VII. S.E. OF ENGLAND—THE HIDE AND VIRGATE UNDER OTHER NAMES (THE RECORDS OF BATTLE ABBEY AND ST. PAUL'S).

Battle Abbey Records.

Passing now to the south-eastern counties, there are in the Record Office valuable MSS. relating to the [p050] estates of Battle Abbey.[46] There are two distinct surveys of these estates, made respectively in the reigns of Edward I. and Henry VI.

Surveys of 1284–7.

The date of the earliest MS. is from 12 to 15 Edward I. (1284–7). It is, therefore, almost contemporaneous with the Hundred Rolls. The estates lay in various counties; but wherever situated, the same general phenomena as those already described are found.

Confining attention to the regular grades of holdings in villenage, the following are examples from the Battle Abbey estates.

The abbot had an estate at Brichwolton (or Brightwalton), in Berkshire. In the survey of it 10 holders of a virgate each are recorded as virgarii, and in the MS. of Henry VI., 5 holders of half-virgates are in the same way called dimidii virgarii.

There was another estate at 'Apeldreham,' in Sussex. Here, under the heading 'Isti subscripti dicuntur Yherdlinges,' there is a list of 5 holders of virgates, 4 holders of 112 virgates each, and one of 12 a virgate.

At 'Alsiston,' in Sussex, a manor nestling under the chalk downs, the holdings were as follows:—

12 hides and wistas.

In the description of the services, those for each half-hide are first given, and then there follows a note that each half-hide contains two wistas; wherefore the services of each wista are half those above mentioned.

There is another manor (Blechinton, near the coast), where there were—

and two other manors where the holders were in one case 5, all of half-hides; and in the other case one of a hide and 4 of half-hides.

The double hide of 240 acres.

These are valuable examples of hides and half-hides, as still actual holdings in villenage, whilst apparently instead of virgates in some of these Sussex manors a new holding—the wista—occurs. And among the documents of Battle Abbey given by Dugdale there is the following statement, viz., that 8 virgates = 1 hide, and 4 virgates = 1 wista (great wista?). Supposing the virgate here, as mostly elsewhere, to have been, normally, a bundle of 30 acres, it is clear that in this hide of 8 virgates we get another instance of the double hide of 240 acres; whilst the 'great wista' of 4 virgates would correspond with the single hide of 120 acres, and the wista would equal the ordinary half-hide of two virgates.

Domesday of St. Paul's, A.D. 1222.

We pass to another cartulary, and of earlier date. In 1222 a visitation was made of the manors belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, London. The register of this visitation is known as the 'Domesday of St. Paul's.' [47] The manors were scattered in [p052] Herts, Essex, Middlesex, and Surrey—all south-eastern counties.

In the survey of Thorp,[48] one of the manors in Essex, after a list of tenants on the demesne land, and others on reclaimed land (de essarto), there follows a list of tenants in villenage who are called hydarii. As in the Battle Abbey records the virgarii were holders of virgates, so these hydarii were probably, as their name implies, groups of villani holding a hide. But the holdings had in fact become subdivided and irregular. Nevertheless, those belonging to each original hide are bracketed together; and adding together their acreage, it appears that the hide is assumed to contain 120 acres. The following examples will make it clear that the holdings were once hides of four virgates of 30 acres each.

Hides and virgates.

Holdings.
xx. a.= 30 a.= hide of 120 acres.
x. a.
xxx. a.= 30 a.
12 hide= 60 a.
xxx. a.= 30 a.= hide of 120 acres.
xxx. a.= 30 a.
xv. a.= 30 a.
xv. a.
v. a.= 30 a.
v. a.
vii.12 a.
v. a.
vii.12 a.
And so on.

Services reckoned by the hide.

The services also were reckoned by the hide, and an abstract of them is here given, from which it will be seen that for some purposes the tenants of the now divided hide still clubbed as it were together to [p053] perform the services required for the hide; whilst for others 'each homestead (domus) of the hide' had its separate duties to perform.

The following were the services on the manor of Thorp:[49]—

Solanda, or double hide.

The instance of another manor of St. Paul's (Tillingham), in Essex,[50] may be cited as further evidence that sometimes, even where the holdings (as at Winslow) were virgates and half-virgates, their original relation to the hide was not yet forgotten. For after giving the list of tenants in demesne, and of 19 [p054] tenants holding 30 acres each, who 'faciunt magnas operationes,' i.e. do full service, there is a statement that in this manor 30 acres make a virgate, and 120 acres a hide;[51] so that here also there are 4 virgates to the hide. But there was further in this manor a double hide, called a 'solanda,' [52] presumably of 240 acres. A double hide called a solanda is also mentioned in Sutton in Middlesex,[53] and another in Drayton;[54] and the term solanda is probably the same as the well-known 'sullung' or 'solin' of Kent, meaning a 'plough land.'

It will be remembered that in the Huntingdonshire Hundred Rolls a double hide of 240 acres was noticed.

The Kentish sullungs and yokes.

It may also be mentioned that in Kent[55] the division of the sullung, or hide, was called a yoke, instead of a yard-land or virgate; suggesting that the divisions of the plough land in some way corresponded with the yokes of oxen in the team.

On the whole little substantial difference appears between the grades of holdings in the south-east of England and those of the midland counties. We may add also that here, as elsewhere, the humbler class of cottier tenants are found beneath the regular holders of hides and virgates, and that on the demesne lands there appears the constantly increasing class of libere tenentes. Also passing from the holdings in villenage to the serfdom under which they were held, [p055] and speaking generally, the description obtained from the Hundred Rolls of the services might with little variation be applied to the different area embraced in this section.