity of their assessment proves its artificial character. Yet, in his remarkable paper on 'The Ploughland and the Plough',[164] Canon Taylor has arrived at the conclusion that:

The geldable carucate of Domesday does not signify what the
carucate usually signifies in other early documents. The
'carucata ad geldum' is not as commonly stated by Domesday
commentators, the quantity of land ploughed in each year by
one plough, but it is the quantity tilled in one year _in one
arable field_ by one plough.[165]

This 'novel and important proposition', as its author truly described it, was probably the most notable contribution to our knowledge that the Domesday Commemoration produced. The Canon's theory, which (so far as his own East Riding is concerned) he certainly seems to have established, is, at first sight, fatal to mine. But, on the other hand, my own theory can be proved no less clearly for Leicestershire, where the 'carucata terræ' and the ploughs are often connected in about the same ratio as in Yorkshire.[166] This leads us to inquire whether, even in the East Riding (where his theory works best), we may not find traces of that assessment by the six-carucate unit which I advocate myself. Such traces in Yorkshire we have already seen,[167] but there is other and stronger evidence.

If we take the modern Wapentake of Dickering (the first on Canon Taylor's list) and examine its three Domesday Hundreds of Turbar, Hunton, and Burton, we obtain these results:[168]

TURBAR HUNDRED

Hundemanebi 24
Ricstorp, Mustone, Scloftone, and Neuton 18
Flotemanebi 6
Muston and Neuton 6
Fordun and Ledemare 6
Burton, Fulcheton, and Chelc 30
Chelc (2), Ergone, Bringeham, Estolf,
Fodstone, and Chemelinge 19
Nadfartone 23-3/4
Pochetorp 6
Helmeswelle and Gartune 44

HUNTON HUNDRED

Flaneburg and Siwardbi 24-1/2
Marton 9
Bredinton 18
Hilgertorp 6
Wivlestorp and Basingebi 12
Frestintorp 9 }
Eleburne 1/2 } 29-1/2
Eston 6 }
Bovintorp 14 }
Gerendele 12
Ricton, Benton and Spetton 24
Bocheton 12
Fleuston 14 }
Stactone 6 } 27
Foxhole 7 }

BURTON HUNDRED

Burton 12
Grenzmore (4+2) 6
Arpen (4+8) 12
Chillon (30+11+7) 48
Roreston (9+3) 12
Logetorp (1-1/2+5-1/2) 7 }
Thirnon 7 }
Ascheltorp (4+2) 6 } 36
Torp 3 }
Cherendebi 13 }
Caretorp (5+4+3) 12
Rodestain (8+8+8) 24
Twenc 17-1/4
Suauetorp 9
Fornetorp (4+14) 18
Butruid 12
Langetou (9+6) 15 }
Buitorp 5 }
Bruneton 3 } 42
Galmeton 8 }
Binneton 6 }
Widlaueston 5

The evidence of this last Hundred is so overwhelming that it cannot be gainsaid.[169]

I claim, therefore, that my theory holds good even in Canon Taylor's stronghold, but I do so without venturing to dispute the accuracy of his own. How far they can be reconciled I leave to others to decide.

There are certain difficulties, however, which his brilliant suggestion must raise. It is the essence of his theory that in a two-field Manor the ploughland of 160 acres (half fallow) was assessed at _one_ 'carucata terræ', while in the three-field Manor the ploughland of 180 acres (a third fallow) was assessed at _two_. This would be an obvious and gross injustice. Again, remembering that, according to the Canon, the proportion of 'carucatæ' to ploughlands should be either 2 to 1 or 1 to 1, what are we to make of such figures as these, taken at a venture from a page of the Leicestershire Survey (232_a_, 1):

_Carucatæ_ _Ploughlands_ _Carucata_ _Ploughlands_

1 2 12 8
1 1/2 11-1/8 7
2 1 9 4
5-5/8 4 7 6
2 1 6 5
2-5/8 4 2 4
1 1 10 7
6 4 9 6
8-7/8 6 5/8 1/2
1/2 1/2 6 4 (thrice)
28 22 4-7/8 3

