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 Reduction of Assessment 51 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 twenty 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 welldefined 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 9), 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. "I do not here discuss the cause of the reduction. Indeed, this would be hard to discover; for the original assessment was distinctly low, whether we compare it with the aggregate of ploughlands or of valuation. It is true that the total of valets which had been £235 os. 4d. T.R.E., and was £203 8s. 4d. at the time of the survey, had fallen so low as £161 18s. 4d., when the grantees received their lands, but, even at the lowest figure, the assessment was still moderate. 90 66 i. 189. Burgum de Grentebrige pro uno Hundredo se defendebat.”—D. B., 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 thushave 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 Longstow. 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 forty 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 91 This figure is arrived at by adding to the "hida et dimidia et xx. acræ " of Domesday, and the Inq. Com. Cant. the "viii. hidæ et xl. acræ,' which the latter omits, but which Domesday records. The sum is exactly ten hides, 92 Domesday reads "iii.," and Inq. Com. Cant. “iiii.” 93 I.C.C reads "x." The Hundred Assessed as a Whole 53 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 organisation 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 Gheldi that the geld was collected and paid through the machinery of 94 "Per concessionem ejusdem regis" (Domesday). Compare also the five hides knocked off the assessment of Alveston by Henry I., and another ten hides off that of Hampton (Domesday Studies, pp. 99, 103). 95 Const. Hist., i. 105. 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 data 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 96 See also Domesday Studies, i. 117. 98 Domesday Studies, i. 122–130. 97 See below, p. 98. "The fragments of the Hundreds of Papworth and North Stow, which it contains, are too small to enable us to speak with certainty. 100 Correcting the Inq. Com. Cant. by adding from Domesday the royal Manors in Isleham and Fordham. |