[1660] See above, [p. 499, note 1656].
[1661] Compare, for instance, the account of the estates of the Bishop of Wells, D. B. i. 89, with the charter ascribed to the Confessor, K. 816 (iv. 163). In the former we read of 50 hides at Wells; in the latter we see that these hides cover 24 villages or hamlets, each of which has its name. According to Eyton (Somerset, 24) this estate extends over nearly 22,000 acres. The Malmesbury charter, K. 817 (iv. 165) is another good illustration. Kemble’s identifications were hasty and have fared ill at the hands of those who have made local researches. A few examples follow:—Keynsham, 50 H. = 3330 A. (Kemble), 11,138 A. and more (Eyton). Dowlish, 9 H. = 680 A. (Kemble), 1282 (Eyton). Road, 9 H. = 1010 A. (Kemble), 1664 (Eyton). Portishead, 11 H. = 1610 (Kemble), 2093 (Eyton). The instances that Kemble gives (vol. i. p. 106) from the A.-S. land-books are equally unfortunate. Thus he reads of 50 H. at Brokenborough, Wilts, and seeks for them all in a modern parish which has 2950 A.; but the Domesday manor of this name covered ‘at least 6000 or perhaps 7000 acres’ (W. H. Jones, Domesday for Wilts, p. xxvii.). In several instances Kemble tries to force into a single parish all the hides of a hundred which takes its name from that parish.
[1662] Hanssen, Abhandlungen, i. 499.
[1663] See above, [p. 229], and Mr Taylor’s paper there mentioned.
[1664] Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Charters, 43. Compare D. B. i. 101 b. In the Confessor’s time ‘Crediton’ gelded for 15 hides. There was land for 185 teams, and teams to that number existed. There were 264 villeins, 73 bordiers and 40 serfs. Æthelheard’s charter suggests either that in his day this part of Devon was very sparsely peopled, or that already, under a system of partitionary taxation, a small number of fiscal units had been cast upon a poor district. When at a later time Eadnoth bishop of Crediton mortgages a yardland for 30 mancuses of gold (Ibid. p. 5), this yardland will be a fiscal virgate of wide extent. See above, [p. 467, note 1531].
[1669] Birch, Cart. Sax. iii. 671; Munimenta Gildhallae, ii. 627; Gale, Scriptores xv., i. 748; Liebermann, Leges Anglorum, 9. 10.