FEUDAL
ENGLAND

HISTORICAL STUDIES ON
THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH
CENTURIES

BY

J. H. ROUND

FIRST PUBLISHED 1895
Second impression 1909
Third impression 1909

PREFACE

The present work is the outcome of a wish expressed to me from more than one quarter that I would reprint in a collected form, for the convenience of historical students, some more results of my researches in the history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But to these I have added, especially on Domesday, so much which has not yet seen the light, that the greater portion of the work is new, while the rest has been in part re-written. The object I have set before myself throughout is either to add to or correct our existing knowledge of facts. And for this I have gone in the main to records, whether in manuscript or in print. It is my hope that the papers in this volume may further illustrate the value of such evidence as supplementing and checking the chroniclers for what is still, in many respects, an obscure period of our history.

As a foreign scholar has felicitously observed:

Je lis avec plaisir le chroniqueur qui nous raconte les événements de son époque. Les détails anecdotiques, les traits piquants dont son œuvre est parsémée font mes délices. Mais comment saurai-je s'il dit la vérité si les pages qu'il me présente ne sont pas un roman de pure imagination? Dans les chartes, au contraire, tout est authentique, certain, précis, indubitable. Leur témoignage est contradictoirement établi, sous le contrôle de la partie adverse, avec l'approbation et la reconaissance de l'autorité souveraine, en présence d'une imposante assemblée de notables qui apposent leur signature. C'est la plus pure de toutes les sources où il soit possible de puiser un renseignement historique.[¹]

An instance in point will be found in the paper on 'Richard the First's change of seal'.

A collective title for a series of studies covering the period 1050-1200, is not by any means easy to find. But dealing as they do so largely with the origins of 'Feudal England', I have ventured to give them this title, which may serve, I hope, to emphasize my point that the feudal element introduced at the Conquest had a greater influence on our national institutions than recent historians admit.[²] Even Domesday Book has its place in the study of feudalism, rearranging, as it does, the Hundred and the Vill under Fiefs and 'Manors'.

To those in search of new light on our early mediaeval history, I commend the first portion of this work, as setting forth, for their careful consideration, views as evolutionary on the Domesday hide and the whole system of land assessment as on the actual introduction of the feudal system into England. Although I have here brought into conjunction my discovery that the assessment of knight-service was based on a five-knights unit, irrespective of area or value, and my theory that the original assessment of land was based on a five-hides unit, not calculated on area or value, yet the two, one need hardly add, are, of course, unconnected. The one was an Anglo-Saxon system, and, as I maintain, of early date; the other was of Norman introduction, and of independent origin. My theories were formed at different times, as the result of wholly separate investigations. That of the five-hides unit was arrived at several years ago, but was kept back in the hope that I might light on some really satisfactory explanation of the phenomena presented. The solution I now propound can only be deemed tentative. I would hope, however, that the theories I advance may stimulate others to approach the subject, and, above all, that they may indicate to local students, in the future, the lines on which they should work and the absolute need of their assistance.

Perhaps the most important conclusion to which my researches point is that Domesday reveals the existence of two separate systems in England, co-extensive with two nationalities, the original five hides of the 'Anglo-Saxon' in the south, and the later six carucates of the 'Danish' invaders in the north.[³]

No one, I may add, is better qualified to carry further these inquiries than Prof Maitland, whose brilliant pen has illumined for us the origins of English law. Himself engaged on the study of Domesday, he kindly offered to withhold his conclusions until my work should have appeared.[⁴]

Among the fresh points here discussed in connection with Domesday Book will be found the composition of the juries by whom the returns were made, the origin and true character of the Inquisitio Eliensis, and the marked difference of the two volumes compiled from the Domesday returns.

Of the six early surveys dealt with in conjunction with Domesday, I would call attention to that of Leicestershire as having, it would seem, till now remained absolutely unknown. It has long been a wish of mine to deal with these surveys,[⁵] not only as belonging to a period for which we have no records, but also as illustrating Domesday Book. In 'The Knights of Peterborough' will be found some facts relating to Hereward 'the Wake', which seem to have eluded Mr Freeman's investigations, and even those of Mr Tout.

In case it should suggest itself that these papers, and some in the other portion of the work dwell at undue length on unimportant points, I would observe that apart from the fact that even small points acquire a relative importance from our scanty knowledge of the time, there are cases in which their careful investigation may lead to unforeseen results. At the last anniversary of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin quoted these words from his own presidential address in 1871:

Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient, long continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.

The same principle applies to the study of institutional history. Whether we are dealing with military service, with the land, with finance, or with the king's court, 'the minute sifting' of facts and figures is the only sure method by which we can extend knowledge.

To those who know how few are the original authorities for the period, and how diligently these have been explored and their information exhausted, the wonder will be not so much that there is little, as that there was anything at all yet left to discover.

In a work dealing with the history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a writer must inevitably find himself at times dealing with the same subjects as the late Professor Freeman. Without in any way disparaging the genius of that eminent man, one may deem it a duty to correct the errors into which he fell, and conscientiously to combat, as an obstinate and mischievous superstition, the conviction of his pre-eminent accuracy and authority on matters of fact. It would be far pleasanter to dwell only on his merits; but when one finds that, in spite of the proofs I have been producing for years, Mr Herbert Fisher, representing the Oxford school of history, can still declare Mr Freeman to have reached 'the highest standard of scholarly exactitude',[⁶] it is evident that the works of the Regius Professor are still surrounded by a false glamour, and that one must further expose his grave liability to error. I cannot suppose that any competent scholar who may carefully peruse this work will in future venture to deny that, in spite of his many and his splendid gifts, Mr Freeman was as liable as any of us to error, or that however laudable his intentions, he was capable of precisely the same inaccuracy and occasionally of the same confusion as he denounced so bitterly in others.

It is, indeed, my contention, as I have already explained,[⁷] that to these denunciations of the errors of others is largely due the conviction of Mr Freeman's supreme accuracy. The question raised may seem to affect the whole method of history, for if, as has been said, it is the argument of the scientific historian that we ought to prefer accuracy of fact to charm of presentment and to literary style, the proof that his method fails to save him from erring like any 'literary' historian strikes at the root of his whole contention.

Yet it is not the scientific method, but its prophet himself that was at fault.

Although I am here only concerned with inaccuracy in matters of fact, I would guard myself against the retort that, at least, Mr Freeman's errors are of little consequence as compared with that obliquity of vision which led Mr Froude, at all hazards, to vindicate Henry the Eighth. Without insisting on an absolute parallel, I trace a resemblance even here. Just as his bias against the Roman church led Mr Froude to vindicate Henry in order to justify the breach with Rome, so Mr Freeman's passion for democracy made him an advocate on behalf of Harold, as 'one whose claim was not drawn only from the winding-sheet of his fathers'. I have elsewhere maintained, as to Harold's election 'by the free choice of a free people', that Mr Freeman's undoubted perversion of the case at this 'the central point' of his history, gravely impairs his narrative of the Conquest, because its success, and even its undertaking, can actually be traced to that election.[⁸] Unless we realize its disastrous effect on the situation both at home and abroad, we cannot rightly understand the triumph of the Duke's enterprise.

It had been my hope, in the present work, to have avoided acute controversy, but the attitude adopted, unfortunately, by the late Professor's champions has rendered that course impossible. One can but rejoice that his accuracy should find strenuous defenders, as it removes the reluctance one would otherwise feel in continuing to criticize it now. A case is doubly proved when proved in the teeth of opposition. But one expects that opposition to be fair, and the line my opponents have taken throughout cannot, by any stretch of courtesy, be so described. My difficulty, indeed, in dealing with their arguments on the Battle of Hastings, is that they do not affect or even touch my case. In spite of their persistent efforts to obscure a plain issue, there is not, and there cannot be, any 'controversy' as to Mr Freeman and the 'palisade'. For, while fully recognizing that the onus probandi lay on those who assert its existence, he failed, on his own showing, to produce any proof of it whatever.[⁹] Mr Archer has ended,[¹⁰] as he began,[¹¹] by deliberately ignoring Mr Freeman's words,[¹²] on which my case avowedly rests, and without suppressing which he could not even enter the field. This, indeed, I have explained so often, that I need not again have disposed of his arguments had not Mr Gardiner, in the exercise of his editorial discretion, allowed him to make certain statements,[¹³] and refused me the right of exposing them. A typical example will be found on p. 273.[¹⁴]

It is not only demonstrable error that justifies critical treatment; no less dangerous, if not more so, is that subtle commixture of guess-work and fact, which leaves us in doubt as to what is proved and what is merely hypothesis. In his lecture on 'The Nature of Historical Evidence', the late Professor himself well brought out the point:

Many people seem to think that a position is proved if it can not be disproved.... Very few see with Sir George Lewis—though Sir George Lewis perhaps carried his own doctrine a little too far—that in a great many cases we ought to be satisfied with a negative result, that we must often put up with knowing that a thing did not happen in a particular way, or did not happen at all, without being furnished with any counter-statement to put in the place of that which we reject.[¹⁵]

The question is whether a statement can be proved, not whether it can be disproved. Cases in point will be found on pp. 291, 298, 331-3.

It may, in view of certain comments, be desirable, perhaps, to explain that the study on the origin of knight-service appeared in Mr Freeman's lifetime,[¹⁶] and that my open criticism of his work began so far back as 1882. It will be seen, therefore, that I challenged its accuracy when he was himself able to reply.

To those who may hold that in these studies excessive attention is bestowed on Anglo-Norman genealogy, I commend the words, not of a genealogist, but of the historian Kemble:

It is indispensable to a clear view of the constitutional law and governmental institutions of this country, that we should not lose sight of the distribution of landed estates among the great families, and that the rise and fall of these houses should be carefully traced and steadily borne in mind....

Amidst all the tumult and confusions of civil and foreign wars; throughout religious and political revolutions; from the days of Arminius to those of Harald; from the days of Harald to our own; the successions of the landowners and the relations arising out of these successions, are the running comment upon the events in our national history: they are at once the causes and the criteria of facts, and upon them has depended the development and settlement of principles, in laws which still survive, in institutions which we cling to with reverence, in feelings which make up the complex of our national character.[¹⁷]

The paper on 'Walter Tirel and his wife' may serve to show that in this department there is still needed much labour before we can hope for a perfect record of the great houses of the Conquest.

