in one column the number of hides (carucates or sulungs) that we have
given to twenty counties and in another column the annual value of those
counties in the time of King Edward as calculated by Mr Pearson[1525].
Hides, Value | Hides, Value
Carucates, in | Carucates, in
Sulungs Pounds | Sulungs Pounds
Kent 1224 3954 | Oxford 2412 2789
Sussex 3474 3467 | Gloucester 2388 2855
Surrey 1830 1417 | Worcester 1189 1060
Berkshire 2473 2378 | Huntingdon 747 900
Dorset 2277 2564 | Bedford 1193 1475
Devon 1119 2912 | Northampton 1356 1407
Cornwall 399 729 | Leicester 2500 491
Middlesex 868 911 | Warwick 1338 954
Hertford 1050 1894 | Derby 679 631
Buckingham 2074 1785 | Essex 2650 4079
| ----- -----
| 33240 38652
[One pound one hide.]
No one can look along these lines of figures without fancying that some
force, conscious or unconscious, has made for 'One pound, one hide.' But
we will use another test, which is in some respects fairer, if in others
it is rude. The total of the _valets_ or _valuits_ of a county sometimes
includes and sometimes excludes the profit that the king derives from
boroughs and from county courts; also the rents of his demesne manors
are sometimes stated in disputable terms. Therefore from every county we
will take eighty simple entries, some from the lands of the churches,
some from the fiefs of the barons, and in a large county we will select
our cases from many different pages. In each case we set down the number
of gelding hides (carucates, sulungs) and the _valuit_ given for the T.
R. E.[1526]. Our method will not be delicate enough to detect slight
differences; it will only suffice to display any general tendency that
is at work throughout England and to stamp as exceptional any shires
which widely depart from the common rule, if common rule there be. Using
this method we find the values of the hide (carucate, sulung) to have
been as follows, our figures standing for pounds and decimal fractions
of a pound. We begin with the lowest and end with the highest _valuit_.
Leicester 0·26, York 0·34, Surrey 0·68, Northampton 0·75, Wiltshire
0·77, Sussex 0·81, Chester 0·82, Warwick 0·84, Somerset 0·85,
Buckingham 0·86, Oxford 0·87, Dorset 0·88, Berkshire 0·89, Hereford
0·91, Gloucester 0·99, Lincoln 0·99, Derby 1·00, Huntingdon 1·02,
Shropshire 1·02, Bedford 1·09, Hampshire 1·10, Worcester 1·10,
Middlesex 1·15, Essex 1·41, Devon 1·52, Hertford 1·69, Cambridge
1·73, Nottingham 1·76, Kent 3·25, Cornwall 3·92.
[Equivalence of pound and hide.]
Now 'One pound, one hide' seems to be the central point of this series,
the point of rest through which the pendulum swings. Our experiment has
been much too partial to tell us whether a shire is slightly over-taxed
or slightly undertaxed; but, unless we have shamefully blundered, it
tells us that in some twenty out of thirty counties the aberration from
the equivalence of pound and hide will not exceed twenty five per
cent.: in other words, the value of the normal hide will not be less
than 15 nor more than 25 shillings. Also we have brought our counties
into an admirable disorder. We have snapped all bonds of race and of
neighbourhood. For example, we see the under-taxed Hampshire in the
midst of over-taxed counties; we have divorced Nottingham from Derby and
Leicester from Northampton. The one general remark that we can make
about the geographical distribution of taxation is that, if East Anglia
is under-taxed (and this is likely), then Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk,
Cambridge and Hertford would form a continuous block of territory that
is escaping easily.
[Cases of under-taxation.]
[Kent.]
