Crossing the border from Lincolnshire into Rutland (i.e. the Rutland of Domesday), we find the same system at work that meets us in the Lindsey Survey. We read:
In Alfnodestou Wapent' sunt ii. Hundrez. In unoquoque [sunt] xii. carucatæ ad geldum.... In Martinesleie Wap' est i. hundret, in quo xii. carucatæ ad geldum.—D.B., i. 293b.
On analysing the contents of these Wapentakes, we find this statement fully borne out, the former containing twenty-four, and the latter twelve, 'carucatæ terræ'. These are carefully contrasted throughout with the 'terra carucæ' or areal measure.[146]
In Yorkshire, Notts and Derby, we have less direct evidence. Sawley, in Derbyshire, has indeed been alleged to be entered in Domesday as a Hundred of twelve carucates, but Domesday does not justify this assertion being made.[147] I would rather trust to the notable formula, which, as I explained at the outset, is common to these counties for proof that they also were arranged in 'Hundreds' of twelve carucates.
The prevalence, however, of assessment by sixes, threes, and twelves, meets us on every side, as does, in hidated districts, the assessments by fives and tens. At the outset, for instance, of the survey of Yorkshire we have the district 'gelding' with the city assessed at eighty-four (12×7) carucates (which would be described in Lincolnshire as seven 'Hundreds'). We have two lists of the details, which are given here.[148]
| Car. terræ | Car. terræ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archbishop | 6 | Archbishop | 6 | |
| Osboldeuuic | 6 | Osboldeuuic | 6 | |
| Stocthun | 6 | Stochetun | 6 | |
| Sa'bura | 3 | Sa'bure | 3 | |
| Heuuarde | 6 | Heuuorde | 6 | |
| Ditto | 3 | |||
| Fuleford | 10 | Fuleforde | 10 | |
| Round the City | 3 | Round the City | 3 | |
| Cliftune | 18 | Cliftune | 18 | |
| Roudclif | 3 | Roudeclif | 3 | |
| Ouertun | 5 | Ouertune | 5 | |
| Sceltun | 9 | Scheltune | 9 | |
| Mortun | 3 | Mortune | 3 | |
| Wichistun | 1 | Wichintun | 3 | |
| — | — | |||
| '84' | '84' |
These lists have a value independent of their illustration of the arrangement in threes and sixes. They show how Domesday breaks down, when it supplies a check upon its own evidence, by failing to make its details agree with its total; and they further show by the discrepancy between them how easily error may arise, and how rash it must be to argue from a single case.[149]
Yorkshire presents other traces, in its Hundreds, of the same system. Thus the townships in the Hundred of 'Toreshou' follow one another in this order: 18, 18, 20, 6, 18, 8, 12, 12 (8+4), 6, 18, 8, 18, etc. (infra, p. [80]).
But my strong evidence is found in an invaluable survey of Leicestershire, unknown till now to historians,[150] which does for the carucated districts just what the Inq. Com. Cant. does for the hidated ones. Here we find the townships grouped in small blocks of from six to twenty-four 'carucatæ terræ', as a rule with almost monotonous regularity. And these blocks are further combined in small local Hundreds, of which the very existence is unknown to historians and antiquaries,[151] and which are usually multiples, like the Lincolnshire Wapentake, of the six-carucate unit.
It will be remembered that in the case of Cambridgeshire, I selected for my first two examples a Hundred of 50 hides, composed of 5 Vills assessed at 10 hides each, and a Hundred of 70 hides, composed of 7 Vills, assessed at 10 hides each. In Leicestershire, precisely in the same manner, I shall begin with the simplest forms and select Hundreds of 36 and 48 carucates, composed of Vills uniformly assessed at 12 carucates each.