I have to thank Mr Murray for his kind permission to make use of two of the articles I have contributed to the Quarterly Review.. Some of the studies have previously appeared in the English Historical Review, and these are now republished with Messrs Longmans' consent. Lastly, I would take the opportunity afforded by this preface of acknowledging the encouragement my researches have derived from the approval not only of our supreme authority—I mean the Bishop of Oxford—but also of that eminent scholar, Dr Liebermann, whose name one is proud to associate with a work on mediaeval history.

J. H. ROUND

[Note: I have not thought it needful to include in the index names of persons or places only introduced incidentally in illustration of arguments. The prefix 'Fitz', as in Geoffrey de Mandeville, has been retained as a useful convention, whatever the actual name may have been.]

[¹] Table chronologique des chartes et diplômes imprimés concernant l'histoire de la Belgique. Par Alphonse Wauters, vol. i, p. xxxi.

[²] See pp. [198], [208], [404]-5.

[³] See p. [430].

[⁴] Prof Maitland informs me that since the appearance of his Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, he has discovered the earlier occurrence of the word 'leet' (see p. [90]).

[⁵] See Domesday Studies.

[⁶] Fortnightly Review, December 1894, pp. 804-5.

[⁷] Quarterly Review., July 1892.

[⁸] See Quarterly Review. as above.

[⁹] See pp. [263]-9.

[¹⁰] English Historical Review, July 1894.

[¹¹] Contemporary Review, March 1893, pp. 335-55.

[¹²] Norman Conquest (2nd Ed.), iii, 763-4.

[¹³] English Historical Review, as above.

[¹⁴] I have, therefore, been obliged to refer in some detail to these statements, while for those I have already disposed of I have given the references to the Q.R. and E.H.R.

[¹⁵] Methods of Historical Study, p. 141.

[¹⁶] English Historical Review, July 1891-January 1892.

[¹⁷] The Names, Surnames, and Nicknames of the Anglo-Saxons. Read at Winchester, September 11, 1845.

CONTENTS

PART I
TERRITORIAL STUDIES

DOMESDAY BOOK

The true key to the Domesday Survey, and to the system of land assessment it records, is found in the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis. Although the document so styled is one of cardinal importance, it has, from accident, been known to few, and has consequently never succeeded in obtaining the attention and scientific treatment it deserved. The merit of its identification belongs to Mr Philip Carteret Webb, who published in 1756 a paper originally read before the Society of Antiquaries, entitled, A Short Account of Danegeld, with some further particulars relating to William the Conqueror's Survey. It is difficult to speak too highly of this production, remembering the date at which it was composed. Many years were yet to elapse before the printing of Domesday was even begun, and historical evidences were largely inaccessible as compared with the condition of things today. Yet the ability shown by Mr Webb in this careful and conscientious piece of work is well seen in his interesting discovery, which he announced in these words:

In searching for the Liber Eliensis, I have had the good fortune to discover in the Cotton Library a MS. copy of the Inquisition of the jury, containing their survey for most of the hundreds in Cambridgeshire. This MS. is written on vellum in double columns and on both sides of the page. It is bound up with the Liber Eliensis, and begins at p. 76a and ends at p. 113. It is written in a very fair but ancient character, not coeval with the Survey, but of about the time of Henry II. It was given by Mr Arthur Agard to Sir Robert Cotton, and is marked Tiberius A. VI 4. Your lordship and the Society will be of opinion that this is a discovery of importance, and what had escaped the observation of Sir H. Spelman, Mr Selden, and other antiquarians. A part of this valuable morsel of antiquity is already transcribed, and in a few weeks I hope to be able to communicate the whole of it to the Society (p. 26).

Mr Webb's discovery was known to Kelham, and duly referred to by him in his Domesday Book Illustrated (1788). It was also known to Sir Francis Palgrave, strong in his acquaintance with manuscript authorities, who alluded (1832) to the fact that 'fragments of the original inquisitions have been preserved',[¹] and described the MS. Tib. A. VI, of which 'the first portion consists of the Inquisitio Eliensis, extending, as above mentioned, into five counties; it is followed by the inedited Inquisitio', etc.[²] It is, however, undoubtedly ignored in Ellis's Introduction to Domesday Book (1833), and 'even the indefatigable Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy', writes Mr Birch,[³] 'has omitted all notice of this manuscript in his Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. ii. (1865)'. This, however, is not strictly the case, for in his notice of the Domesday MSS. he observes in a footnoteid:

The Cottonian MS. [Tib. A. VI] has also a second and unique portion of this survey, which was not printed in the edition published by the Record Commission in 1816. It commences 'in Grantebriggesira, in Staplehouhund', and ends imperfectly 'et vicecomiti regis v. auras'.

These words prove that Sir Thomas had inspected the MS., which duly begins and ends with the words here given.

It is certain, however, that Mr Freeman, most ardent of Domesday students, knew nothing of this precious evidence, and remained therefore virtually unacquainted with the modus operandi of the Great Survey. The pages, we shall find, of the Inquisitio afford information that no one would have welcomed more eagerly than himself. Perhaps, therefore, it is not surprising that Mr N. E. S. A. Hamilton, when editing this document for the Royal Society of Literature (1876), should have supposed that it had been overlooked till then, or that he was 'the first to bring its importance to light' (p. vi). It is, however, much to be regretted that Mr De Gray Birch should have strenuously insisted that Webb (whose paper he actually names) and Kelham 'appear to have been strangely ignorant of the true and important nature of this manuscript',[⁴] and should have repeated this assertion[⁵] after I had shown at the Domesday Commemoration (1886) that the honour of the discovery really belonged to Mr P. C. Webb. One may claim that Webb should have his due, while gladly expressing gratitude to Mr Hamilton for his noble edition of the Inquisitio, which has conferred on Domesday students an inestimable boon.[⁶]

The printing of the document in record type, the collation throughout with Domesday Book, and the appending of the Inquisitio Eliensis, edited from three different texts, represent an extraordinary amount of minute and wearisome labour. The result is a volume as helpful as it is indispensable to the scholar.

I propose in this paper to take up anew the subject, at the point where Mr Hamilton has left it, to submit the text to scientific criticism, to assign it its weight in the scale of authority, and to explain its glossarial and its illustrative value for the construction and the contents of Domesday Book.

I. NATURE OF THE 'INQ. COM. CANT.'

Exact definition is needful at the outset in dealing with this document. The Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensi, which is entered on fos. 76-113 of Tib. A. VI, must be carefully distinguished from the Inquisitio Eliensis on fos. 38-68. Mr Hamilton doubted whether any one before him 'had distinguished between' the two, but this, we have seen, was a mistake. The distinction however is all-important, the two documents differing altogether in character. One would not think it necessary to distinguish them also from the so-called Liber Eliensis (which is not a survey at all) had not Mr Eyton inadvertently stated that our document has been printed under the title of Liber Eliensis.[⁷]

The Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensi (hereafter styled 'the I.C.C.') deals with the county of Cambridge alone, but, in that county, with the lands of all holders. The Inquisitio Eliensis (which I propose to style 'the I.E.') deals with several counties, but, in these counties, with the lands of the abbey alone. The latter was duly printed, with Domesday Book, by the Record Commission; the former remained in manuscript till printed by Mr Hamilton.

Mr Hamilton describes his record at the outset as 'the Original Return made by the Juratores of the county of Cambridge in obedience to the Conqueror's mandate, from which the Exchequer Domesday for that county was afterwards compiled by the King's secretaries', and as 'the original source from which the Exchequer Domesday for that county was derived'. Mr Birch here again repeats the words, insisting 'that we have in this very precious Cottonian MS. the original source from which the Exchequer Domesday of Cambridgeshire was compiled'.[⁸]

Such a description is most unfortunate being not only inaccurate but misleading. All that we are entitled to predicate of the document is that it is apparently a copy of the original returns from which Domesday Book was compiled. For 'the original source' of both we must look to the now missing returns of the jurors, the primary authority from which Domesday Book and the Inquisitio Com. Cant. are independently derived. This distinction is all-important, reducing, as it does, the Inquisitio from the rank of an 'original' to that of a secondary authority on the same level with Domesday Book.[⁹] Mr Hamilton, like Mr Webb before him, assigned the handwriting of the Inquisitio to about the close of the twelfth century. The copy of the returns which it contains, therefore, was made about a century later than the returns themselves.

The problem then that we have to solve is this: 'Is the I.C.C. an actual transcript of these original returns, and if so, is it faithful?' I will not, like Mr Hamilton, assume an affirmative, but will attempt an impartial inquiry.

The two paths which we must follow in turn to arrive at a just conclusion are (1) the construction of the I.C.C., (2) collation with the Inq. Eliensis. For I hope to show that the latter record must have been derived from the same source as the Inq. Com. Cant.

Following the first of these paths, we note at once that while Domesday Book arranges the Manors according to fiefs, the Inq. Com. Cant., on the contrary, arranges them by hundreds and townships. Its system is regular and simple. For every hundred it first enumerates the principal jurors who made the return, and then gives the return itself, arranged according to townships (villæ). These townships are thus the units of which the Manors they contain are merely the component fractions. This is precisely what we should expect to find in the original returns, but it only creates a presumption; it does not afford a proof. For instance, it might be reasonably urged that these copies may have omitted certain items in the returns, just as Domesday Book omitted others.

To reply to this objection, we must turn to the second path; that is to say, we must collate the Inquisitio Eliensis with the Inq. Com. Cant. I shall prove below that the latter cannot have been taken from the former, which only covers a portion of its field, and that, on the other hand, the former cannot have been taken from the latter, because the Inquisitio Eliensis is accurate in places where the Inq. Com. Cant. is in error. Consequently they must both have been derived independently from some third document. This being so, if we should find that their versions agree closely, we may fairly infer that each is intended to be a faithful reproduction of the above 'third document'. In other words, if neither version omits items which are given in the other, we are entitled to assume that the copy is in each case exhaustive, for two scribes working independently are not likely to have systematically omitted the same items from the document before them.