It is certainly difficult to discover any regular or consistent assessment in a system where the ploughland was represented by anything from 1/2 _carucata_ to 2-1/4 _carucatæ_. There is, however, in so many cases an approximation to an assessment of three _carucatæ_ for two ploughlands, that there seems to have been some underlying idea, if we could only trace it out. But for this there is needed a special investigation of all the carucated counties, a work of great labour and requiring local co-operation. If we could have tables for each county, arranged Hundred by Hundred and Vill by Vill, showing in parallel columns the ploughland and the _carucatæ ad geldum_, we could then, and only then, venture to speak positively. Till that is accomplished we are not in a position to explain how a system of assessment, based on actual area, could result in aggregate assessments uniformly expressed in terms of the six-carucate unit.

XI. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

In seeking a clue to the origin of that artificial assessment, of which the traces, whether more or less apparent, linger on the pages of Domesday, I propose to exclude the carucated district, because we require, as I have said, more complete evidence as to the system pursued within it, and because, being associated with the settlement of the Danes it represents a later introduction, while the very name 'carucate', as I observed in _Domesday Studies_, has, unlike the mysterious 'hide', an obvious connection with the ploughland. Confining ourselves to the district assessed in terms of the 'hide', we seek to learn the origin of the system by which, as I contend, it was divided for the purpose of taxation into blocks, each of which was expressed in terms of the five-hide unit.

Now if we follow the clue afforded by the Cambridgeshire evidence, and hold that the assessment was originally laid not on the Manor, nor even on the Vill, but on the Hundred as a whole,[170] it might be suggested that the Hundred itself subdivided the amount among its constituent elements. In practice, indeed, from the nature of the case, this principle must have prevailed in every _town_ assessed at a Hundred or Half-Hundred, for where an urban community was assessed in 'hides' the burgesses must, as in later days, have settled among themselves the proportion to be borne by individuals or individual properties. If, then, they were able to do this, and if, as I hold, town and country were assessed on the same principle, as part of the same system, what was to prevent their neighbours, in the court of the rural Hundred, similarly distributing among its constituents their respective shares of the common burden?

We might even be tempted to go far further than this, and to carry our discoveries to a logical conclusion. If, as is asserted, direct taxation ('geld') began in England with the need for raising money to buy off the Danes, let us ask ourselves how the Witan would proceed when confronted with a demand, let us say, for £10,000. As there had been hitherto, _ex hypothesi_, no direct taxation, there would be no statistical information at their disposal, enabling them to raise by a direct levy the sum required. Their only possible resource, we might hold, would be to apportionate it in round sums among the contributory shires. Proceeding on precisely the same lines, the county court, in its turn, would distribute the _quota_ of the shire among its constituent Hundreds, and the Hundred court would then assign to each Vill its share. As the Vills were represented in the Hundred court, and the Hundreds in the Shire court, the just apportionment of the Shire's _quota_ would be thus practically secured. The arrangement would, moreover, be as satisfactory to the Witan as it was fair to the contributors _inter se_; for, by this gradation of responsibility, the payment of the whole was absolutely secured. This explanation is very tempting, and, indeed, such a system of apportioning liability is to be traced from time immemorial in the Indian village community.[171] Moreover, if the ratio of 'hides' to ploughlands were found to vary to any marked extent, according to county, the hypothesis that the quota, in the first instance, was laid upon each county would duly explain the ratio assessment being higher or lower in one county than in another.

But such an hypothesis would imply that this assessment dated only from the days of Æthelred, or _circ._ 1000. Now the five-hide unit, on the contrary, was undoubtedly an old institution. Church lordships, the easiest to trace, appear to have retained their hidation unchanged from early times, and the 'possessio decem familiarum' of Bede seems to carry the decimal system back to very early days. Mr Seebohm, indeed--though, like others, he had failed to discover the existence of the five-hide system--saw in this 'possessio' of Bede a connecting link with the Roman _decuria_, just as he saw in the Roman _jugatio_ the possible origin of English hidation. And we must, of course, trace its artificial arrangement (1) either to the Romans, (2) or to the Britons--assuming them to have had the same system as existed in Wales for the food-rents, (3) or to the English invaders.

