Wiche 15 } Overberie 6 } }
Fledebirie 40 } Segesbarue 4 } }
Breodun 35 } 200 Scepwestun 2 } 25 } 100
Rippel 25 } Herferthun 3 } }
Blochelei 38 } Grimanleh 3 } }
Tredinctun 23 } Halhegan 7 } }
Cropetorn 50 }
We have here preserved the order in which Domesday Book names the
estates, but have added some brackets which may serve to emphasize the
artificiality of the system. Then, looking back once more at our
_Altitonantis_, we see Edgar adding lands to the 50 hides at Cropthorn,
so that 'a perfect hundred' may be compiled, and the lands that he adds
seem to be just those which in our table are bracketed with the
Cropthorn estate.
[The Westminster estate.]
Thus we have disposed of three out of those twelve 'hundreds' of which
Worcestershire is composed and also of 300 hides of land. Next we
perceive that the church of Westminster is said to hold 200 hides.
Reckoning up the particulars, we find, not indeed 200, but 199.
H. V. H. V.
Persore 2 Pidelet 5
Wiche 6 Newentune 10
Pendesham 2 Garstune 1.3
Berlingeham 3.1 Pidelet 4
Bricstelmestune 10 Peritune 6
Depeforde 10 Garstune 7
Aichintune 16 Piplintune 4.2
Beford 10 Piplintune 6.2
Longedune 30 Cumbrintune 9
Poiwic 3 Cumbrintune 10
Snodesbyrie 11 Broctune 3
Husentre 6 Stoche 15
Wich 1 Cumbrintune 2
Dormestun 5 -----
199.0
[The Pershore estate.]
Then the church of Pershore has just 100 hides; they are distributed
thus:--
Persore 26
Beolege 21
Sture 20
Bradeweia 30
Lege 3
----
100
It is easy to divide these manors into two groups, each of which has 50
hides. The county also tells us that the church of Pershore ought to
have the church-scot from 'the whole 300 hides,' that is, as well from
the 200 allotted to Westminster as from the 100 which Pershore
holds[1498].
[The Evesham estate.]
Then Evesham Abbey has, we are told, 65 hides in the hundred of
Fissesberge. 'In that hundred,' it is added, 'lie 20 hides of Dodingtree
and 15 hides in Worcester make up the hundred.' The 65 hides which
Evesham holds are allotted thus:--
Evesham 3.0 }
Lenchewic 1.0 }
Nortune 7.0 }
Offenham 1.0 } 25
Liteltune 6.0 }
Bratfortune 6.0 }
Aldintone 1.0 }
Wiqwene 3.0 }
Bratfortune 6.0 }
Badesei 6.2 } 25
Liteltune 7.0 }
Huniburne 2.2 }
Ambreslege 15.0
----
65.0
[The residue of Worcestershire.]
We have dealt heretofore with 665 hides. Let us now reckon up all the
hides in Worcestershire that we have not yet counted. The task is not
perfectly straightforward, for we have to meet a few difficult
questions. In order that our account may be checked by others, we will
set forth its details. We will go through the survey noting all the
hides which we have not already reckoned.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Worcester city 15.0 | More 1.0 | Glese 1.0
Bremesgrave 30.0 | Betune 3.2 | Merlie 0.1
[1499]Suchelei 5.0 | More 0.1 | Wich 1.0
Grastone 3.2 | Edboldelege 2.2 | Escelie 4.0
Cochesei 2.2 | Eslei 6.0 | Nordfeld 6.0
Willingewic 2.3 | Eslei 1.0 | Franchelie 1.0
Celdvic 3.0 | Ridmerlege 1.2 | Welingewiche 0.3
Chideminstre 20.0 | Celdeslai 1.0 | Escelie 1.0
Terdeberie 9.0 | Estham 3.0 | Werwelie 0.2
Clent 9.0 | Ælmeleia 11.0 | Cercehalle 2.0
