[A] We assume about 100 acres to have belonged to the Domesday Burgh, and perhaps 882 acres to represent land, subinfeuded at Domesday, and annexed to Dorchester Hundred. [B] It follows that we assume about 429 acres, [to be that] ... which here figures [fo. 75] under the name Dorchester.
It is not too much to say that any one, who refers to pp. 70-3, 78-101 of the Key to Domesday, will find that the singular misconception as to the Dorset Boroughs makes havoc of the whole calculation. But here again the point to be insisted on is not the mere mistake per se, but the elaborate assumptions based upon it and permeating the whole work.[204]
Apart from the Manors grouped for a firma unius noctis, if we take the comital Manors (mansiones de comitatu) of Somerset, which were in the King's hands in 1086, we find their rentals given on quite a different principle to those of the Manors in private hands.
(1) They are entered as renders ('reddit'), not as values ('valet').
(2) The sums rendered are 'de albo argento'.
(3) In at least ten out of the fifteen cases, they are multiples of the strange unit £1 3s.
As this fact seems to have escaped Mr Eyton's notice, I append a list of these Manors, showing the multiples of this unit that their renders represent:
| £ | s | d | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crewkerne | 46 | 0 | 0 | 40 |
| Congresbury | 28 | 15 | 0 | 25 |
| Old Cleeve | 23 | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| North Curry | 23 | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| Henstridge | 23 | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| Camel | 23 | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| Dulverton | 11 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| Creech St Michael | 9 | 4 | 0 | 8 |
| Langford | 4 | 12 | 0 | 4 |
| Capton[205] | 2 | 6 | 0 | 2 |
Whatever this strange unit represented, it formed the basis in these Manors of a reckoning wholly independent of the 'hides' or ploughlands of the Manor, and as clearly artificial as the system of hidation I have made it my business to explain.