What then was the 'third document' from which they both copied? Obviously it was either the original returns of the Domesday jurors, or a copy (exhaustive or not) of these returns. Now we cannot suppose that two scribes, working, as I have said, independently, would both have worked, not from the original returns themselves, but from a copy, and that the same copy of these returns—a copy, moreover, of the existence of which we have no evidence whatever. Moreover, in this hypothetical copy, there would, we may safely assert, have been some clerical errors. These would have duly re-appeared in both the Inquisitiones, and collation with Domesday Book would enable us to detect them. Yet in no single instance, though each of them contains errors, have I found a clerical error common to both. We are thus driven to the conclusion that in both these Inquisitiones we have copies of the actual returns made by the Domesday jurors.

One of the postulates in the above argument is that the Inq. Com. Cant. and the Inq. Eliensis 'agree closely' in their versions. Here is an instance in illustration:[¹⁰]

These extracts are typical and instructive. They leave, in the first place, no doubt upon the mind that both are versions of the same original. This, which proves my postulate, will be shown below to possess a further and important bearing. But while these versions closely agree, we notice (1) independent blunders, (2) slight variants in diction. As to blunders, we see that the I.C.C. has 'sol[idis]' where the I.E. has the correct 'hidis', while, conversely, the I.E. reads 'hun[dredis]' where the I.C.C. has, rightly, 'hidis'. Again the I.C.C. allots to demesne an assessment of a hide and a virgate, but I.E. a hide and a half (i.e. two virgates). Collation with Domesday Book confirms the former version. Conversely, the I.C.C. assigns to the mill the value of three shillings and eightpence, but the I.E. of two shillings and eightpence. Collation with Domesday Book confirms the latter. Turning now to the variants, we may express them more clearly thus:

These prove that verbal accuracy was not aimed at by the transcribers. The same freedom from its trammels is seen in the transposition of the 'mill' and 'meadow' passages, and, indeed, in the highly abbreviated form of the I.E. entries (in which a single letter, mostly, does duty for a word), which shows that the original version must have been either extended in the I.C.C., or (more probably) abbreviated in the I.E.

We are now in a position to advance to the criticism of the text of the Inq. Com. Cant., and to inquire how far it can be trusted as a reproduction of the original returns. In other words, are its contents more or less trustworthy than those of Domesday Book?

It might, no doubt, be fairly presumed that a simple transcript of the original returns was less likely to contain error than such a compilation as Domesday Book, in which their contents were (1) rearranged on a different system, (2) epitomized and partly omitted, (3) altered in wording. Mr Hamilton, indeed, who was naturally tempted to make the most of his MS., appears to have jumped at this conclusion; for he speaks in his preface (p. xii) of its 'superior exactness', and gives us no hint of omissions or of blunders. There are, however, plenty of both, as will be seen from the lists below, which do not profess to be exhaustive.

But we will first examine the instances adduced by Mr Hamilton. Out of ten examples in proof of its value, five are cases in which 'the want of precision in Domesday' leaves the identity of the tenant-in-chief 'undefined'. It is difficult to comment on these statements, because in all five cases the name is as carefully recorded in Domesday as in the I.C.C. Mr Hamilton's error can only, it will be found, have arisen from comparing the I.C.C. not with Domesday Book, but with the extracts therefrom printed in his work, which, being torn from their place, do not, of course, contain the tenant's full name, which in Domesday itself is given at the head of the list from which they are taken. Moreover, as it happens, this test demonstrates not the inferiority, but (in one instance at least) the superiority of Domesday, the I.C.C. (fo. 97, col. 2) reading 'Hanc terram tenuit comes alanus' [sic], where Domesday has (rightly) 'Hanc terram tenuit Algar comes'. The former must have wrongly extended the abbreviated original entry.[¹¹]

Another of Mr Hamilton's examples is this:

'Hæc terra fuit et est de dominio æcclesiæ' (Domesday) is abbreviated from a long account of the holdings of Harduuinus de Scalariis and Turcus homo abbatis de Rameseio in the Cotton MS.

But, on referring to the passage in question, we find that the Domesday passage: 'Hæc terra fuit et est de dominio æcclesiæ' has nothing to do with that 'long account', but corresponds to the simple formula in the I.C.C., 'Hanc terram tenuerunt monache de cet'ero T.R.E. et modo tenent'. The example which follows it is this:

At pp. 38, 39 we see a curious alteration in the value of the land, which had risen from xv. lib. 'quando recepit' and T.R.E. to xvii. lib. at the time the return was made, and dropped again to xvi. lib. in the Domesday Survey.

This strange comment implies the supposition that the I.C.C. records an earlier survey than Domesday Book, whereas, of course, they are derived from the same returns, so that the discrepancy of xvi. and xvii. is merely a clerical error. One more instance, the 'curious reading' Harlestone in the I.C.C., is shown below to be merely an error in that MS. Such are eight of the examples adduced by Mr Hamilton. The remaining two merely illustrate not the superior accuracy, but the greater elaboration of the I.C.C. It has been absolutely necessary to dispose of these examples, in order to show that a critical estimate of the value of the I.C.C. has yet to be made.

Taking the omissions in the MS. first, we find some really bad ones. On fo. 79a (2), collation with Domesday gives this result:

A similar 'run on' omission is found on fo. 109a (1):

Another instance of 'running on' occurs on fo. 105a (1), where 'xviii. cotarii' (p. 67) is proved by Domesday to stand for 'xviii. [bordarii x.] cotarii'. Again on fo. 79b (2) we have this:

So, too, on fo. 100b(1):

The importance of such an omission as this lies in the proof of unintelligent clerkship and want of revision which so unmeaning an entry as 'xv. xvi. carrucis' supplies.

Omissions of another character are not infrequent. On fo. 95b (1) an entire holding of a virgate (held by a sokeman of Earl Alan) is omitted (p. 34). Another sokeman of Earl Alan (p. 32) has his holding (¼ virgate) omitted on the same folio (95a, 1), so is an entire holding of Hardwin's (p. 36) on fo. 96a (2). A demesne plough ('i. caruca') of Hugh de Port (p. 8) is omitted (78a, 1), and so are the ploughs ('et iiii. villanis') of Aubrey's villeins (p. 9) a few lines lower down. On fo. 90a (1) the words 'ibi est terra' are wanting (p. 15),[¹⁵] and so are 'non potuit' on fo. 100 (A) 1.[¹⁶] The word 'recedere' is left out on fo. 103b (2),[¹⁷] and 'soca' just before (103 (B) 1).[¹⁸] 'Odo' is similarly wanting on fo. 90a (1).[¹⁹] The note also on the Abbot of Ely's sokeman at Lollesworth (p. 95), is wholly omitted (fo. 113, B, 2), though found both in Domesday Book and in the Inquisitio Eliensis.[²⁰]

Turning now to the clerical blunders, we find an abundant crop. We may express them conveniently in tabular form:

Besides these, Ralf 'de bans' is often entered as Ralf 'de scannis'. Again, we find such blunders as this:

In all these three cases the italicized words are misplaced, and in all three the explanation is the same, the scribe having first omitted them, and then inserted them later out of place. Having now criticized the text of the I.C.C., and shown that it presents no small traces of unintelligent clerkship, if not of actual ignorance of the terms and formulæ of Domesday, I turn to the text of Domesday Book, to test it by comparison with that of the I.C.C.

II. CRITICISM OF THE DOMESDAY TEXT

Among the omissions are, on i, 195 (b) 1, 'Item et reddebat viii. den. vel aueram si rex in vicecomitatu venit' (p. 5). At Kirtling (p. 11), 'et v^ta. caruca potest fieri [in dominio]' is omitted (i. 202 a). So is (p. 25) a potential demesne plough of John fitz Waleran (i. 201 b). The Countess Judith's sokemen at Carlton (pp. 20, 21) have their values omitted[²⁵] (i. 202, a, 2). 'Habuerunt dimidiam hidam, et,' is omitted (p. 28) in the entry of two sokemen of Godwine (201, b, 2). On i. 196 (a) 1, 'Terra est i. bovi' is wanting (p. 79). More important, however, are the omissions of whole entries. These are by no means difficult to account for, the process of extracting from the original returns, the various entries relating to each particular fief being one which was almost certain to result in such omissions.[²⁶]

Moreover, two entries were occasionally thrown into one, a dangerous plan for the clerks themselves, and one which may sometimes lead us to think that an entry is omitted when it is duly to be found under another head. Lastly, the compilers of Domesday Book had no such invaluable check for their work as was afforded in the original by entering first the assessment of the whole township, and then that of each of its component Manors separately. But of this more below.[²⁷] The only wonder is that the omissions are, after all, so few. Perhaps even of these some may be only apparent. Hardwin's half-hide in Burwell (p. 6) is wanting; so is Aubrey's half-virgate in Badburgham, according to Mr Hamilton (p. 36), but the oversight is his. A virgate held in Trumpington by a burgess of Cambridge (p. 51) would seem to be not forthcoming, but its position was somewhat anomalous.[²⁸] Guy de Rembercurt held a hide and a virgate in Haslingefield (p. 73), though we cannot find it in Domesday; and in Witewelle (Outwell) two hides which were held by Robert, a tenant of Hardwin (p. 81), are similarly omitted, according to Mr Hamilton but will be found under 'Wateuuelle' (198, b, 2).

