The subject that I now approach is one of the highest interest. I propose to adduce for my theory convincing corroborative evidence by showing that the part which is played in the hidated district of England by the five-hide unit is played in the Danish districts by a unit of six carucates. In other words, where we look in the former for 'v. hidæ', we must learn to look in the latter for 'vi. carucatæ terræ'.
One must dissociate at the outset this six-carucate unit from the 'long hundred', or Angelicus numerus, with which Mr Pell confused it. In Mr Stevenson's instructive article on 'The Long Hundred and its use in England',[132] he has clearly explained that this reckoning only applied to a whole hundred, which, if a 'long' hundred, was really 120. Any lesser number was reckoned in our usual manner. This is seen at once in the test passage at Lincoln (D.B., i. 336a), where 1,150 houses are reckoned as 'novies centum et lxx.', because 'hic numerus Anglice computatur, id est centum pro cxx'.[133] The persistence, in Lincolnshire, of the long hundred is well shown in the Inquisitiones post mortem on Robert de Ros, 1311, among those printed by Mr Vincent.[134] We there read of 'c. acre terra arrabilis per majorem centenam que valent per annum lx. s. prec' acre vj. den.', at Wyville and Hungerton (on the border of Leicestershire); while at Claxby and Normanby (in the north of the county) we have 'cc. acras per minorem centenam et valent c. s. prec' acre vj. d.' Again, at Gedney (in the south-east), we have 'cc. acre terre arrabilis per majus centum et valent per annum xxiiij. li'. prec' acre ij. s. et iiijxx. acre prati et valet per annum viij. li., prec' acre ij. s. Et cxiij. acre pasture per majus centum et valent per annum ix. li. xix. s. vi. d. prec' acre xviij. d.' On the same property there were due 'ccciiijxx. opera autumpnalia cum falcis, et valent xxxvj. s. viij. d., prec' operis j. den.', so that these also were reckoned by the long hundred.
Mr Stevenson was not aware of this evidence, but admitted that as the Domesday passage refers to 'such a Danish stronghold as Lincolnshire, it is not free from the suspicion of Danish influence'. His own evidence from a sixteenth-century rental[135] is subject to a similar criticism. For the general use, therefore, of the 'long hundred' in England he is compelled to rely on the Dialogus de Scaccario and Howden's description of the new survey of 1198, the 'hide or ploughland' being described in both cases as of a hundred acres, where the 'hundred' must have meant 120. But I venture to think that the use of this reckoning for the ploughland, or archaic 'hide', does not establish its general employment. In Domesday, certainly, it is only at Lincoln that we find it actually recognized, houses being reckoned everywhere else on the usual system.
I think, therefore, that we fairly may hold the Anglicus numerus, or long hundred, to have specially prevailed in the 'Danish' districts, which were also assessed, we shall find, in sums of six and twelve. But what was the boundary of this Danish district? It was not the border between Mercia and Wessex, for Mercia was itself divided between the 'six' and the 'five' systems.[136] Of the two adjacent Mercian shires, for instance, of Leicester and Warwick (afterwards united under one sheriff), we find the latter decimal and the former duodecimal. The military service of Warwick and Leicester was arranged on the same method, yet Leicester sent twelve 'burgesses' to the fyrd where Warwick sent ten. But, it may be urged, the two shires were divided by the Watling Street, the boundary (under the peace of Wedmore) of Danelaw. Was then the Danelaw the district within which the systems prevailed? No, for the Danelaw, under this treaty, included all Cambridgeshire and other hidated districts. The answer, therefore, which I propound is this: The district in which men measured by carucates, and counted by twelves and sixes, was not the district which the Danes conquered, but the district which the Danes settled, the district of 'the Five Boroughs'.
Dependent on these 'Five Boroughs' were the four shires of Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln. For two of the Boroughs, Lincoln and Stamford, both belonged to this last shire, which was, indeed, the stronghold of the system.[137] Between Stamford and Cambridge we have the same contrast as between Warwick and Leicester, for while Cambridge was divided into ten wards ('custodiæ'), Stamford was divided into six. Lincolnshire, as I have said, was the stronghold of the system, and it is in Lincoln itself that we find Domesday alluding eo nomine to the Anglicus numerus, the practice of counting 120 as 100.
Now in the peculiar district of which I am treating there occurs an important formula which covers Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Notts. Domesday has nothing like it for the other parts of England. Here are the three passages in which we find it recorded:
| Lincolnshire | Yorkshire | Derby and Notts |
|---|---|---|
| Pax manu regis vel sigillo ejus data, si fuerit infracta, emendatur per xviii. hundrez. Unumquidque hundret solvit viii. libras. Duodecim hundrez emendant regi et vi. comiti.—i. 336b. | Pax data manu regis vel sigillo ejus, si fuerit infracta, regi solummodo emendatur per xii. hundrez, unumquidque hundret viii. libras. Pax a comite data et infracta a quolibet ipsi comiti per vi. hundrez emendatur, unumquidque viii. libras—i. 298b. | In Snotingehamscyre et in Derbin scyre pax regis manu vel sigillo data, si fuerit infracta, emendatur per xviii. hundrez, unumquidque hundret viii. libras. Hujus emendationis habet rex ii. partes, comes terciam. Id est xii. hundred emendant regi et vi. comiti—i. 280b. |
For comparison with these three passages we may turn to the charter of immunities confirmed to York Cathedral by Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II. We there read:
Si quis enim quemlibet cujuscumque facinoris aut flagitii reum et convictum infra atrium ecclesiæ caperet et retineret, universali judicio vi. hundreth emendabit; si vero infra ecclesiam xii. hundreth infra chorum xviii. ... In hundreth viii. libræ continentur.[138]