Wich 0.2 | Wich 10.0 | Bellem 3.0
Clive 10.2 | Sudtune 1.0 | Hageleia 5.2
Fepsetanatum 6.0 | Mamele 0.2 | Dudelei 1.0
Crohlea 5.0 | Broc 0.2 | Suineforde 3.0
Hambyrie 14.0 | Colingvic 1.0 | Pevemore 3.0
Stoche 10.0 | Mortune 4.0 | Cradeleie 1.0
Huerteberie 20.0 | Stotune 3.0 | Belintones 5.0
Ulwardelei 5.0 | Stanford 2.2 | Witone 2.0
Alvievecherche 13.0 | Scelves 1.0 | Celvestune 1.0
Ardolvestone 15.0 | Chintune 5.0 | Cochehi 2.2
Boclintun 8.0 | Beretune 2.0 | Osmerlie 1.0
Cuer 2.0 | Tamedeberie 3.0 | Costone 3.0
Inteberga 15.2 | Wich 0.2 | Beneslei 1.0
Wich 1.0 | Clistune 3.0 | Udecote 1.2
Salewarpe 1.0 | Chure 3.0 | Russococ 5.0
Tametdeberie 0.2 | Stanford 1.2 | Stanes 6.0
Wich 0.2 | Caldeslei 1.0 | Lundredele 2.0
Matma 5.0 | Cuer 1.0 | Hatete 1.0
[1500]Mortune 5.0 | Hamme 1.0 | Hamtune 4.0
Achelenz 4.2 | Sapie 3.0 | Hortune 2.0
Buintun 1.0 | Carletune 1.1 | Cochesie 2.0
Circelenz 4.0 | Edevent 1.0 | Brotune 2.0
Actune 6.0 | Wicelbold 11.0 | Urso's hide 1.0
Lenche 4.0 | Elmerige 8.0 | Uptune 3.0
Wich 1.0 | Croelai 5.0 | Witune 0.2
Ludeleia 2.0 | Dodeham 1.0 | Hantune 4.0
Hala 10.0 | Redmerleie 1.2 | Tichenapletreu 3.0
Salewarpe 5.0 | Hanlege 1.2 | Cedeslai 25.0
Wermeslai 2.0 | Hanlege 3.0 | Hilhamatone 0.1
Linde 2.0 | Alretune 1.2 | Fecheham 10.0
Halac 1.0 | Hadesoro 2.0 | Holewei 3.0
Dunclent 3.0 | Holim 1.0 | [1501]Mertelai 13.0
Alvintune 2.0 | Stilledune 0.2 | -----
539.0
We have here therefore 539 hides to be added to the 665 of which we
rendered an account above. We thus bring out a grand total of 1204
hides. Perhaps the true total should be exactly 1200; but at any rate it
stands close to that beautiful figure. And now we remember how we were
told that there were 'twelve hundreds' in Worcestershire from seven of
which the sheriff got nothing. Of these twelve the church of Worcester
had three in its 'hundred' of Oswaldslaw, the church of Westminster two,
the church of Pershore one, and the church of Evesham one. But the
Evesham or Fissesberge hundred was not perfect; it required 'making up'
by means of 15 hides in the city of Worcester and 20 in the hundred of
Dodingtree. Thus five hundreds remain to be accounted for, and in its
rubrics Domesday Book names just five, namely, Came, Clent, Cresselaw,
Dodingtree and Esch. We can not allot to each of these its constituent
hides, for we never can rely on Domesday Book giving all the 'hundredal
rubrics' that it ought to give, and the Worcestershire hundreds were
subjected to rearrangement before the day of maps had dawned[1502]. An
intimate knowledge of the county might achieve the reconstruction of the
old hundreds. But, as it is, we seem to see enough. We seem to see
pretty plainly that Worcestershire has been divided into twelve
districts known as hundreds each of which has contained 100 hides. It is
an anomaly to be specially noted that one of the jurisdictional
hundreds, one which has been granted to the church of Evesham, has only
65 hides and can only be made up into a 'hundred' for financial purposes
by adding to it 20 hides lying in another jurisdictional hundred and the
15 hides at which the city of Worcester is rated.
