1 ferl. = 2½ acres = 21⁄12 Saxon.
It will now be seen why I have given a column in which the whole acreage was measured by a calculation of forty acres to the híd. That this result is a near approximation to the truth appears from the following considerations. In the Cornish Domesday, (a county where arable land bore a very small proportion to the markland, forest and pasture,) there are a great number of estates, valued at one ager or acre. These are generally said to pay geld for half a ferling. Thus in Treuurniuet, one ager paid geld for half a ferling[[846]]: so in Penquaro[[847]], in Trelamar[[848]], in Lantmatin[[849]], in Chilorgoret[[850]], in Roslet[[851]], in Pengelli[[852]], in Telbricg[[853]], in Karsalan[[854]], in Dimelihoc[[855]]; and similarly in Widewot, two agri paid geld for one ferling[[856]]. Now throughout Domesday there are innumerable examples of land being rated at less than its real value, or even at its real value; but I have not detected any instance in which it is rated at more: and in Cornwall especially the rating seems to have been in favour of the tenant. I do not therefore believe that one ager was less than half a ferling: it was either more than half a ferling or equal to it. But ½ ferl. = 1¼ Norman acre, which is more than one statute acre; therefore we may conclude that the ager or acre was equal to half a ferling. The way I understand this, is by the assumption that the Saxon acre was somewhat larger than the Norman: we know that they differed in point of extent[[857]], and it is possible that the original Saxon calculation was founded upon multiples of eight, while the Norman was reduced to a decimal notation: if this were so, we may believe that the híd was the unit, and that its principal subdivisions remained, being familiar[familiar] to the people, but that the value of the acre was slightly changed. Hence that the
| Saxon híd | = 32 Saxon acres | = 40 Norman acres. |
| —— virg. | = 8 —— —— | = 10 —— —— |
| —— feorðing | = 2 —— —— | = 2½ —— —— |
The document entituled “Rectitudines singularum personarum” says[[858]], that the poor settler on first coming in, ought to have seven acres laid down for him in seed, out of his yardland; and the same authority implies that his grass-land was usually short of his need: this it might be, if he had only one acre to support the two oxen and one cow with which his land was stocked on entry. The lot of meadow and pasture attached to these small plots of one ager, is so frequently quoted at thirty agri, in Cornwall, that one could almost imagine an enclosure-bill to have been passed just previous to the Conquest, under which the possession of even so small a quantity as one acre qualified the owner to receive a handsome share of the waste.
It is obvious that all these calculations are ultimately founded upon the value of the acre relatively to our own statute measure, in which the survey of 1841 is expressed. That ager and acra are equivalent terms appears from their being used interchangeably in various entries of Domesday. Nor is there any good reason to suppose that the Normans made any violent change in the values of these several denominations, although they might adopt more convenient subdivisions of the larger sums. They did just the same thing in respect to the Saxon money. Besides, as it was from the Saxons that they derived the information which the Survey contains, it is reasonable to believe that the Saxon values were generally adopted, at least as far as the híd was concerned. The minute subdivision of land consequent upon the Conquest probably rendered it necessary to pay especial attention to the smaller units, and I can conceive nothing more likely than a slight change in the value of the acre, while the híd and virgate remained unaltered. Then where an estate comprised only one Saxon acre, it might readily be considered equal to half a ferling, or 1¼ acre, Norman measure, for it would have been difficult and complicated to express it in other terms. In fact where small fractional parcels of land were to be subtracted, the Commissioners were generally glad to avoid details, and enter “A. has so much in demesne, and the Villani have aliam terram, the rest of the land.” If the Saxon ager paid for half a ferling in the time of the Confessor, it was likely to be taken at that value in the Survey; for the law, quæ de minimis non curat, could hardly notice so trifling a deviation. The approximate value of the Saxon acre, however, I have given; it was one day’s work for a plough and oxen, in other words very nearly our own statute-acre.
That the value of the hide became gradually indistinct, when reckonings ceased to be made in it, and the calculation was taken upon knights’ fees, is very intelligible. We consequently find surprising variations in the amount of hides counted to a knight’s fee, as well as the acres contained in this last measure. In the time of Edward the Third it was computed that there were 60,215 knight’s fees in England, which taking the present acreage of 31,770,615 gives rather more than 527 acres to a fee: hence those who believed a hide to contain 100 acres, calculated five hides to a knight’s fee, in accordance with the Saxon law which made that amount the minimum of a thane’s estate, and also to the entries in Domesday, from which it appeared that one miles went from five hides: but here it was overlooked that the hide was exclusively arable land. To such erroneous modes of calculation we owe such entries as the following:—
“Decem acrae faciunt fardellum, iv fardelli faciunt virgatum, quatuor virgatae faciunt hydam, quatuor hydae faciunt unum feodum.” MS. Harl. 464. fol. 17, b.
Again we are told (Regist. Burgi Sci. Petri, fol. 81, b) that
“Quinque feoda fuerunt antiquitus una baronia; et quinque hydae unum feodum; et quinque virgatae terrae una hyda, quaelibet virgata de viginti acris.”
Or tabularly,—