[1611] See above, [pp. 402, 435].
[1614] Dial. de Scac. i. 17.
[1615] The appearance in D. B. of a few ‘hides’ which apparently consist altogether of wood-land (e.g. ii. 55 b) is one of the many signs that the fiscal hide has diverged from its original pattern. A block of wood-land would not be ‘the land of one family.’
[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.