[_The County Hidage._]
The moment has now come when we may tender in evidence an ancient
document which professes to state the hidage of certain districts. There
are three such documents which should not be confused. We propose to
call them respectively (1) _The Tribal Hidage_, (2) _The Burghal
Hidage_, and (3) _The County Hidage_; and this is their order of date.
For the two oldest we are not yet ready. The youngest professes to give
us a statement about the hidage of thirteen counties. We have it both
in Latin and in Old English. It has come down to us in divers
manuscripts, which do not agree very perfectly. We will here give its
upshot, placing in a last column the figures at which we have arrived
when counting the hides in Domesday.
THE COUNTY HIDAGE.
Cotton, Cotton, Gale,
Claudius, Vespasian, Scriptore MS. Jes.
B. vii. A. xviii. xv. Coll. Ox.;
f. 204 b; f. 112 b; p. 748 Morris, Domesday
Kemble, Kemble, from a Old English Book
Saxons Saxons Croyland Miscellany, (boroughs
i. 493 i. 494 MS. p. 145 omitted)
Wiltshire 4800 4800 4800 4800 4050
Bedfordshire 1200 1000 1200 1200 1193
Cambridgeshire 2500 2500 2005 2500 1233
Huntingdonshire 850[1503] 850[1503] 800-1/2 850 747
Northamptonshire 3200 4200 3200 3200 1356
Gloucestershire 2400 2000 2400 3400 2388
Worcestershire 1200 1500 1200 1200 1189
Herefordshire 1500 1500 1005 1200 1324
Warwickshire 1200 1200 1200 1200 1338
Oxfordshire 2400 2400 2400 2400 2412
Shropshire 2300 2400 2400 2400 1245
Cheshire 1300 1200 1200 1200 512
Staffordshire 500 500 ---- 500 505
[Date of the document.]
Dr Liebermann has said that the text whence these figures are derived
was probably compiled in English and in the eleventh century[1504]. If
we put faith in it, we shall be inclined to set its date at some
distance before that of Domesday Book. But our first question should be
whether it merits credence; whether it was written by some one who knew
what he was about or whether it is wild guesswork. Now when we see that
the scrupulous Eyton brought out the hides of Staffordshire at 499, or
rather at 499 H 2-13/30 V, and that this document makes them 500, we
shall begin to take it very seriously, without relying on our own 505,
the result of hasty addition. We have also seen enough to say that 1200
for Worcestershire is very near the mark. As regards other counties, we
set so little reliance upon our own computation, that we are not very
willing to institute a comparison; but we have given Bedfordshire 1193
hides[1505] and this document gives it 1200; we have given Oxfordshire
2412 and this document gives it 2400; we have given Gloucestershire
2388[1506] and two versions of this document give it 2400. Having seen
so much agreement, we must note some cases of violent discord. For
Wiltshire 4800 seems decidedly too high, though we have brought the
number of its hides above 4000. The figure given to Cambridgeshire is
almost twice that which Domesday would justify, and the figures given to
Cheshire, Shropshire and Northamptonshire are absurdly large when
compared with the numbers recorded in 1086. These cases are enough to
show that, though no doubt some or all of the transcribers of The County
Hidage must be charged with blunders, the divergence of the copies from
Domesday can not be safely laid to this account. About certain counties
there is just that agreement which we might expect, when we remember how
precarious our own figures are. About certain other counties there is
utter disagreement. We infer therefore that the original document did
not truly state the hidage as it stood in 1086; but may it not have
represented an older state of things?
[The Northampton Geld Roll.]
Let us take one case of flagrant aberration. Three copies tell us that
Northamptonshire has 3200 hides; one that it has 4200. The balance of
authority inclines therefore to 3200. Domesday will not give us half
that number. But let us turn to the Northamptonshire Geld Roll[1507],
the date of which Mr Round places between the Conquest and 1075[1508].
It gives the county 2663-1/2 hides. So here we have a case in which
between 1075 and 1086 a county was relieved of about half of its
hides[1509]. Also at 2664 we are within a moderate distance of 3200.