Arrested at this point by the difficulty of assigning to the system I have described its real origin, I dropped these studies for some years in the hope that there might come from some quarter fresh light upon the problem. As I cannot, however, for lack of evidence, propound a solution capable of proof, I will content myself with indicating the line of research that offers, I venture to think, the most likelihood of success.

The proportionate sums contributed by the several counties to the Danegeld present a fruitful field of inquiry, but one, it would seem, as yet unworked. Mr Eyton, it is true, observed that 'in Devon and Cornwall the scope of the gheld-hide was enormous',[172] that is, in other words, the assessment was strangely low, but it did not occur to him to seek the cause of the phenomenon he observed. If, as was the case, West Wales was assessed on quite a different scale to the counties adjoining it on the east, it may suggest a conclusion no less important than that, when the latter were originally assessed, West Wales was not yet a portion of the English realm. But, before concluding that the hide assessment is proved to be as ancient as this, we must see whether it is possible to detect any principle at work in the total assessments of the several counties, any relation between their area and the sums they contributed to the geld as entered in the Pipe Roll of 1130, our first evidence on the subject.

For such an enquiry it is especially needful to insist on breadth of treatment. In the first place, the modern area of the counties may vary more or less from the original extent;[173] in the second we have no proof that the assessment had always been the same, though the tendency in early days, no doubt, was to stereotype such figures. We must not, therefore attempt close or detailed investigation but if, on a review of the whole evidence, we detect certain broad features, uneffaced by the hand of time, we may fairly claim that we have in these the traces of a principle at work, the witness to a state of things prevailing in the distant past.

On comparing the contributions to a 'geld' at two shillings on the hide with the (modern) area of counties, we find that a rate of about a pound for every seven square miles prevailed widely enough to be almost described as normal.

The three eastern counties work out thus:

Square Miles (At 1/7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d

Norfolk 2,119 302-5/7 330 3 2
Suffolk 1,475 210-5/7 235 0 8
Essex 1,542 220-2/7 236 8 0

In all three cases the proportion to the square mile is between a sixth and a seventh of a pound. In Cambridgeshire it is just under, in Sussex, just over, a seventh:

Square Miles (At 1/7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d

Cambridgeshire 820 117-1/7 114 15 0
Sussex 1,458 208-2/7 209 18 6

Most remarkable, however, is this Midland group:

Square Miles (At 1/7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d

Leicestershire 700 100 100 0 0
Warwickshire 885 126-3/7 128 12 6
Worcestershire 738 105-3/7 101 5 7
Gloucestershire 1,224 174-6/7 179 11 8
Somerset 1,640 234-2/7 227 10 4

It is remarkable, not only for this agreement _inter se_, but also for the sharp contrast it presents to the groups of counties, lying respectively to the south-east and the north-west of it. The former approximates a rate twice as high, namely, _two_-sevenths of a pound to the square mile:

Square Miles (At 2/7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d

Buckinghamshire 745 212-3/7 204 14 7
Oxfordshire 756 216 239 9 3
Berkshire 722 206-2/7 200 1 3
Wiltshire 1,354 386-6/7 388 13 0

Taking this group as a whole, it paid £1,032 18s 1d, a curiously close approximation to the £1,021-4/7 which my suggested rate of 2/7 would give. Middlesex was so exceptional a county, that one hardly likes to include it, but there also the rate was a little over two-sevenths.

On the other hand, the counties to the north-west of what I have termed the Midland group are assessed at a rate singularly low. Nottingham and Derby, with a joint area of 1,855 miles, contributed only £108 8s 6d, representing one-seventeenth;[174] while Staffordshire, with its 1,169 miles, is found paying £44 0s 11d, a rate scarcely more than one twenty-seventh. Passing to the opposite corner of the realm, we have Kent, always a wealthy county, assessed at the phenomenally low rate of about one-fifteenth (£105 2s 10d, as against 1,555 miles), rather less than half that of Essex to its north, and Sussex to its west.