The markedly exceptional cases are the most interesting. First let us
look at the worst instances of immunity. In Kent we seem to see
'beneficial hidation' on a gigantic scale; but on the whole, though the
evidence is not conclusive, we do not think that this is due to any
modern privilege. We can not doubt that for a long time past the Kentish
churches have been magnificently endowed, and yet the number of manses
and sulungs that their land-books bestow upon them is not very large,
and the number attributed to any one place is usually small, perceptibly
smaller than the number of hides that will be comprised in a West Saxon
charter. If a royal land-book condescends to mention acres (_iugera,
segetes_)[1527] it will almost certainly be a Kentish charter, and we
may guess that its acres are already fiscal acres of wide extent. To say
more would be perilous. The title-deeds of Christ Church can not be
readily harmonized with Domesday Book[1528]; perhaps we ought to add
that this is much to their credit; but the documents which come to us
from St. Augustin's and Rochester suggest that the arrangement of
sulungs which exists in the eleventh century is ancient, or, at any
rate, that the monks knew of no older computation which dealt out these
units with a far more lavish hand[1529]. In Kent the churches were
powerful and therefore may have been able to preserve a scheme of
assessment which unduly favoured a rich and prosperous shire; but we can
not be certain that the hide and the Kentish sulung have really had the
same starting-point, nor even perhaps that Kent was settled village-wise
by its Germanic invaders[1530].
[West Wales.]
Devon and Cornwall ought to be 'under-rated' (_A_ < _B_) for they are
very poor. What we find is that they are so much under-rated that the
hide is worth a good deal more than a pound. Here again we are inclined
to think that this under-rating is old, perhaps as old as the subjection
of West Wales. Such land-books as we obtain from this distressful
country point in that direction, for they give but few hides and
condescend to speak of virgates[1531]. Among them is a charter
professing to come from Æthelstan which bestows 'one manse' upon the
church of St. Buryan; but clearly this one manse is a wide tract. Also
this would-be charter speaks to us of land that is measured by the
arpent, and, whether or no it was forged by French clerks after the
Norman Conquest, it may tell us that this old Celtic measure has been
continuously used in the Celtic west[1532]. Be that as it may, when we
are speculating about the under-taxation of Devon and Cornwall, we may
remember that where the agrarian outlines were drawn by Welsh folk, the
hide, though it might be imposed from above as a piece of fiscal
machinery, would be an intruder among the Celtic trevs and out of
harmony with its environment. The light taxation of Cambridgeshire is
perhaps more wonderful, for our figures represent the hidage of the
Confessor's time, and we have seen[1533] how some of the hundreds in
this prosperous shire (our champion wheat-grower) obtained a large
abatement from the Conqueror[1534]. If, in accordance with The County
Hidage, we doubled the number of Cambridgeshire's hides, though it would
be over-taxed, it would not be so heavily taxed as are some other
counties.
[Cases of over-taxation.]
Extreme over-taxation is far more interesting to us at the present
moment than extreme under-taxation. The latter may be the result of
privilege, and in the middle ages privileges will be accorded for value
received in this world or promised in another. But what are we to say of
Leicester? On the face of our record it seems to have been in Edward's
day the very poorest of all the counties and yet to have borne a
crushing number of carucates. Under William it was beginning to prosper
but still was miserably poor[1535]. We have bethought ourselves of
various devices for explaining this difficult case--of saying, for
instance, that the Leicestershire 'carucate of land' is not a carucate
for geld[1536]. But this case does not stand quite alone. The Yorkshire
carucates, and they are expressly called 'carucates for geld,' had been
worth little. It is likely that the figure that we have given for
Yorkshire is not very near the true average for that wide territory; but
we examined an unusually large number of entries and avoided any which
showed signs of devastation in the present or the past. Also we see that
in Northamptonshire, if we take the Edwardian _valuit_ and the number of
hides existing in 1086, we have an over-taxed county; and yet we have
reason to believe that since 1075 it had been relieved of about half its
hides. Had this not been done, it would have stood along with Yorkshire,
and, if it once had those 3200 of which The County Hidage speaks, it
would have stood along with its sister, the wretched Leicestershire. We
might find relief in the supposition that the Leicestershire of Edward's
time had been scourged by war or pestilence; but unfortunately the
jurors often tell us how many teams were then upon the manors, and in so
doing give a marvellously small value to the land that one team tilled.