But the Geld Roll does more than this. It represents Northamptonshire as
composed of 28 districts; 22 of these are called 'hundreds'; two are
'two-hundreds'; four are 'other-half hundreds,' or, as we might say,
'hundred-and-a-halfs.' We work a sum:--
(22+4+6) × 100 = 3200.
The result will increase our respect for The County Hidage. Now, when
the Geld Roll was made, some of the 'hundreds' of Northamptonshire
contained their 100 hides apiece, but others were charged with a smaller
number, which generally was round, such as 80, 60, 40 hides; and this
arrangement is set before us as that which existed 'in the days of
Edward the king.' If therefore we put faith in The County Hidage and its
3200 hides, we must hold that it speaks to us from the earlier part of
the Confessor's reign or from some yet older time.
[Value of _The County Hidage_.]
Is it too good, too neat to be true? Before we pass a condemnatory
judgment we must recall the case of Worcestershire, its twelve
'hundreds' and 1200 hides. Also we must recall the case of the
Armingford hundred in Cambridgeshire, where we have seen how in
William's reign an abatement of 20 per cent, was equitably apportioned
among the fourteen villages, and the 100 hides were reduced to 80[1510].
Moreover, if in Domesday Book we pass from Northamptonshire to the
neighbouring county of Leicester, we see a startling contrast. The
former is decidedly 'under-rated'; the latter is 'over-rated.'
Leicestershire has about 2500 carucates, while Northamptonshire has
hardly more than half that number of hides. The explanation is that
Northamptonshire has obtained, while Leicestershire is going to obtain a
reduction. The Pipe Rolls of the twelfth century show us that either
under Rufus or under Henry I. this sadly over-taxed county was set down
for exactly 1000 carucates.
[Reductions of hidage.]
As to the other cases in which there is a strident discord between
Domesday and The County Hidage, the case of Chester, where the contrast
is between some 500 hides and a round 1200 will not perhaps detain us
long, for we may imagine, if we please, that the Chestershire of Cnut's
day was much larger than the territory described under that name in
1086[1511]. The 2500 hides attributed to Cambridgeshire and the 2400
attributed to Shropshire may shock us, for, if they are correctly
stated, they point to reductions of 50 per cent. or thereabouts. But we
have seen some and are going to see some other large abatements.
[The county quotas.]
On the whole, we believe that this County Hidage, though it has come to
us in transcripts some or all of which are careless, is an old and
trustworthy document, that it is right in attributing to the counties
neat sums of hides, such as 1200 and 2400, and that it is right in
representing the current of change that was flowing in the eleventh
century as setting towards a rapid reduction in the number of hides.
Only in one case, that of Warwickshire, have we any cause to believe
that it gives fewer hides to a county than are given by Domesday; here
the defect is not very large, and, besides the possibility of
mistranscription, we must also remember the possibility of changed
boundaries[1512].
[The hundred and the hundred hides.]
There is one other feature of this document that we ought to notice. Let
us compare the number of hides which it gives to a county with the
number of 'hundreds' which that county contains according to Domesday
Book. The latter number we will place in brackets[1513].
Bedfordshire 1200 hides [12 hundreds]: Northamptonshire 3200 [28
hundreds which, however, have been reckoned to be 32[1514]]:
Worcestershire 1200 [12]: Warwickshire 1200 [12]: Cheshire 1200
[12]: Staffordshire 500 [5]: Wiltshire 4800 [40]: Cambridgeshire
2500 [17]: Huntingdonshire 850 [4]: Gloucestershire 2400
[39[1515]]: Herefordshire 1500 [19]: Oxfordshire 2400 [uncertain,
but at least 19]: Shropshire 2400 [13].