It would seem impossible to resist the conclusion that in these widely differing rates we have traces of a polity as yet divided, of those independent kingdoms from which had been formed the realm. Kent, for instance, which had so steadily maintained, first, its independent existence, and then its local institutions, had succeeded in preserving an assessment that its neighbours had cause to envy. In the west, Cornwall similarly enjoyed a low, indeed a nominal assessment while that of Devon, though higher than this, was so significantly lower than those of Somerset and Dorset[175] as to remind us that here, in part at least, the 'Welsh' long held their own. If the incidence of geld were shown by shading a map of England, on the plan so successfully adopted in Mr Seebohm's great work, it would show that the heavily assessed counties were those which formed the nucleus of the old West-Saxon realm.[176] All round this nucleus the map would shade off sharply, another sudden change marking the Danish counties on the north, the Jutish kingdom on the east, and the British district in the south-west. It is, perhaps, worthy of remark that Shropshire was assessed twice as heavily as the adjoining county of Stafford, possibly because part of it was added, at a very early period, to the kingdom of the West Saxons. If Mr Eyton was right in his reckoning that Kesteven was assessed twice as heavily as Lindsey, and Lindsey, in turn, twice as heavily as Holland, it would illustrate the survival of local distinctions even within the compass of a modern county, as well as the 'shading off' tendency of which I have already spoken.

The point I have here endeavoured to bring out is that if the system of artificial assessment were of Roman or British origin, we should expect to find it fairly uniform over the whole country, whereas we find, on the contrary, the very widest discrepancies. It might be urged, perhaps, that these were due to the differing conditions of particular counties, to their more or less partial reclamation, for instance, of the date when they were assessed. But this would not account for the grouping I have traced, and would imply that each county ought to differ indefinitely. Nor would it explain the case of Kent, where a county that must have been foremost in early development and prosperity enjoyed a phenomenally low assessment.

Another objection that may be raised to my hypothesis is that the Hundred, as an area for police and rating, was a comparatively late institution, and that if the artificial system of assessment were as ancient as I suggest, it could not have operated, as we saw, in Cambridgeshire, it did operate, through the 'Hundred'. It is, however, admitted that the _thing_ represented by the 'Hundred' was, whatever its original name, of immemorial antiquity, as the intermediate division between the Vill and the Shire or kingdom. Approaching the subject from the legal standpoint, Professor Maitland has pointed out that the Hundred having a proper court, which the Vill had not, was the older institution of the two, and has skilfully seized on the differentiation of villages originally possessing one name in common as a hint that some such subdivision may have been going on more widely than is known. It seems to me to be at least possible that the district originally representing a Hundred, and named, as we are learning, in most cases from the primitive meeting-place of its settlers, was reckoned as so many multiples of five or ten hides, and that this aggregate was subsequently distributed by its community among themselves.[177]

If it be not presumption to touch on the controversies as to the Hundred,[178] I would suggest that while agreeing with Dr Stubbs, that the name of 'Hundred' may be traced to the ordinance of Edgar[179]--which did not, however, create the district itself--I cannot reconcile it with the view to which he leans in his _Constitutional History_, that 'under the name of geographical hundreds we have the variously sized _pagi_ or districts in which the hundred warriors settled'; and that we should 'recognize in the name the vestige of the primitive settlement, and in the district itself an earlier or a later subdivision of the kingdom to which it belonged'.[180] For my part, I have never been able to understand the anxiety to identify the district known, in later days, as a 'Hundred' with an original hundred warriors, families, or hides. The significant remark on the 'centeni' by Tacitus, that 'quod primo numerus fuit, jam nomen et honor est', would surely lead us to expect that by the time of the migration the 'Hundred' had become, like the 'hide' of Domesday, a term even more at variance with fact. Indeed, in his masterly 'Introductory sketch', Dr Stubbs observed that the 'superior divisions' made by the 'new-comers' would 'have that indefiniteness which even in the days of Tacitus belonged to the Hundreds, the _centeni_ of the Germans', and that their 'system' would be 'transported whole, at the point of development which it has reached at home'.[181]

The suggestion I have made as to the origin of the five-hide system is tentative only, and must remain so until we have at our disposal for the whole hidated region that complete and trustworthy analysis of assessment, on the need of which I again insist, at the risk of wearisome iteration.