There are cases in which the I.C.C. corrects D.B., cases in which D.B. corrects the I.C.C., and cases in which the I.C.C. corrects itself. There are also several cases of discrepancy between the two, in which we cannot positively pronounce which, if either, is right. A singular instance of both being wrong is found in the case of Soham. The assessment of this township was actually eleven hides, its four component holdings being severally assessed at nine and a half hides less six acres, half a hide, one hide, and six acres. The I.C.C. at first gives the total assessment as eleven hides and a half, while D.B. erroneously assesses the first of the four holdings at six hides and forty acres in one place, and nine hides and a half in the other, both figures being wrong. A most remarkable case of yet another kind is found in Scelford (Shelford). Here the entry in I.C.C. agrees exactly with the duplicate entries found in D.B. Yet they both make nonsense.[²⁹] But on turning to the Inquisitio Eliensis we obtain the correct version. As this is a very important and probably unique instance, the entries are here given in parallel columns:

Here the Inquisitio Eliensis version shows us that the estate had two divisions held by different tenures. Three virgates the sokemen were not free to sell; the other three they might sell, but if they did, 'predictus abbas semper socham habuit'.[³¹] The two divisions of the estate are confused in the other versions. But all three of these correspond so exactly that we are driven to assign the error to the original returns themselves. In that case the compiler (or compilers) of the I.E. will have corrected the original return from his own knowledge of the facts, which knowledge, I shall show, he certainly possessed.

This brings us to the errors of Domesday. For comparison's sake, I here tabulate them like those of the I.C.C.:

Comparing the omissions and errors, as a whole, in these two versions of the original returns, it may be said that the comparison is in favour of the Domesday Book text, although, from the process of its compilation, it was far the most exposed to error. No one who has not analysed and collated such texts for himself can realize the extreme difficulty of avoiding occasional error. The abbreviations and the formulæ employed in these surveys are so many pitfalls for the transcriber, and the use of Roman numerals is almost fatal to accuracy. The insertion or omission of an 'x' or an 'i' was probably the cause of half the errors of which the Domesday scribes were guilty. Remembering that they had, in Mr Eyton's words,[³⁴] to perform 'a task, not of mere manual labour and imitative accuracy, but a task requiring intellect—intellect, clear, well-balanced, apprehensive, comprehensive, and trained withal', we can really only wonder that they performed it so well as they did.

Still, the fact remains that on a few pages of Domesday we have been able to detect a considerable number of inaccuracies and omissions. The sacrosanct status of the Great Survey is thus gravely modified. I desire to lay stress on this fact, which is worthy of the labour it has cost to establish. For two important conclusions follow. Firstly, it is neither safe nor legitimate to make general inferences from a single entry in Domesday. All conclusions as to the interpretation of its formulae should be based on data sufficiently numerous to exclude the influence of error. Secondly, if we find that a rule of interpretation can be established in an overwhelming majority of the cases examined, we are justified, conversely, in claiming that the apparent exceptions may be due to errors in the text.

The first of these conclusions has a special bearing on the theories propounded by Mr Pell with so much ingenuity and learning.[³⁵] I have shown, in an essay criticizing these theories,[³⁶] that the case of Clifton, to which Mr Pell attached so much importance,[³⁷] is nothing, in all probability, but one of Domesday's blunders, of which I gave, in that essay, other instances. So, too, in the case of his own Manor of Wilburton, Mr Pell accepted without question the reading 'six ploughlands', as representing the 'primary return',[³⁸] although that reading is only found in the most corrupt of the three versions of the Inquisitio Eliensis, while the two better versions (B and C texts) agree with Domesday Book, and with the abbreviated return at the end of the A text itself (Tib. A. VI fo. 67, b, 1), in giving the ploughlands as seven. Really it is nothing but waste of time to argue from a reading which is only found in one out of five MSS., and that one the most corrupt.

This brings me to the existence and the value of duplicate entries in Domesday. Mr Hamilton describes as 'a curious reading' the words in the I.C.C., 'sed soca remanebat Harlestone'. Now it so happens that in this case we have five separate versions of the original entry: one in the I.C.C., one in the I.E., and three in Domesday Book. Here they are side by side:

The value of such collation as this ought to be self-evident. It is not only that we thus find four out of five MSS. to be against the reading 'Harlestone' (which, indeed, to any one familiar with the survey is obviously a clerical error), but that here and elsewhere we are thus afforded what might almost be termed a bilingual inscription. We learn, for instance, that the Domesday scribe deemed it quite immaterial whether he wrote 'recedere cum terra ejus', or 'vendere' or 'recedere sine licentia'. Consequently, these phrases were all identical in meaning.[³⁹]

Considerable light is thrown by the I.C.C. on the origin of these little known duplicate entries in Domesday. In every instance of their occurrence within the limits of its province they are due to a conflict of title recorded in the original return. They appear further to be confined to the estates of two landowners, Picot, the sheriff, and Hardwin d'Eschalers, the titles of both being frequently contested by the injured Abbot of Ely. Why the third local offender, Guy de Raimbercurt, does not similarly appear, it is difficult to say. He was the smallest offender of the three, and Picot the worst; but it is Hardwin's name which occurs most frequently in these duplicate entries.[⁴⁰] The principle which guided the Domesday scribes cannot be certainly decided, for they duplicated entries in the original return which (according to the I.C.C.) varied greatly in their statements of tenure. Thus, to take the first three:

I.C.C.		D.B.
fo. 79 (b) 1, 'Tenet Harduuinus descalariis'.[41]		I. 190 (b) 2, 'Tenet Harduinus sub abbate'.
		I. 199 (a) 2, 'Tenet Harduinus'.
fo. 90 (b) 2, 'Tenet Harduuinus de abbate'.		I. 190 (b) 1, 'Tenet Harduinus de Escalers de abbate'.
		I. 199 (a) 2, 'Tenet Harduinus'.
fo. 92 (a) 2, 'Tenet Harduuinus de rege'.		I. 199 (b) 2, 'Tenet Harduinus de abbate'.
		I. 199 (a) 2, 'Tenet Harduinus'.

Here, whether the original return states Hardwin to hold (1) of the abbot, (2) of the king, or (3) of neither, the scribes, in each of the three cases, enter the estates (A) under the Abbot's land, as held of the Abbot, (B) under Hardwin's land, as held in capite. And it is singular that in all these three cases the entry of the estate under the Abbot's land is the fuller of the two.[⁴²]

On the whole it would appear that the Domesday scribes did not consistently carry out a system of duplicate entry, though, on the other hand, these entries were by no means due to mere clerical inadvertence, but were prompted by a doubt as to the title, which led to the precaution of entering them under the names of both the claimants.

But the chief point of interest in these same entries is that they give us, when we add the versions of the I.C.C. and the I.E., four parallel texts. At some of the results of their collation we will now glance.

These extracts illustrate the use of the terms dare, vendere, recedere, etc. They are supplemented by those given below:

I.C.C.	D.B.		I.E.
(76, a, 1)	(I. 196, b, 1)
Potuit dare sine licentia domini sui terram suam.	Terram suam tamen dare et vendere potuit.
(76, b, 2)	(I. 199, a, 2)		(p. 101)
Absque eius licentia dare terram suampotuerunt, sed socham eorum habuitarchiepiscopus.	Sine ejus licentiapoterant recedere etterram suam dare velvendere, sed socaremansit Archiepiscopo.		Potuerunt dare velvendere terram suam.Saca remansit abbati.
(76, b, 2)	(I. 196, b, 1)
Potuit dare cui voluit.	Potuit absque[43] ejuslicentia recedere.
(77, b, 2)	(I. 195, b, 1)
Potuerunt recederecum terra ad quemdominum voluerunt.	Potuerunt recedersine licentia eorum.
(78, a, 1)	(I. 190, b, 1)
Potuerunt recederecum terra sua absquelicentia domini sui.	Dare et venderepotuerunt.
(90, a, 2)	(I. 190, b, 2)		(p. 102)
Non potueruntrecedere sine licentiaabbatis.	Non potuerunt recederesine ejus licentia.		Non potuerunt recederevel vendereabsque eius licentia.
	(I. 200, a, 2)
	Non potuerunt venderesine ejus licentia.
(105, a, 2)	(I. 200, a, 1)		(p. 109)
Potuerunt dare etvendere sine soca.	Terras suas venderepotuerunt. Soca de viii.sochemannis remansitin abbatia de ely.		Potuerunt dare velvendere cui voluerunt,sed saca eorum remansiteidem abbati.
(113, b, 1)	(201, a, 1)		(p. 112)
Potuerunt recedere sinesoca.	Terram suam venderepotuerunt. Soca veroremansit abbati.		Potuerunt dare preterlicentiam abbatiset sine soca.

No one can glance at these passages without perceiving that dare, vendere, and recedere are all interchangeably used, and that even any two of them (whether they have the conjunction 'et' or the disjunction 'vel' between them) are identical with any one. It would be possible to collect almost any number of instances in point. Further, the insertion or omission of the phrase 'sine' (or 'absque') 'ejus licentia' is immaterial, it being understood where not expressed. So too with the words 'cui voluit'. In short, like the translators to whom we owe the Authorized Version, the Domesday scribes appear to have revelled in the use of synonym and paraphrase.[⁴⁴] Our own conceptions of the sacredness of a text and of the need for verbal accuracy were evidently foreign to their minds.

Glancing for a moment at another county, we have in the Survey of Leicestershire a remarkable instance of a whole fief being entered twice over. It is that of Robert Hostiarius:

Here the last two entries (both relating to Claxton) have been boldly thrown into one in the second version, which also (though omitting the number of ploughlands) gives additional information in the name of Robert's father, and in those of his predecessors T.R.E. This is thus an excellent illustration of the liberty allowed themselves by the compilers of Domesday.

An instance on a smaller scale is found in the Survey of Cambridgeshire, where we read on opposite pages:

The second entry has been deleted as a duplicate, but it serves to show us that the scribes, even when free from error, were no mere copyists.[⁴⁵]

III. 'SOCA' AND 'THEINLAND'

The extracts I have given above establish beyond a doubt the existence among the 'sochemanni' of two kinds of tenure. We have (1) those who were free to part with (vendere) and leave (recedere) their land, (2) those who were not, i.e. who could not do so without the abbot's licence. This distinction is reproduced in two terms which I will now examine.

