Manors, such as Andover, not hidated, clearly belonged to the same system, though neither their value nor their render is given.
Thus, then, within the limits of Wessex, in the four adjacent counties of Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hants, we find surviving, at the time of the Conquest, an archaic but uniform system of provision for the needs of the Crown by the assignment of certain estates or groups of estates, the render of which was expressed in terms of the 'firma noctis' or 'firma diei', and which, unlike the country around them, had never been assessed in 'hides'.
Mr Seebohm hints slightly at this firma system,[201] but only speaks of it as existing in Dorset. Nor does he allude to the significant fact of such Manors having never been hidated. It would lead us far afield to speculate on the origin of this system, or to trace its possible connection with the Welsh gwestva.[202] Nor can we here concern ourselves with the few scattered traces of it that we meet with elsewhere in Domesday. Its existence in four adjacent counties, with non-hidation as a common feature, is the point I wish to emphasize.
The system of grouping townships in the west for the payment of a food-rent (firma unius noctis) was exactly parallel to the grouping in the east for the payment, not of rent but of 'geld'. We can best trace this parallel in Somerset, because the firma unius noctis of the days before the Conquest had been there commuted for a money payment at the time of Domesday. Turning to the Cambridgeshire hundred of Long Stow, we find one of its 'blocks' (of twenty-five hides) divided into three equal parts, while another is divided into three parts, of which one is half the size of the two others. And so in Somerset we have Frome and Bedminster combined in one group for the payment of this firma, and the two Perrotts similarly combined with Curry. Frome and Bedminster are each assigned the same payment, but in the other group the contribution of one is half that of the two others.
Here are the Somerset groups of demesne, each charged with the render of a firma unius noctis.
| Commutation | £ | s | d | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Somerton (with Borough of Langport) | 79 | 10 | 7 |  | 100 | 10 | 9½ |
| Chedder (with borough of Axbridge) | 21 | 0 | 2½ | ||||
| North Petherton | 42 | 8 | 4 |  | 106 | 0 | 10 |
| South Petherton | 42 | 8 | 4 | ||||
| Curry Rivell | 21 | 4 | 2 | ||||
| Williton | | 105 | 17 | 4½ | |||
| Carhampton | |||||||
| Cannington | |||||||
| Frome | 53 | 0 | 5 | | 106 | 0 | 10 |
| Bruton | 53 | 0 | 5 | ||||
| Milborne Port (with Ilchester) | 79 | 10 | 7 | ||||
| [Bedminster[203] | 21 | 0 | 2½] | ||||
Of these two last, Milborne Port is entered as having paid three-quarters of a firma noctis under the Confessor, while Bedminster—though in the midst of this group of firma Manors—is alone in having no render T.R.E. assigned to it. One is tempted to look on the two as originally combined in one firma (like Somerton and Chedder), save that the whole width of the county divides them, while in the other cases the constituents are grouped geographically.
The Wiltshire Manors, each of which rendered a firma unius noctis, were:
| Ploughlands | Valets | |
|---|---|---|
| Calne | 29 | |
| Bedwin | 79 | |
| Amesbury | 40 | |
| Warminster | 40 | |
| Chippenham | 100 | £110 |
| 'Theodulveshide' | 40 | £100 |