Such reports as the following are common[1537].
Teams Teams Valuit Valet
Carucates T. R. E. T. R. W. sol. sol.
Werditone 4 5 3 1 20
Castone 9 10 7 40 140
Wortone 6 6 5 40 100
Tuicros 6 6 7 3 40
Gopeshille 3 3 3 1 30
Scepa 2 3 3 2 30
What can these figures mean? They can not mean that a tract of land was
being habitually tilled by three teams and yet was producing in the form
of profit or rent no more than the worth of one or two shillings a year.
An organized attempt to deceive King William into an abatement seems out
of the question, for he is being told of a rapid increase of prosperity.
Our best, though an unwarranted, guess is that the Leicestershire
_valuit_ speaks not of the Confessor's day, but of some time of disorder
that followed the Conquest, for in truth it seems to give us but
'prairie values.' However, if we take, not the _valuit_, but the
_valet_, we still have carucates that are worth much less than a pound,
and it seems clear that the carucate had been worth much less than a
pound in the as yet unravaged Yorkshire. On the whole, these cases,
together with what we can learn of Lancashire, will dispose us to
receive with more favour than we might otherwise have shown certain
statements about the hidage of England that have yet to be adduced. In
Yorkshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire we may
perhaps see the unreformed relics of an age when the distribution of
fiscal units among the various provinces of England was the sport of
wild guesswork[1538].
[Equity and hidage.]
We have spoken of a tendency on the part of the hide to be worth a
pound. Now we have no wish to represent this equitable element as all
powerful or very powerful; the case of Kent is sufficient to show that
it may be overruled by favouritism or privilege. There has been a
'beneficial hidation' of shires as there has been a 'beneficial
hidation' of manors. Still that the kings and witan have considered the
value as well as the number of teamlands seems fairly plain. Probably
they have considered it in a rough, 'typical' fashion. Any one who
peruses Domesday Book paying attention to the _valets_ will be struck in
the first place by their roundness. If a teamland is not worth 20, it is
worth 10 or 30, 5 or 40 shillings. The jurors seem to keep in their
minds as types the 'one-pound-teamland,' the 'half-pound-teamland' and
so forth. But then, whereas in one county 'twenty shillings' will stand
for 'fair average' and in another for 'rather poor,' in a third it will
indicate unusual excellence. Similarly we imagine that when fiscal hides
have been distributed or redistributed, there has been talk of typical
qualities of land, of first-rate and fourth-rate land. Any tradition of
Roman taxation which had perdured in Britain or crossed the sea from
Frankland would have taught men that this was the right method of
procedure. But it is by no means certain that we can carry back this
equitable principle very far[1539]. Long ago the prevailing idea may
have been that teamland, house-land, pound-land and fiscal hide were, or
ought normally to be, all one; and then the discovery that there are
wide tracts in which the worth of an average teamland is much less or
somewhat greater than a pound may have come in as a disturbing and
differentiating force and awakened debates in the council of the nation.
We may, if we like such excursions, fancy the conservatives arguing for
the good old rule 'One teamland, one hide,' while a party of financial
reformers has raised the cry 'One pound, one hide.' Then 'pressure was
brought to bear in influential quarters,' and in favour of their own
districts the witan in the moots jobbed and jerrymandered and rolled the
friendly log, for all the world as if they had been mere modern
politicians.
[Distribution of hides and of teamlands.]