In six out of thirteen cases we seem to see a connexion of the simplest
kind between the hides and the hundreds. Now in the eyes of some this
trait may be discreditable to The County Hidage, for they will infer
that its author was possessed by a theory and deduced the hides from the
hundreds. But, after all that we have seen[1516] of symmetrical
districts and reductions of hidage, we ought not to take fright at this
point. Other people besides the writer of this list may have been
possessed by a theory which connected hides with hundreds, and they may
have been people who were able to give effect to their theories by
decreeing how many hides a district must be deemed to contain. Is it not
even possible that we have here, albeit in faded characters, one of
their decrees? But the history of the hundreds can not be discussed in a
parenthesis. Some further corroboration this County Hidage will receive
when hereafter we set it beside The Burghal Hidage, and we may then be
able to carry Worcester's 1200 and Oxford's 2400 hides far back into the
tenth century.
[Comparison of Domesday hidage with Pipe Rolls.]
Meanwhile, making use of our terms 'equally rated' (_A_ = _B_),
'over-rated' (_A > B_), and 'under-rated' (_A_ < _B_), let us briefly
survey the counties as they stand in Domesday. Some help towards an
estimation of their hidage is given to us by those few Pipe Rolls of the
twelfth century which contain accounts of a danegeld. But we must not at
once condemn as false the results of our own arithmetic merely because
they do not square with the figures on these rolls. One instance will be
enough to prove this. The Henries have to be content with £166 or
thereabouts from Yorkshire, or, in other words, to treat it as having
1660 'carucates for geld.' We give it a little more than 10,000 and
shall not admit that we have given it 8000 too many. This poor, wasted
giant has been relieved and has been set below little Surrey. So again,
though Leicestershire will account to Henry I. and his grandson for but
£100, it most certainly had more than 1000 and more than 2000 carucates
when William's commissioners visited it. On the other hand, there seem
to be cases in a small group of counties in which his sons were able to
recover a certain amount of geld which had been, rightfully or
wrongfully, withheld or forborne during his own reign. But, taking the
counties in mass, we hope that our figures are sufficiently consonant
with those upon the Pipe Rolls. Absolutely consonant they ought not to
be, for we have endeavoured to include the hides that are privileged
from gelding, and in some shires (Hereford, for example) their number is
by no means small. Also some leakage in an old tax may always be
suspected, and the Pipe Rolls themselves show some unexplained
variations in the amount for which a sheriff accounts, and some
arithmetical errors[1517].
But now we will make our tour and write brief notes as we go.
[Under-rated and over-rated counties.]
Kent is scandalously under-rated. Of this there can be no doubt, though,
since in many cases blanks are left where the number of the teamlands
should stand, the figures can not be fully given. There has in a few
instances been a reduction in the number of geldable sulungs since the
Conquest, but this does not very greatly affect the result. The
under-rating seems to be generally distributed throughout the county. It
had not been redressed in Henry I.'s day. Indeed on the Pipe Rolls Kent
appears as paying but £105, while Sussex pays twice as much. Sussex,
Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire appear to have all been over-rated. In
the Conqueror's day, however, they shuffled off large numbers of their
geldant hides and were paying for considerably fewer hides than they had
teamlands. Some part of this reduction was perhaps unauthorized. At any
rate the sums that appear on the Pipe Rolls seem to show that in Surrey,
Hampshire and Berkshire more hides were gelding under Henry I. than had
been recently gelding when the survey was made; but the recovery was not
sufficient to restore the state of things that existed under the
Confessor. Wiltshire, so far as we can see, has always been a sorely
over-rated county. It obtains no reduction under William. In the Pipe
Rolls it stands at the very head of the counties. Dorset, taken as a
whole, is exceedingly fairly rated. Eyton seems to have made 2321 hides
and 2332 teamlands; but if the royal demesne (much of which is
unhidated) be left out on both sides of the account, there will be
slight over-rating. Somerset is very much under-rated, even if no notice
be taken of the royal demesne. Devon is grossly under-rated. Cornwall is
enormously under-rated. To all appearance considerably more than 1000
teamlands have stood as 400 hides, and even this light assessment seems
to be the work of the Conqueror, for in the Confessor's day the whole
county seems to have paid for hardly more than 150 hides[1518].