XII. THE EAST ANGLIAN 'LEET'

In Norfolk and Suffolk we find Domesday recording assessed values not, as everywhere else, at the outset of an entry, but at its close; not in terms of hides and carucates, but in terms of shillings and pence. Instead of saying that a Manor paid on so many 'hidæ' or 'carucatæ terræ', Domesday, in the case of these counties, normally employs the phrase: '_x_ denarii de gelto'. Its meaning is that to every _pound_ paid by the Hundred as geld the Manor contributed _x_ pence.[182] Thus, in the case of a Hundred assessed at a hundred hides, the formula for a five-hide Manor would be here 'xii. denarii de gelto', instead of the usual 'defendit se pro v. hidis', or some such phrase as that. There is an exact parallel to this method of recording assessed values in the case of fractions of knights' fees where portions of land are entered as paying so much 'when the scutage is forty shillings', instead of being assessed in terms of the knight's fee.[183] This system would seem, however, to have been understood imperfectly if at all. I may, therefore, point out that its nature is clear from the case of the Suffolk Hundred of Thingoe.

The case of this Hundred is singularly instructive. We find its twenty 'Vills' grouped in _blocks_, precisely as in the Cambridgeshire Hundreds, and these blocks are all _equal units of assessment_, like the ten-hide groups of the hidated districts. But in this case we can go further still, for we are not dependent on Domesday alone. The portion of a special Survey executed about a century later (_circ._ 1185) for Abbot Sampson of St Edmund's, which relates to its Hundred, is fortunately preserved, and gives us the name of the twelve 'leets' into which this Hundred was divided.[184]

Here are the divisions recorded in it, with the Domesday assessment (in pence) of each Vill placed against its name.

£ s d

{ Barrow 7
I.{ Flemington 6
{ Lackford 6
------
19 0 1 7

II. Risby 20 0 1 8

{ Saxham (_A_) 7
III.{ Saxham(_B_) 7
{ Westley 6-1/2
------
20-1/2 0 1 8-1/2

IV.{ Hengrave 10
{ Fornham 10
------
20 0 1 8

{ Ickworth 7-1/2
V.{ Chevington 6-1/2
{ Hargrave 7
------
21 0 1 9

{ Brockley 7
VI.{ Rede 7
{ Manston 6
------
20 0 1 8

VII. Whepstead 20 0 1 8

VIII.{ Hawstead 13-1/2
{ Newton 6-1/2
------
20 0 1 8

IX. Horningsheath 20 0 1 8

X., XI., XII. Sudbury 60 0 5 0
----------
£1 0 0-1/2

The two records--Domesday and the Inquest--thus confirm one another, and their concurrent testimony establishes the fact not only that the Suffolk Hundred was divided into blocks of equal assessment, but that these blocks were known by the name of 'leets'.

Now Professor Maitland, in his Dissertation on the 'History of the Word Leet',[185] pronounces this 'the earliest occurrence of the word' that he has seen. But I can carry it back to Domesday itself. Though not entered in the _Index Rerum_, we find it in such instances as these:

'H[undredum] de Grenehou de xiv. letis' (ii. 119_b_).

'Hund[redum] et dim[idium] de Clakelosa de x. leitis' (ii.
212_b_).

I think it probable that in these cases the entry happened to stand first on the original return for the Hundred, and so--as in the I.E., where it is derived from the original returns--the general heading crept in. Though Professor Maitland has to leave the origin of the word unexplained, it seems to me impossible to overlook the analogy between the Danish _lægd_, described by Dr Skeat as a division of the country (in Denmark) for military conscription,[186] and the East Anglian _leet_, a division of the country (as we have seen) for purposes of taxation.

