[1700] If the ‘Wiht gara 600’ of The Tribal Hidage refers to Wight, we have here a discord, for Bede gives the Island 1200. The North and South Mercians have together but 1200 according to Bede; the Mercians have 30,000 according to The Tribal Hidage: but the territory of ‘the Mercians’ is a variable.
[1701] B. i. 4 b, 12; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 135.
[1703] Round, Feudal England, 289.
[1704] Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 422—3; Rot. Parl. ii. 302.
[1705] Bright, Hist. Engl. ii. 386; Hall’s Chronicle, ed. 1809, p. 656.
[1706] Some of them seem to start from The Tribal Hidage and take the number of hides to be 303,201 (Liebermann, Leges Anglorum, 10). Divide this by 5 to find the knight’s fees. You have 60,640. In MS. Camb. Univ. Ii. vi. 25, f. 108 we find 60,215 knight’s fees, 45,011 parish churches, 52,080 vills. Another note, printed by Hearne, Rob. of Avesbury, 264, gives 53,215 knight’s fees, 46,822 parish churches, 52,285 vills.
[1707] Bede, Hist. Eccl. iii. 24 (p. 178): ‘donatis insuper xii. possessiunculis terrarum, in quibus ablato studio militiae terrestris, ad exercendam militiam caelestem, supplicandumque pro pace gentis eius aeterna, devotioni sedulae monachorum locus facultasque suppeteret ... Singulae vero possessiones x. erant familiarum, id est simul omnes cxx.’ In these villages there have been men who owed military service; they are not being ousted from their homes; they are being turned over as tenants to the church; henceforth they will no longer be bound to fight, and in consideration of this precious immunity, they will have to supply the monks with provender. That is how I read this passage. Others can and will read it to mean something very different. But if Bede were speaking of decuriae of slaves, how could there be talk of military service? The slaves would not fight, and if the slaves belonged to eorls who fought, then how comes it that Oswy can expropriate his nobles?
[1708] Hist. Eccl. iii. 4 (p. 133).
[1709] Keith Johnston, Gazetteer.