In the Inquisitio Eliensis and the documents connected with it there is much mention of the 'thegnlands' of the Abbey. These lands are specially distinguished from 'sokeland' (terra de soca). Both, of course, are distinct from the 'dominium'. Thus in one of the Conqueror's writs we read:

Restituantur ecclesiæ terræ que in dominio suo erant die obitus Æduardi.... Qui autem tenent theinlandes que procul dubio debent teneri de ecclesia faciant concordiam cum abbate quam meliorem poterint,... Hoc quoque de tenentibus socam et sacam fiat.[⁴⁶]

Now this distinction between 'thegnland' and 'sokeland' will be found to fit in exactly with the difference in tenure we have examined above. Here is an instance from the 'breve abbatis' in the record of Guy de Raimbercurt's aggressions:

In melreda ii. hidas et dim. virg.

In meldeburne ii. hidas et dim.[⁴⁷] et dim. virg.

Hoc est iiii. hidas et iii. virg. Ex his sunt i. virg. et dim. thainlande et iiii. hidas et dim.[⁴⁸] de soca.

On reference to the two Manors in question, there is, at first sight, nothing in the I.C.C., the I.E., or Domesday to distinguish the 'thegnland' from the 'sokeland'. Of the first holding we read that it had been held T.R.E. by 10 sochemanni 'de soca S. Edelride'; of the second, that it was held by 'viii. sochemanni ... homines abbatis de Ely'. But closer examination of the I.C.C. reveals, in the former case, this distinction:

De his ii. hidis et dimidia virga tenuit i. istorum unam virgam et dimidiam. Non potuit dare nec vendere absque licentia abbatis. Sed alii novem potuerunt recedere et vendere cui voluerunt.[⁴⁹]

Here then we identify the virgate and a half of 'theinland'—though held by a sochemannus—and this same distinction of tenure proves to be the key throughout. Thus, for instance, in the same document 'Herchenger pistor' is recorded to have seized 'in Hardwic i. hidam thainlande et dim. hidam et vi. acras de soca' (p. 177). Reference to the I.C.C., D.B., and the I.E. reveals that the former holding had belonged to 'v. sochemanni homines abbatis de ely', and that 'isti non potuerunt dare neque vendere alicui extra ecclesiam S. Edeldride ely'.[⁵⁰] But the latter holding had belonged to a sochemannus, of whom it is said—'homo abbatis de ely fuit: potuit recedere, sed socam ejus abbas habuit'.[⁵¹]

This enables us to understand the distinctions found in the summaries appended to the Cambridgeshire portion of the I.E., and recorded in the Breve Abbatis. Indeed they confirm the above distinction, for the formula they apply to holders 'de soca abbatie ely' is: 'Illi qui hanc terram tenuerunt de soca T.R.E. vendere potuerunt, sed saca et soca et commendatio et servitium semper remanebat ecclesia de ely.'

These terms are valuable for their definition of rights. Over the holder of land 'de soco' the lord had (1) 'saca et soca', (2) 'commendatio et (3) servitium'. If the land was thegnland then the Abbot received 'omnem consuetudinem' as well.[⁵²] We will first deal with the latter class, those from whom the Abbot received 'consuetudo', and then those who held 'de soca'.

For contemporary (indeed, slightly earlier) evidence, we must turn to the Ely placitum of 1072-75.[⁵³] The special value which this placitum possesses is found in its record of the services due from sochemanni, and even from freemen. It thus helps to interpret the bald figures of Domesday, to which it is actually anterior. The first two instances it affords are these:

In breuessan tenet isdem W. terram Elfrici supradicte consuetudinis. In brucge tenet ipse W. terram etfled ejusdem modi.

The consuetudo referred to was this:

Ita proprie sunt abbati ut quotienscunque preceperit prepositus monasterii ire et omnem rei emendationem persolvere. Et si quid de suo voluerint venundare, a preposito prius licentiam debent accipere.

The corresponding entries in the I.E. run thus:

'In Brugge una libera femina commend' S. Ædel. de lxxx. ac. pro manerio.

In Beuresham ten[uit] Ælfricus i. liber homo commed' S. Ædel.[⁵⁴] lx. acras pro manerio' (p. 165).

Thus we obtain direct evidence of the services due from commended freemen owing 'consuetudines'. Turning now to those of sochemanni, we have this important passage:

Willelmus de Warena tenet quadraginta quinque socamans in predicta felteuuella qui quotiens abbas preceperit in anno arabunt suam terram, colligent et purgabunt segetes, adducent et mittent in horrea, portabunt victum monachorum ad monasterium, et quotiens eorum equos voluerit, et ubicunque sibi placuerit, totiens habebit, et ubicunque forsfecerint abbas forsfacturam habebit, et de illis similiter qui in eorum terram forsfecerint.

Item Willelmus de uuarenna tenet triginta tres socamans, istius consuetudinis in Nortuuolda.

Item W. tenet quinque socamans istius modi in Muddaforda.

Supradictus Walterus et cum eo Durandus, homines hugonis de monte forti, tenent xxvi. socamans supradicte consuetudinis in Maraham.

Collating as before from the I.E. the relative entries, we find they run thus:

Felteuuelle ... Huic manerio adjacebant T.R.E. xxxiiii. homines cum omni consuetudine, et alii vii. erant liberi homines,[⁵⁵] qui poterant vendere terras, sed soca et commendatio remansit S. Ædel. (p. 132).

In felteuuella tenet W. de uuarenna xli. sochemannos ... Super hos omnes habebat S. Ædel. socam et commendationem et omnem consuetudinem. Illorum vii. liberi erant cum terris suis, sed soca et commendatio remanebat S. Ædel. (p. 139).

IIII. sochemanni adjacent [sic] huic manerio [felteuuella] T.R.E. Et modo habet eos W. de Warenna (p. 138).

Nortuualde ... Huic manerio adjacebant T.R.E. xxx. sochemanni cum omni consuetudine. Et alii iiii. liberi homines qui poterant vendere terras, sed saca et commendatio remanebat S. Ædel. (p. 132).

In Nortuualde S. Ædel. xxxiiii. sochem [annos] ... S. Ædel. [habuit] socam et commendationem et omnem consuetudinem de illis xxx. tantum; et iiii. erant liberi homines, socam et sacam et commendationem [super hos] S. Ædel. habebat[⁵⁶] (p. 139).

Mundeforde ... Huic manerio adjacebant T.R.E. septem sochemanni cum omni consuetudine (p. 132).

In Mundeforde S. Ædel. vii. sochemannos cum omni consuetudine (p. 139).

Huic manerio [Mareham] T.R.E. adjacebant viginti vii. sochemanni cum omni consuetudine, sed postquam Rex W. advenit, habuit eos hugo de Munfort preter unum (p. 130).

[Terre hugo de Munford.] In mareham xxvi. sochemanni quos tenet [sic] S. Ædel. T.R.E.[⁵⁷] ... hanc terram receperunt[⁵⁸] pro escangio, et mensurata est in brevi S. Ædel. (p. 137).

Here then we identify these four cases: Feltwell, with its 41 sochemanni (more accurately described as 34 s. and 7 liberi homines) attached to one Manor and four to another—45 in all; Northwold, with its 33 or 34;[⁵⁹] Muddiford with 5 or 7;[⁶⁰] and Marham with its 26.

The three former Manors lay in the Hundred of Grimeshoe, the fourth northwards, towards the Wash. Just to the south of the three Manors, over the borders of Suffolk, lay Brandon, where Lisois de Moustiers had usurped the rights of Ely over six sochemanni.

In Lakincgeheda et in Brandona vi. sochemanni S. Ædel. ita quod non potuerunt vendere terras liberati liseie antecessori eudo[nis] dapif[eri] ... Post eum tenuit eos eudo et tenet cum saca et soca (p. 142).

The record of the placitum, drawn up during the tenure of Lisois, shows us their limited services: 'Isti solummodo arabant et c'terent [sic] messes ejusdem loci quotienscunque abbas præceperit.' The difference between these services and the others we have seen recorded is considerable.

Yet another group of sokemen on Suffolk Manors rendered these services:

Ita proprie sunt abbati ut quotienscunque ipse præceperit in anno arabunt suam terram, purgabunt et colligent segetes, portabunt victum monachorum ad monasterium, equos eorum in suis necessitatibus habebit [abbas], et ubicunque deliquerint emendationem habebit semper et de omnibus illis qui in terris eorum deliquerint.

This is practically the same definition as we had for the other group, and suggests that it was of wide prevalence. A notable contrast is afforded by the entry: 'In villa que vocatur Blot tenet ipse R. iiii. homines qui tantum debent servire abbati cum propriis equis in omnibus necessitatibus suis.'

We have now examined the consuetudines due from those 'qui vendere non potuerunt', and may turn to the rights exercised over the other class. Excluding 'servitium' (which is usually omitted as subordinate or comprised in the others), these are: (1) 'commendatio' (2) 'saca et soca'. The distinction between the two meets us throughout the survey of the eastern counties. A man might be 'commended' to one lord while another held his soca. Thus we read of Eadwine, a 'man' of the Abbot of Ely: 'Potuit dare absque eius licentia, sed socam comes Algarus habuit.'[⁶¹] That is to say, he was 'commended to the Abbot of Ely', but Earl Ælfgar had the right of 'sac and soc' over him.[⁶²]

So too in the case of three 'liberi homines', commended to the Abbot in Norfolk. He had no right over them, but such as commendation conferred 'non habebat nisi commendationem', while their 'soca' belonged to the King's Manor of Keninghall.[⁶³] Conversely, the Abbot of Ely had the 'soca' of a 'man' of Earl Waltheof,[⁶⁴] and a 'man' of John, Waleran's nephew.[⁶⁵] 'Commendatio', of course, took precedence as a right. Thus we read of the above three 'liberi homines'—'Hos liberos homines tenet [tenuit] Ratfridus, postea W. de Scodies, et abbas saisivit eos propter commendationem suam' (p. 133).

In the above extracts we saw 'liberi homines qui vendere poterant' distinguished from 'Sochemanni', who could not sell. But we also saw that the two classes were not always carefully distinguished. We find, moreover, that the 'liberi homines' were themselves, sometimes, 'not free to sell'. Thus 'tenuit anant unus liber homo sub S. Ædel. T.R.E. pro manerio ii. carucatas terræ sed non potuit vendere' (p. 142). Some light may be thrown on this by the case of the estate held by Godmund, an abbot's brother:

Totam terram quam tenebat Gudmundus in dominio, id est Nectuna, sic tenebat T.R.E. de S. Ædel. quod nullo modo poterat vendere, nec dare; sed post mortem suam debebat manerium redire in dominio ecclesiæ; quia tali pacto tenuit Gudmundus de Abbate (p. 144).

