Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England

by Frederic William Maitland

(22+4+6) × 100 = 3200.

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

Value of The County Hidage.

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

Reductions of hidage.

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

The county quotas.

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

The hundred and the hundred hides.

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