Sudbury, it will be observed, was _a quarter_ of the Hundred of Thingoe,[187] just as Huntingdon was a quarter of a Hundred,[188] and Wisbech a quarter of a Hundred.[189]

Having thus obtained from the Hundred of Thingoe the clue to this peculiar system, we can advance to more difficult types. The Hundred of Thedwastre, for instance, was divided not into twelve blocks, each paying twenty pence in the pound, but into nine blocks, each paying twenty-seven. This assessment allowed a margin of 3d for every pound (i.e. £1 0s 3d); but in the case of Thedwastre the total excess was only 1-1/2d on the pound (i.e. £1 0s 1-1/2d). I group the Vills _tentatively_, thus:

_d_

I. Barton 27

II. {Fornham 6-1/2} 26-1/2
{Rougham 20 }

{Peckenham 13-1/2}
III. {Bradfield 5 } 26-1/2
{Fornham St Genevieve 8 }

IV. {Thurston 16 } 27
{Woolpit 11 }

V. {Rushbrook 7 } 27
{Ratlesden 20 }

{Hessett 18 }
VI. {Felsham 5 } 28
{Bradfield 5 }

{Gedding 5 }
VII. {Whelnetham 10 } 26
{Drinkston 11 }

{Ampton 7 }
VIII. {Tostock 10-1/2} 27-1/2
{Staningfield 10 }

IX. {Tinworth 14 } 26
{Livermere 12 }
--------
241-1/2 (£1 0s 1-1/2d)

The same unit of 27 (x9)--or, which comes to the same thing, 13-1/2 (x18)--was adopted in Risbridge Hundred. In this case no less than five Manors are assessed at the same unit--13-1/2d. So, again, in the Hundred of Blackbourn the units are 34-1/2d and 17-1/4d, one Manor being assessed at the former, and five at the latter sum. Such is the key to the peculiar system of East Anglian assessment.

It is to be noted that 'twenty shillings'[190] represents ten hides at two shillings on the hide (the normal Danegeld rate), and thus suggests that in Norfolk, as in Cambridgeshire, the Hundreds were normally assessed in multiples of ten hides. The point, however, that I want to bring out is that the Hundred, not the Manor, nor even the Vill, is here treated as 'the fiscal unit for the collection of Danegeld'.[191]

XIII. THE WORDS 'SOLINUM' AND 'SOLANDA'[192]

Several years ago I arrived at the conclusion that the identity of these two words was an unsupported conjecture. So long as it remained a conjecture only, its correction was not urgent; but since then, as is so often the case, the result of leaving it unassailed has been that arguments are based upon it. There appeared in the _English Historical Review_ for July 1892 a paper by Mr Seebohm, in which that distinguished scholar took the identity for granted, as his no less distinguished opponent, Professor Vinogradoff, has done in his masterly work on _Villainage in England_.

I believe the alleged identity was first asserted by Archdeacon Hale, who wrote in his _Domesday of St. Paul's_ (1858), p. xiv:

The word _solanda_, or, as it is written at p. 142,
_scolanda_, is so evidently a Latinized form of the
Anglo-Saxon _sulung_, or ploughland, and approaches so near
to the Kentish _solinus_, that we need scarcely hesitate to
consider them identical.

Let us start from the facts. In the Domesday of Kent we find the form _solin_, or its Latin equivalent _solinum_, used for the unit of assessment, like the hide and the carucate in other counties. In the Kent monastic surveys it is found as _sullung_ or _suolinga_. But when we turn to the Domesday of St. Paul's, we find--first, that instead of being universal, as in Kent, it occurs only in three cases; secondly, that the form is _solande_, _solanda_, _scholanda_, _scolanda_, or even (we shall see) _Scotlande_; thirdly, that it is not employed as a unit of assessment at all.

The three places where the term occurs in the Domesday of St. Paul's are Drayton and Sutton in Middlesex, and Tillingham in Essex. Hale would seem to have arrived at no clear idea of what the word meant. At p. xiv he wrote that 'a _solanda_ consisted of two hides, but probably in this case the hide was not of the ordinary dimension'. At p. lxxviii he inferred, from a reference to 'la Scoland' in a survey of Drayton, that '"ploughed land" would seem to be opposed to "Scoland"'. At p. cx he was led by the important passage--'De hydis hiis decem, due fuerunt in dominio, una in scolanda, et vii. assisæ'--to suggest that it 'appears to denote some difference in the tenure'. This last conjecture seems the most probable. If we take the case of Sutton and Chiswick, we read in the survey of 1222:

Juratores dicunt quod manerium istud defendit se versus regem
pro tribus hidis preter solandam de Chesewich que per se habet
duas hidas, et sunt geldabiles cum hidis de Sutton.