The two records—Domesday and the Inquest—thus confirm one another, and their concurrent testimony establishes the fact not only that the Suffolk Hundred was divided into blocks of equal assessment, but that these blocks were known by the name of 'leets'.

Now Professor Maitland, in his Dissertation on the 'History of the Word Leet',[185] pronounces this 'the earliest occurrence of the word' that he has seen. But I can carry it back to Domesday itself. Though not entered in the Index Rerum, we find it in such instances as these:

'H[undredum] de Grenehou de xiv. letis' (ii. 119b).

'Hund[redum] et dim[idium] de Clakelosa de x. leitis' (ii. 212b).

I think it probable that in these cases the entry happened to stand first on the original return for the Hundred, and so—as in the I.E., where it is derived from the original returns—the general heading crept in. Though Professor Maitland has to leave the origin of the word unexplained, it seems to me impossible to overlook the analogy between the Danish lægd, described by Dr Skeat as a division of the country (in Denmark) for military conscription,[186] and the East Anglian leet, a division of the country (as we have seen) for purposes of taxation.

Sudbury, it will be observed, was a quarter of the Hundred of Thingoe,[187] just as Huntingdon was a quarter of a Hundred,[188] and Wisbech a quarter of a Hundred.[189]

Having thus obtained from the Hundred of Thingoe the clue to this peculiar system, we can advance to more difficult types. The Hundred of Thedwastre, for instance, was divided not into twelve blocks, each paying twenty pence in the pound, but into nine blocks, each paying twenty-seven. This assessment allowed a margin of 3d for every pound (i.e. £1 0s 3d); but in the case of Thedwastre the total excess was only 1½d on the pound (i.e. £1 0s 1½d). I group the Vills tentatively, thus:

d
I. Barton 27
II.Fornham6½26½
Rougham20
III.Peckenham13½26½
Bradfield5
Fornham St Genevieve8
IV.Thurston1627
Woolpit11
V.Rushbrook 727
Ratlesden20
VI.Hessett1828
Felsham5
Bradfield5
VII.Gedding526
Whelnetham10
Drinkston11
VIII.Ampton727½
Tostock10½
Staningfield10
IX.Tinworth1426
Livermere12
——
241½ (£1 0s 1½d)

The same unit of 27 (x9)—or, which comes to the same thing, 13½ (x18)—was adopted in Risbridge Hundred. In this case no less than five Manors are assessed at the same unit—13½d. So, again, in the Hundred of Blackbourn the units are 34½d and 17¼d, one Manor being assessed at the former, and five at the latter sum. Such is the key to the peculiar system of East Anglian assessment.

It is to be noted that 'twenty shillings'[190] represents ten hides at two shillings on the hide (the normal Danegeld rate), and thus suggests that in Norfolk, as in Cambridgeshire, the Hundreds were normally assessed in multiples of ten hides. The point, however, that I want to bring out is that the Hundred, not the Manor, nor even the Vill, is here treated as 'the fiscal unit for the collection of Danegeld'.[191]