With this we may compare these entries:

In Cloptuna ... Ædmundus commendatus S. Ædel. unam carucatam ... quam non potuit vendere nec dare (p. 150).

In Brandestuna Ædmundus presbyter terram quam accepit cum femina sua dedit S. Ædel. concedente femina T.R.E. ea conventione quod non posset eam dare nec vendere. Similiter de Clopetona' (p. 152).

In these cases the holder had only a life interest. Exactly parallel with the second is the case of 'Eadward', citizen of London, who gave lands to St. Paul's, reserving a life interest for himself and his wife—'et mortua illa Sanctus Paulus hereditare debuit'.[⁶⁶]

The above commendation of Edmund the priest ought to be compared with that of 'unus liber homo S. Ædel. commendatus ita quod non poterat vendere terram suam sine licentia abbatis', and of 'i. liber homo S. Ædel. Commendatus ita quod non poterat vendere terram suam extra ecclesiam (sed sacam et socam habuit stigandus in hersham)'.[⁶⁷] Thus both those who were free to sell and those who were not, might belong to the class of 'liberi homines'. The essential distinction was one, not of status, but of tenure.

IV. THE DOMESDAY CARUCA

Yet more definite and striking, however, is the information on the Domesday caruca afforded by collating D.B. with the I.C.C. I referred at the Domesday Commemoration (1886) to the problem raised by the caruca,[⁶⁸] and recorded my belief that in Domesday the word must always mean a plough team of eight oxen. The eight oxen, as Mr Seebohm has shown, are the key to the whole system of the carucate and the bovate. In Domesday, as I argued, the formula employed involves of necessity the conclusion that the caruca was a fixed quantity. Such entries, moreover, as 'terra i. bovi', 'terra ad iii. boves', etc., can only be explained on the hypothesis that the relation of the bos to the caruca was constant. But as the question is one of undoubted perplexity, and as some, like Mr Pell, have strenuously denied that the number of oxen in the Domesday caruca was fixed,[⁶⁹] the evidence given below is as welcome as it is conclusive:

It is absolutely certain from these entries that the scribes must have deemed it quite immaterial whether they wrote 'dimidia caruca' or 'iiii. boves'; as immaterial as it would be to us whether we wrote 'half a sovereign' or 'ten shillings'. It is, consequently, as absolutely certain that the Domesday caruca was composed of eight oxen as that our own sovereign is composed of twenty shillings. And from this conclusion there is no escape.[⁷⁰]

Another point in connection with the caruca on which the I.C.C. gives us the light we need is this:

Here the Domesday text is utterly misleading as it stands. But the I.C.C., by supplying the omitted 'sex', gives us at once the right sense.

V. THE DOMESDAY HIDE

Similar to its evidence on the Domesday 'plough' is that which the I.C.C. affords as to the hide and virgate. In my criticism of Mr Pell's learned paper, I strenuously opposed his view that the hida of Domesday was composed of a variable number of virgates, and I insisted on the fact that the Domesday 'virgate' was essentially and always the quarter of the geldable 'hide'.[⁷¹] The following parallel passages will amply prove the fact:

These are only some of the passages of direct glossarial value.[⁷²] Indirectly, that is to say by analysis of the township assessments, we obtain the same result throughout the survey passim.[⁷³] Here, again, we are able to assert that two virgates must have been to the scribes as obviously equivalent to half a hide as ten shillings with us are equivalent to half a sovereign. For here, again, the point is that these scribes had no knowledge of the varying circumstances of each locality. They had nothing to guide them but the return itself, so that the rule, in Domesday, of 'four virgates to a hide' must have been of universal application.

But not only were there thus, in Domesday, four virgates to a hide; there were also in the Domesday virgate thirty Domesday acres. Mr Eyton, though perhaps unrivalled in the study he has bestowed on the subject, believed that there were only twelve such acres, of which, therefore, forty-eight composed the Domesday hide.[⁷⁴] It is, perhaps, the most important information to be derived from the I.C.C. that a hundred and twenty Domesday acres composed the Domesday hide.[⁷⁵]

We have the following direct statements:

If 20 acres were identical with two-thirds of a virgate, there must, in a whole virgate, have been 30 acres; and if a virgate, plus 10 acres, was equivalent to half a hide minus 20 acres, we have again a virgate of thirty, and a hide of 120 acres. But the conclusion I uphold will be found to rest on no isolated facts. It is based on a careful analysis of the Inquisitio throughout. Here are some striking examples:

fo. 92 (b) 1. 'Belesham pro x. hidis se defendit.'

fo. 99 (b) 1: 'tenet hardeuuinus de scal' vi. hidas et i. virgam et vii. acras de rege.'

	H.	V.	A.
Ely Abbey	2½	0	9
7 Sokemen	1½	0	6
3 Sokemen	½	0	0
'Alsi'	½	0	0		T.R.E.
2 Sokemen		1	7
5 Sokemen		3½	0
	——	——	——
	6	1	7

fo. 79 (a) 2: 'Suafham pro x. hidis se defendit.'

fo. 90 (a) 'choeie et stoua pro x. hidis se defenderunt.'

fo. 96 (a) 2: 'Pampeswrda pro v. hidis et xxii. acris se defendit.'

fo. 107 (a) 2: 'Barentona pro x. hidis se defendit.'

fo. 108 (a) 2: 'Oreuuella pro iiii. hidis se defendit.'

This last example is, perhaps, the most remarkable of all, in the accuracy with which the virgates and their fractions, by the help of the five acres, combine to give us the required total.

But, it may be asked, how far does the Inquisitio, as a whole, confirm this conclusion? In order to reply to this inquiry, I have analysed every one of the Manors it contains. The result of that analysis has been that of the ninety-four townships which the fragment includes (not counting 'Matingeleia', of which the account is imperfect) there are only fifteen cases in which my calculation does not hold good, that is to say, in which the constituents as given do not equal the total assessment when we add them up on the above hypothesis of thirty acres to the virgate, and four virgates to the hide. This number, however, would be considerably larger if we had to work only from D.B., or only from the I.C.C. But as each of these, in several cases, corrects the errors of the other, the total of apparent exceptions is thus reduced. Hence I contend that if we could only get a really perfect return, the remaining apparent exceptions would largely disappear.

In some of these exceptions the discrepancy is trifling. Thus, at Triplow, we have 2 acres in excess of the 8 hide assessment—a discrepancy of ¹⁄240. At 'Burch and Weslai' we have a deficit of 5 acres on 10 hides, that is ¹⁄240. At 'Scelforda' the figures of D.B. give us an excess of 7 acres on the 20 hide assessment, that is ⁷⁄2400. The I.C.C. figures make the excess to be 12 acres.

Another class of exceptions is accounted for by the tendency of both texts, as we have seen, to enter a virgate too much or too little, and to confuse virgates with their fractions. Thus at 'Litlingetona' our figures give us a virgate in excess of the assessment, while at 'Bercheham'[⁸⁰] and again at 'Witlesforde' we have a virgate short of the amount. At 'Herlestona' we have, similarly, half a virgate too much, and 'Kingestona' half a virgate (15 acres) too little. Lastly, at 'Wicheham', the aggregate of the figures is a quarter of a virgate short of the amount.

A third class of these exceptions is due to the frequent omission in the I.C.C. of estates belonging to the king. Thus at Wilbraham it records an assessment of 10 hides represented only by two estates of four hides apiece. But on turning to Domesday (i. 189 b) we read: 'Wilborham dominica villa regis est. Ibi ii. hidæ.' The missing factor is thus supplied, and the apparent discrepancy disposed of. So, too, at 'Haslingefelda' (Haslingfield), where the I.C.C. accounts only for twelve hides and three virgates out of an assessment of twenty hides. Domesday here, again, supplies the missing factor in a royal Manor of seven hides and a virgate. We thus obtain, instead of an exception, a fresh illustration of our rule.

Haslingfield

Domesday omits altogether, so far as I can find, the holding of Guy, an omission which would upset the whole calculation. But, in the case of Isleham, the apparent exception is due to the I.C.C., not to Domesday Book. Its assessment, in that document, is given as four hides. But the aggregate of its Manors, as there recorded, gives us an assessment of three hides plus eighty acres. Here any one who was rash enough to argue from a single instance (as Mr Eyton and Mr Pell were too apt to do) might jump at the conclusion that the hide must here have been of eighty acres. Yet Domesday enables us to collect all the constituents of the 'Vill', among them the king's estate, here again omitted. The real figures, therefore, were these:

Isleham, then, was a normal ten-hide township, and confirms, instead of rebutting, the rule that the geldable hide contained 120 acres.[⁸¹]

The remaining exceptions are 'Somm[er]tona' partly explained by the omission of terra Regis, 'Bathburgeham' (Babraham) with 21 acres short of an assessment of 7 hides, and Carlton, which fitly closes the list of these exceptions. For here, on an assessment of 10 hides, we have, according to the I.C.C., 27 acres short, but, according to D.B., 53½ (27 + 20 + 6½). A demonstrable blunder in Domesday Book and a discrepancy between it and the I.C.C. are responsible, together, for the difference.[⁸²] Thus we see how wide a margin should be allowed, in these calculations, for textual error.

It is necessary to remember that there were three processes, in each one of which error might arise:

I. In the actual survey and its returns, 'by reason of the insignificance of some estates, or by reason of forgetfulness, or inaccuracy, or confusion, or doubt on the part of local jurors and witnesses, or of the clerks who indited their statements'.[⁸³]

II. In the collection and transmission of the returns, by the loss of a 'leaflet or rotulet of the commissioners' work'.[⁸⁴]

III. In the transcription of the returns into D.B., or into the I.C.C., plus, in the case of the former, the rearrangement and abridgment of the materials.