Middlesex is decidedly over-rated; but Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford,
Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford are
under-rated. The ratio borne by hides to teamlands varies from county to
county. We believe that it becomes small in Gloucester and Worcester and
falls much below 1:2 in Hereford[1519]. This ratio is very small again
in Warwick, Stafford, Shropshire and Cheshire. The two sister counties
of Northampton and Leicester have, as already said, been very
differently treated. Northampton is escaping easily, while Leicester, if
we are not much mistaken, is over-rated[1520]. Then however the Pipe
Rolls show that before the end of Henry I.'s reign Leicester has
succeeded in largely reducing its geldability. We have seen reason to
believe that a similar reduction had been made in Northamptonshire
shortly before the compilation of Domesday Book. Derby is under-rated;
Nottingham is much under-rated. Lincoln, though under-rated, is an
instance of a county in which we long doubt whether the under-rating of
some will not be compensated by the over-rating of other estates. So far
as we can tell, Yorkshire had been heavily over-rated; but then, the
teamland of Yorkshire is very often a merely potential teamland, and we
can not be certain that the jurors will give to the waste vills as many
teamlands as they had before the devastation. In the end a very small
sum of geld is exacted.
[Hidage and value.]
We have seen enough in the case of Northampton to make us hesitate
before we decide that the arrangement of hides set forth by Domesday
Book is in all cases very ancient. That book shows us two different
assessments of Cornwall; it shows us Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and
Berkshire relieving themselves or obtaining relief in the Conqueror's
time; it shows us some Cambridgeshire hundreds disburdened of their
hides. But of the great reduction in Northamptonshire we should have
learnt nothing from its pages. Therefore in other cases we must be
cautious, even in the scandalous case of Kent, for we can not tell that
there has not been a large reduction of its sulungs in quite recent
years. However, behind all the caprice and presumable jobbery, we can
not help fancying that we see a certain equitable principle. We have
talked of under-rating and over-rating as if we held that every teamland
in the kingdom should pay a like amount. But such equality would
certainly not be equity. The average teamland of Kent is worth full
thirty shillings a year; the average teamland of Cornwall is barely
worth five; to put an equal tax on the two would be an extreme of
injustice. Now we have formed no very high estimate of the justice or
the statesmanship of the English witan, and what we are going to say is
wrung from us by figures which have dissipated some preconceived ideas;
but they hardly allow us to doubt that the number of hides cast upon a
county had been affected not only by the amount, but also by the value
of its teamlands. If, starting at the east of Sussex, we journey through
the southern counties, we see that over-rating prevails in Sussex,
Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset. We see also that
the _valet_ of the average teamland stands rather above than below one
pound. We pursue our journey. The ratio that _A_ bears to _B_ begins to
decline rapidly and at the same time the _valets_ descend by leaps and
bounds. When we have reached Devon we are in a land which could not with
any show of justice be taxed at the same rate per acre as that which
Wiltshire might bear without complaint. Every test that we can apply
shows the extreme poverty of the country that once was 'West Wales.'
That poverty continues through the middle ages. We look, for example, at
the contributions to the tax of 1341 and compare them with the acreage
of the contributing counties. Equal sums are paid by 1020 acres in
Wiltshire, 1310 in Dorset, 1740 in Somerset, 3215 in Devon, 3550 in
Cornwall[1521]. We look at the subsidy of 1294[1522], and, in order that
Devon and Cornwall may not be put at a disadvantage by moor and
sea-shore, we take as our dividend the number of acres in a county that
are now-a-days under cultivation[1523], and for our divisor the number
of pence that the county pays. The quotients are, for Wiltshire 2·7, for
Dorset 2·8, for Somerset 2·5, for Devon 6·4, for Cornwall 5·2. Retaining
the same dividend, we try as a divisor the 'polls' for which a county
will answer in 1377[1524]. Cornwall here makes a better show; but
Devonshire still displays its misery. The quotients are, for Wiltshire
16, for Dorset 14, for Somerset 15, for Devon 27, for Cornwall 17. These
figures we have introduced because they support the inferences that we
should draw from the _valets_ and _valuits_ of Domesday Book, a study of
which has convinced us that the distribution of fiscal hides has not
been altogether independent of the varying value of land.
[Connexion between hidage and value.]