If we now push on to Worcestershire, we find a striking case in the Hundred (or rather 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. 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 15 hides at which Worcester itself was assessed. The special value of this and of the Huntingdon instances lies in its placing the assessment 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 was part of the same general system. This is a point of great import

ance.

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:

109 Edgar spoke of it as three Hundreds.

110"Unum hundret quod vocatur Oswaldeslaw in quo jacent ccc. hidæ."-D. B., i. 1726.

It also contained one 23-hide and two 24-hide Manors, which were once, perhaps, of 25 hides. The church of Worcester also possessed, outside this Hundred, Manors (inter alia) of 20, 15, 10, and 5 hides. (See below, p. 173.)

The Worcestershire Evidence

61

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

Now this entry is purely incidental, and its real meaning In the true Hundred of Fishborough (adjoining Evesham on the east), Evesham Abbey held 65 hides (assessed value), of which 12 were exempted from payment of geld, a statement which can be absolutely verified from the details given. To this aggregate was added the 15 hides of Worcester (though in another part of the county), together with 20 hides of the distant Hundred of Doddentree. A total of 100 hides was that arrived at. Now the Hundred of Doddentree had itself been made up to about 120 hides,113 by the addition of 18 hides, which belonged to Hereford as to "firma." 114 A reduction, therefore, of 20 hides suggests a complicated process of levelling the local Hundreds, which may remind us how large a margin must be allowed for these arrangements.

Before leaving Worcestershire attention should be called to the great Manor of Pershore, which Westminster Abbey held for 200 hides, and to the 100 hides connected therewith under the heading "Terra sanctæ Mariæ de Persore."

In Somerset we find some good instances, with the help of Mr. Eyton's analyses.

113 I make the aggregate 118 hides.

114 "Quæ hic [Dodintret hundred] placitant et geldant et ad Hereford reddunt firmam suam." It would have been said in Cambridgeshire that their "wara" was in Doddintree Hundred.

There are also abundant cases of Manors which work out similarly, such as Walton and its group (14) +5 +3 +2+3 +230), Butleigh (7+8+2+1+2 = 20). Again, in the Hundred of Frome we find eight Manors (Camerton, Englishcombe, Charterhouse Hinton, Norton St. Philip, Corston, Beckington, Cloford, and Laverton), assessed at 10 hides each, in addition to divided Manors, such as Road (9+1), and Tiverton (7) +21).115

We will now pass to Devon and examine the assessments of its Hundreds, Of these thirty-one are entered in the Inquisitio Geldi. Now, as four virgates went to the hide, such assessments as 254, 94 hides, show us that the simple doctrine of probability is in favour of only one Hundred in every twenty proving to be assessed in multiples of the five-hide unit. Yet we find that those so assessed form an absolute majority of the whole. When classified, they run thus-50 (four), 40 (one), 30 (two), 25 (four), 20 (five): total, 16 Hundreds.

It will at once be observed that these assessments are, as nearly as possible, on one half the scale of those we met with in Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. But this must be taken in conjunction with the fact that the Devon and Cornwall assessments are altogether peculiar. "In Devon and Cornwall, where the scope of the gheld-hide was enormous, it was necessary to introduce another quantity, intermediate between the virgate and the acre. This was the

115 Eyton's Somerset Survey, ii. 25.

Devonshire and Somerset

63

Ferndel or Ferdingdel, to wit, the fourth part of the next superior denomination, the fourth part of the virgate." 116 One might at first sight be tempted to suggest that the hide was in these two counties a term of higher denomination when we find Manor after Manor assessed at a fraction of a hide, while in Cornwall the "acra terræ" was clearly a peculiar measure.117 Yet in some Manors adjacent to Exeter or to the neighbouring coast the assessment is much less abnormally low, though even there moderate. There is much scope, here also, for intelligent local research, although we may conclude, from the evidence of the Pipe Rolls, that the hide represented the same unit here as elsewhere, as it would seem did the Devonshire Hundred, in spite of its singularly low average assessment. Indeed, it represented a larger, not a smaller, area than usual. I shall deal with this phenomenon below, and endeavour to explain its significance. For the present it is only necessary to insist on the evidence that the Hundreds afford of assessment on the five-hide system.

Indeed, though I definitely advance the suggestion that the assessment was, in the first instance, laid upon the Hundred itself, and that the subsequent assessment of its Vills and Manors was arrived at by division and subdivision, the truth or falsehood of this theory in no way affects the indisputable phenomenon of the five-hide unit. On the prominence of that unit I take my stand as absolute proof that the hide assessment was fixed independently of area or value, and that, consequently, all the attempts that have been made by ingenious men to discover and establish the relation which that assessment bore to area, whether in Vill or Manor, have proved not only contradictory among themselves, but, as was inevitable, vain.

The late Mr. Eyton did much to destroy the old belief held

115 Eyton's Dorset Domesday, p. 14.

" I drew attention in the Archæological Review (vol. i.) to a Cornish survey of 21 Ed. I. (Testa de Nevill, p. 204), in which every Cornish acre contains a Cornish carucate.

by Kemble and other well-known writers that the Domesday hide was an areal measure and to substitute the sounder view that it was used as a term of assessment, and Mr. Chester Waters, in his Survey of Lindsey (1883), claimed that the "key to the puzzle" had been thus finally discovered. Canon Taylor, on the other hand, at the Domesday Commemoration (1886), claimed that if his own most ingenious theory of the relation of the geld-carucate to area could be more generally extended, "many volumes of Domesday exposition, including, among others, Mr. Eyton's Key to Domesday, may be finally consigned al limbo dei bambini.” 118 Mr. Pell's theories-the inclusion of which at enormous length in Domesday Studies 119 cannot be too deeply regretted-require a passing notice. According to him, the Domesday hide was virtually an areal term; but the interests of truth and of historical research require, as to his confident calculations, very plain speaking. Although I devoted to the investigation of Mr. Pell's theories a deplorable amount of time and labour, 120 I would rather state the inevitable conclusion in the words of that sound scholar, Mr. W. H. Stevenson :

All the fanciful calculations that Mr. Pell has based upon this assumption, including his delicious "Ready Reckoner," may be safely left to slumber in oblivion by the Domesday student who does not wish to waste his time.

The only abiding principle underlying Mr. Pell's calculations is that the figures in Domesday, or wherever found, have to produce a certain total that Mr. Pell has already fixed upon. To do this, virgates may mean hides, carucates may mean virgates, and, in short, anything may mean anything else.1

121

Although Mr. Eyton also indulged in "fanciful calculations," and committed the fatal error of combining facts and

118

Domesday Studies, p. 172.

119 "A New View of the Geldable Unit of Assessment of Domesday," Ibid., pp. 227-363, 561-619.

120 Archeological Review, i. 285-295; iv. 130-140, 391.

111 Ibid., iv. 325.