We may now quit this part of our subject, claiming to have settled, by the aid of the I.C.C., a problem which has puzzled generations of antiquaries, namely: 'What was the Domesday hide?'[⁸⁵] We have shown that it denoted a measure of assessment composed of four (geld) virgates or a hundred and twenty (geld) acres. What relation, if any, it bore to area and to value is a question wholly distinct, on which the next portion of this essay may throw quite a new light.

VI. THE FIVE-HIDE UNIT

It is one of the distinctive and valuable features of the Inq. Com. Cant. that it gives us the total assessment for each Vill of which it treats before recording the several Manors of which that Vill is composed, the aggregate assessments of which Manors make up the total assessment for the Vill. In this feature we have something which Domesday does not contain, and which (independently of its checking value),[⁸⁶] gives us at once those Vill assessments which we could only extract from the Domesday entries by great labour and with much uncertainty. Let us see then if these Vill assessments lead us to any new conclusions on the whole assessment system.

The first point that we notice is this. The five-hide unit is brought into startling prominence. No careful student, one would suppose, of Domesday, can have failed to be struck by the singular number of Manors in the hidated portion of the realm, which are assessed in terms of the five-hide unit, that is to say, which are entered as of five hides or some multiple of five hides. This is specially the case with towns, and some years ago, in one of my earliest essays, I called attention to the fact, and explained its bearing in connection with the unit of military service.[⁸⁷] Yet no one, it would seem, has been struck by the fact, or has seen that there must be some significance in this singular preponderance of five-hide Manors. Now what the Inquisitio here does for us is to show us that this preponderance is infinitely greater than we should gather from the pages of Domesday, and that when the scattered Manors are pieced together in their Vills, the aggregate of their assessments generally amounts either to five hides or to a multiple of the five-hide unit. Thus the rural townships are brought into line with towns, and we learn that in both the assessment was based on the five-hide unit.

Let us now take a typical Hundred and test this theory in practice:

Here we have five Vills varying in area from eleven ploughlands to twenty, and in value T.R.E., from £11 10s to £20, all assessed alike at ten hides each. What is the meaning of it? Simply that ASSESSMENT BORE NO RATIO TO AREA OR TO VALUE in a Vill, and still less in a Manor.

Assessment was not objective, but subjective; it was not fixed relatively to area or to value, but to the five-hide unit. The aim of the assessors was clearly to arrange the assessment in sums of five hides, ten hides, etc.

Take now the next Hundred in the Inq. Com. Cant.:

Here again we have seven Vills varying in area from thirteen and a quarter ploughlands to twenty, and in value from £8 8s to £19 5s, all uniformly assessed at ten hides each. The thing speaks for itself. Had the hidation in these two Hundreds been dependent on area or value, the assessments would have varied infinitely. As it is, there is for each Vill but one and the same assessment.

Note further that the I.C.C. enables us to localize holdings the locality of which is unnamed in Domesday: also, that it shows us how certain Vills were combined for the purpose of assessment. Thus Borough Green and Westley are treated in Domesday as distinct, but here we find that they were assessed together as a ten-hide block. By this means we are enabled to see how the five-hide system could be traced further still if we had in other districts the same means of learning how two or three Vills were thus grouped together.

We may now take a step in advance, and pass to the Hundred of Whittlesford.

Hundred of Whittlesford
(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 38-43)
	Hides			Ploughlands							Valets
Whittlesford	12		20	11		20	£15	2	0		£34	2	0
Sawston	8			9			19	0	0
Hinxton			20			16					20	10	0
Icklington			20			24½					24	5	0
Duxford			20			20¼					27	5	0
			—			——					——	—	—
			80			80¾					£106	2	0

Here we are left to discover for ourselves that Whittlesford and Sawston were grouped together to form a twenty-hide block. And on turning from the above figures to the map we find the discovery verified, these two Vills jointly occupying the northern portion of the hundred. Thus, this hundred, instead of being divided like its two predecessors into ten-hide blocks, was assessed in four blocks of twenty hides each, each of them representing one of those quarters so dear to the Anglo-Saxon mind (virgata, etc.), and lying respectively in the north, south, east and west of the district. Proceeding on the lines of this discovery, we come to the Hundred of Wetherley, which carries us a step further.

Hundred of Wetherley
(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 68-83)
	Hides			Ploughlands
Comberton	6		20	7		32
Barton	7			12
Grantchester	7			13
Haslingfield			20			22[88]
Harlton	5		20	7		27⅞
Barrington	10			15⅜
Shepreth	5			5½
Ordwell	4		20	55⁄16		293⁄16
Wratworth	4			5⅜
Whitwell	4			5
Wimpole	4			5
Arrington	4			8½
			—			——
			80			1111⁄16

It is important to observe that, though the grouping is my own, the order of the Vills is exactly that which is given in the Inq. Com. Cant., and by that order the grouping is confirmed. Note also how, without such grouping, we should have but a chaos of Vills, whereas, by its aid, from this chaos is evolved perfect symmetry. Lastly, glance at the four 'quarters' and see how variously they are subdivided.

Advancing still on the same lines, we approach the very remarkable case of the adjoining Hundred of Long Stow.

Now it is necessary to explain at the outset that, the Inq. Com. Cant. being here imperfect, it only gives us the first two of the above 'quarters', its evidence ending with Bourne. But, by good fortune, it is possible to reconstruct from Domesday alone the remaining half of the Hundred, and thus to obtain the most valuable example of the system we are engaged in tracing that we have yet met with. The grouping I have adopted is based on the figures, but in some cases it is obvious from the map: Eltisley and Croxton, for instance, which form a ten-hide block, occupy a projecting portion of the county all to themselves, while Caxton adjoins them.

Hundred of Longstow
(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 83-89)
	Hides					Ploughlands
Eversden	8⅓				25	13⅜		381⁄16
Kingston	8⅓					89⁄16
Toft and Hardwick	8⅓					16⅛
Grandsen	5				25	9		32½
Bourne	20					[23
Gamlingay			20		25
Hatley	4¼		5
[Unnamed]	¾
Croxton	7		10		25
Eltisley	3
Caxton			10
Caldecot	1¾		5
Long Stow	3¼
					——
					100

Several points are here noticeable. Observe, in the first place, how the twenty-five hide 'quarter' which heads the list is divided into three equal blocks of 8⅓ hides each, just as we found in Wetherley Hundred that one of the twenty-hide 'quarters' was divided into five equal blocks of four hides each. In these cases the same principle of simple equal division was applied to the quarter hundred as we saw applied to the whole hundred in the first two cases we studied—the Hundreds of Staines and of Radfield. Notice next how the two Vills of Toft and Hardwick, which are separately surveyed in Domesday under their respective names, are found from the Inq. Com. Cant. to have combined (under the name of 'Toft') in a block of 8⅓ hides. Lastly, it should not be overlooked that the ¾ hide not localized in Domesday fits in exactly with Hatley to complete its five hides.

The chase now becomes exciting: it can no longer be doubted that we are well on the track of a vast system of artificial hidation, of which the very existence has been hitherto unsuspected. Let us see what further light can be thrown by research on its nature.

On looking back at the evidence I have collected, one is struck, surely, by the thought that the system of assessment seems to work, not as is supposed, up from, but down to the Manor. Can it be possible that what was really assessed was not the Manor, nor even the Vill, but the Hundred as a whole? This view is so revolutionary, so subversive of all that has ever been written on the subject, that it cannot be answered off-hand. We will therefore begin by examining the case of the Hundred of Erningford, which introduces us to a further phenomenon, the reduction of assessment.

Here we have, as in the last instance, a Hundred of exactly a hundred hides (assessment). But we are confronted with a new problem, that of reduction. Before we form any conclusions, it is important to explain that this problem can only be studied by the aid of the Inq. Com. Cant., for the evidence both of Domesday and of the Inq. El. is distinctly misleading. Reduction of assessment is only recorded in these two documents when the Manor is identical with the Vill. In cases where the Vill contains two or more Manors, the Vill is not entered as a whole, and consequently the reduction on the assessment of that Vill as a whole is not entered at all.

After this explanation I pass to the case of the above Hundred, in which the evidence on the reduction is fortunately perfect. The first point to be noticed is that in four out of the five Hundreds that we have as yet examined, there is not a single instance of reduction, whereas here, on the contrary, the assessment is reduced in every Vill throughout the Hundred. That is to say, the reduction is conterminous with the Hundred. Cross its border into the Hundred of Wetherley, or of Triplow, and in neither district will you find a trace of reduction. Observe next that the reduction is uniform throughout the whole, being 20 per cent in every instance. Now what is the inevitable conclusion from the data thus afforded? Obviously that the reduction was made on the assessment of the Hundred as a whole, and that this reduction was distributed among its several Vills pro rata.[⁸⁹] Further research confirms the conclusion that these reductions were systematically made on Hundreds, not on Vills. There is a well defined belt, or rather crescent, of Hundreds, in all of which the assessment is reduced. They follow one another on the map in this order: Erningford, Long Stow, Papworth, North Stow, Staplehow, and Cheveley. Within this crescent there lies a compact block of Hundreds, in no one of which has a single assessment been reduced. They are Triplow, Wetherley (? Cambridge[⁹⁰]), Flendish, Staines, Radfield, Chilford and Whittlesford. Beyond the crescent there lie 'the two Hundreds of Ely', in which, so far as our evidence goes, there would seem to have been similarly no reduction. As the two horns of the crescent, so to speak, are the Hundreds of Erningford and Cheveley, we will now glance at the latter, and compare the evidence of the two.

Hundred of Cheveley
(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 9-11)
	Hides
	T.R.E.			T.R.W.			Ploughlands
Silverley	6½		10	4		6	8		12
Ashley	3½			2			4
Saxon Street	5			3			7[93]
Ditton	5			3[92]		(or 4)	10
Ditton	10			1			16
Kirtling	10			6			21
Cheveley	10[91]
	—
	50

As a preliminary point, attention may be called to the fact that the grouping of Ashley and Silverley, although they are surveyed separately in the Inq. Com. Cant., is justified by their forming, as 'Ashley-cum-Silverley' a single parish. So too, Saxon Street may be safely combined with Ditton, in which it is actually situate. We thus have a Hundred of fifty hides divided into five blocks of ten hides each, and thus presenting a precise parallel to the Hundred of Staines, the first that we examined.

