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.