And now for the reductions. As the Vill of Cheveley, unluckily, is nowhere surveyed as a whole, we have in its case no evidence. But of the five remaining Vills above (counting Ashley-cum-Silverley as one), four we see had had their assessments reduced on a uniform scale, just as in the Hundred of Long Stow. Now this is a singular circumstance, and it leads me to this conclusion. I believe that, precisely as in the latter case, the assessment of the Hundred as a whole was reduced by twenty hides. This was equivalent to 40 per cent, which was accordingly knocked off from the assessment of each of its constituent Vills. One of the Dittons is clearly an exception, having nine hides, not four, thus knocked off. I would suggest, as the reason for this exception, that Ditton having now become a 'dominica villa regis' (Inq. Com. Cant., p. 10), was specially favoured by having a five-hide unit further knocked off its assessment, just as in the case of Chippenham (Ibid., p. 2).[⁹⁴]

It has been my object in the above argument to recall attention to the corporate character, the solidarité of the Hundred. This character, of which the traces are preserved in its collective responsibility, even now, for damages caused by riot, strongly favours the view which I am here bringing forward, that it was the Hundred itself which was assessed for geld, and which was held responsible for its payment. Although this view is absolutely novel, and indeed destructive of the accepted belief, it is in complete harmony with the general principle enunciated by Dr Stubbs, and is a further proof of the confirmation which his views often obtain from research and discovery. Treating of 'the Hundred as an area for rating', he writes thus:

There can be no doubt that the organization of the Hundred had a fiscal importance, not merely as furnishing the profits of fines and the produce of demesne or folkland, but as forming a rateable division of the county.[⁹⁵]

Now there are several circumstances which undoubtedly point to my own conclusion. We know from the Inq. Com. Cant., that the Domesday Commissioners held their inquiry in the Court of each Hundred, and had for jurors the men of that Hundred. Now if the Hundred, as I suggest, was assessed for geld as a whole, its representatives would be clearly the parties most interested in seeing that each Vill or Manor was debited with its correct share of the general liability. Again we know from the Inquisitio Geldi that the geld was collected and paid through the machinery of the Hundred; and its collectors, in Devonshire, are 'Hundremanni'. The Hundred, in fact, was the unit for the purpose.[⁹⁶] Further, we have testimony to the same effect in the survey of East Anglia. But as that survey stands by itself, it must have separate treatment.[⁹⁷]

I need not further discuss the collective liability of the Hundred, having already shown in my 'Danegeld' paper how many allusions to it are to be found in Domesday in the case of urban 'Hundreds'.[⁹⁸] It is only necessary here to add, as a corollary of this conclusion, that the assessment of a single Manor could not be reduced by the Crown without the amount of that reduction falling upon the rest of the Hundred. Either therefore, that amount must have been allowed ('computatum') to the local collector as were terræ datæ to the sheriff, or (which came to the same thing) the assessment on the Hundred must have been reduced pro tanto.

I now proceed to apply my theory that the Hundreds themselves were first assessed, and that such assessments were multiples of the five-hide unit.

We are enabled from the Inq. Com. Cant., to determine the assessments of eleven Hundreds.[⁹⁹] Nine out of these eleven Hundreds prove to have been assessed as follows:

This list speaks for itself, but it may be as well to point out how convenient for the Treasury was this system. At the normal Danegeld rate of two shillings on the hide, an assessment of fifty hides would represent £5, one hundred hides £10, and so on.

Can we discover in other counties traces of this same system? Let us first take the adjacent county of Bedfordshire.

I am anxious to explain that for the means of utilizing the Bedfordshire evidence I am entirely indebted to the Digest of the Domesday of Bedfordshire by the late Rev. William Airy (edited by his son, the Rev. B. R. Airy[¹⁰¹]). It was, most happily, pointed out to the author by the Rev. Joseph Hunter 'that what we want is not translations but analyses of the surveys of the several counties' (p. viii). To this most true remark we owe it that Mr Airy resolved to give us a 'digest' instead of that usual 'extension and translation', which is perfectly useless to the Domesday student. It is easy to take from the record itself such an instance as these Beauchamp Manors entered in succession (213): Willington 10 hides, Stotford 15; 'Houstone' 5, Hawnes 5, 'Salchou' 5, Aspley 10, Salford 5; but it is only Mr Airy's work that enables us to reconstruct the townships, and to show how fractions—apparently meaningless—fit in, exactly as in Cambridgeshire, with one another. His work is all the more valuable from the fact that he had no theory to prove, and did not even add together the factors he had ascertained. His figures therefore are absolutely free from the suspicion that always attaches to those adduced to prove a case.

Of these fifteen ten-hide townships, the last is selected as an instance of those slight discrepancies which creep in so easily and which account for many apparent exceptions to the rule. Passing to other multiples of the five-hide unit we have:

Marston					Roxton			Dunton
H.			V.		H.	V.		H.			V.
10		2	(less ½ virg.)		1	1		10		8	1
		8	(plus ½ virg.)		0	4				1	3
5		1			1	1		10		5	0
		½			7½	1				4½	0
		3			8	3				½	0
		½
—————————					——————			——————
15			0		20	0		20			0

I now give three illustrations of slight discrepancies:

Streatley			Sutton					Eaton Socon
H.	V.		H.			V.		H.	V.
1	0		5		0	3		20	0
4	1				1	0		6	3
4⅓	0				1½	0		0	1½
0	⅔				½	0		0	½
0	⅔				0	3½		9	1
					0	1½		0	5½
					2	0		2	½
					0	3		0	1
					½	0
					0	1½
					1	0
——————					——————			——————
9	3⅔				9	0½		40	1

In the first case there is a deficiency of ¹⁄120, and in the second of ⁷⁄80, while in the third we find an excess of ¹⁄160. No one can doubt that these were really ten-hide, ten-hide, and forty-hide townships. We have to allow, in the first place, for trivial slips, and in the second for possible errors in the baffling work of identification at the present day. One can hardly doubt that if a student with the requisite local knowledge set himself to reconstruct, according to Hundreds, the Bedfordshire Domesday, he would find, as in Cambridgeshire, that even where a township was not assessed in terms of the five-hide unit, it was combined in an adjacent one in such an assessment.

We will now cross the border into Huntingdonshire, and enter the great Hundred of Hurstingston. This, which may be described as a double Hundred, was assessed, Domesday implies, at 200 hides. Quartering this total, on the Cambridgeshire system, we obtain fifty hides, and this quarter was the assessment allotted to the borough of Huntingdon.[¹⁰²] The total assessment of the Hundred was thus accounted for:

			Hides
Huntingdon			50
St. Ives (Slepe)			20
Hartford			15
Spaldwick			15
Stukeley			10
Abbots Ripton			10
Upwood			10
Warboys			10
Calne	6
Bluntisham	6½		20½[103]
Somersham	8
Wistow[104]			9
Holywell			9
Houghton			7
Wyton			7
Broughton			4
Catworth			4[105]
			———
			200½

Passing on into Northamptonshire, we come to that most curious document, which I shall discuss below (see p. [124]), and which was printed by Ellis (Introduction to Domesday, i. 187 et seq.). Ellis, however, can scarcely have read his own document, for he speaks of it as a list 'in which every Hundred is made to consist of a hundred hides'.[¹⁰⁶] This extraordinary assertion has completely misled Dr Stubbs, who writes:

The document given by Ellis as showing that the Hundreds of Northampton each contained a hundred hides seems to be a mere attempt of an early scribe to force them into symmetry.[¹⁰⁷]

It is greatly to be wished that some one with the requisite local knowledge should take this list in hand and work out its details thoroughly. In capable hands it should prove a record of the highest interest. For the present I will only point out that its contents are in complete harmony with the results that I obtained on the Hundred in Cambridgeshire; for it gives us Hundreds assessed at 150 (four), 100 (nine), 90 (two), 80 (four), 60 (one), and 40 (one) hides, with a small minority of odd numbers. This list throws further light on the institution of the Hundred by its recognition of 'double' and 'half' Hundreds. Note also in this connection the preference for 100-hide and fifty-hide assessments, which here amount to thirteen out of the twenty instances above, and in Cambridgeshire to four out of nine. These signs of an endeavour to force such assessments into terms of a fifty-hide unit will be dealt with below.[¹⁰⁸]

In Hertfordshire, as indeed in other counties, there is great need for that local research which alone can identify and group the Domesday holdings. So far as single Vills are concerned, Bengeo affords a good illustration of the way in which scattered fractions work out in combination.

	H.		V.
Count Alan		0	1
Hugh de Beauchamp		6	0
Geoffrey de Mandeville		3	1
Geoffrey de Bech		5	1
		6½	0
		1	1½
		0	5½
		0	3½
Peter de Valognes		0	½
		—————
		25	0

If we now push on to Worcestershire, we find a striking case in the Hundred (or rather the triple Hundred[¹⁰⁹]) of Oswaldslow. Its assessment was 300 hides;[¹¹⁰] and I am able to assert that of these we can account for 299, and that it contained Manors of 50, 40, 35, 25 (two), and 15 hides.[¹¹¹] We have also, in this county, the case of the Hundred of Fishborough, made up to 100 hides, and remarkable for including in this total the fifteen hides at which Worcester itself was assessed. The special value of this and of the Huntingdon instances lies in its placing the assessments of a borough on all fours with the assessment of a rural Manor, as a mere factor in the assessment of a rural Hundred. By thus combining town and country it shows us that the assessments of both were part of the same general system. This is a point of great importance.

This case of the Hundred of Fishborough is, however, peculiar. The entry, which was prominently quoted by Ellis (who failed to see its true significance), is this:

In Fisseberge hundred habet æcclesia de Euesham lxv. hidæ. Ex his xii. hidæ sunt liberæ. In illo Hundredo jacent xx. hidæ de dodentreu. et xv. hidæ de Wircecestre perficiunt hundred.[¹¹²]