But, to be serious, it is in some conjecture such as this that we may
perchance find aid when we are endeavouring to loosen one of Domesday's
worst knots. We have hinted before now[1540] that there are districts in
which the teamland (_B_) seems to be as artificial and as remote from
real agrarian life as is the hide or the gelding carucate (_A_). To any
one who thinks that when we touch Domesday's teamland we have always
freed ourselves from the geld system and penetrated through the rateable
to the real, the following piece of the survey of Rutland may be
commended. 'In Martinesleie Wapentake there is a hundred in which there
are 12 carucates for geld and there can be 48 teams.' Now there is
nothing curious in the fact that 48 'real' teamlands are rated at 12
carucates. But let us look closer. Beside one smaller estate there are
in this wapentake three manors. Their arrangement is this[1541]:--
Carucates Villeins and Demesne Men's
for geld Teamlands bordiers teams teams
Ocheham 4 16 157 2 37
Hameldune 4 16 153 5 40
Redlinctune 4 16 196[1542] 4 30
Subtenancy 24 4 5
---- ---- ---- ------ ------
\/
12 48 530 127
Now surely the three sixteens are just as artificial as the three fours,
and in what possible sense can we affirm that there is land for only 48
teams when we see that 530 tenants are actually ploughing it with 127
teams? Behind this there must be some theory or some tradition that we
have not yet fathomed[1543].
[Area and value as elements of geldability.]
We strongly suspect that in the work of distributing and reducing the
geld, 'the land for one team' has been playing a part for some time
past. In order to decide, for example, whether a claim for abatement was
just, the statesman had to consider two elements, the number of the
teamlands and their value. He would be content with round figures,
indeed no others would content him or be amenable to his rude
manipulation. So it is decided that some province or district has, or
must be deemed to have, _y_ teamlands. Also it is decided at this or at
some other time, or perhaps from time to time, that the land in this
district (regard being had to its state of cultivation) is or must be
deemed to be first-class, or, as the case may be, third-class land. Then
a combination of these propositions induces the conclusion that the
district has _x_ hides or carucates for geld. Then inside the district,
when the process of subpartitionment begins, a similar method is
pursued. There are _x_ hides or carucates for geld to be distributed.
They ought to be distributed with reference to the number and value of
real teamlands. The work is rudely done in the subpartitionary fashion.
A certain sub-district has _x/a_ hides thrown upon it; a
sub-sub-district has _x/ab_; but this apportionment is obtained by
combining a proposition about value with a partitionment of the _y_
teamlands. The sub-sub-district has _x/ab_ hides, because _y/cd_
teamlands fall to its share and because its land is assigned to a
certain class. Then, perhaps for the purpose of future rearrangements,
the number of teamlands (_y/cd_) is remembered as well the number of
hides or gelding carucates (_x/ab_). The result is that every manor in a
certain district has four hides and sixteen teamlands. It is very
pretty; it was never (except for technical purposes) very true, and
every year makes it less true[1544]. [Sidenote: The equitable
teamland.]
That exactly this was done, we do not say and do not think; but
something like it may have been done. As already remarked, we gravely
doubt whether that question which the commissioners put about potential
teams was understood in the same way in different counties, but we are
sadly afraid that some of the answers that they obtained were
references, not to existing agrarian facts, but to a fiscal history
which already lay in the past and is now hopelessly obscure. A mystery
of iniquity is bad, but the mysteries of archaic equity are worse. In
many Anglo-Saxon arrangements we find a curious mixture of clumsiness
and elaboration.
[Artificial valets.]
We can not quit this part of our subject without adding that there are
cases in which the _valuits_ and _valets_ look as artificial and
systematic as the hides and the teamlands. On a single page we find a
description of five handsome Yorkshire manors[1545]. We wish to know
their value in the past and the present, and what we learn is this:
Brostewic valuit £56, valet £10; Chilnesse valuit £56, valet £10;
Witfornes valuit £56, valet £6; Mapletone valuit £56, valet £6; Hornesse
valuit £56, valet £6; and yet between these manors there are large
variations in the number of the carucates and the number of the
teamlands. Then we look about and see that it has been common for the
first-class manor of Yorkshire, if it is the centre of an extensive
soke, to be worth precisely £56[1546]. We can not but fear that the
value of these manors is a legal fiction, though a fiction that is
founded upon fact. Their supposed worth seems fixed at a figure that
will fit into some scheme, the clue to which we have not yet recovered.
Everywhere we are baffled by the make-believe of ancient finance.
[The new assessments of Henry II.]
The obscure forces which conspired to determine the quotas of the
various counties might be illustrated by an episode in the reign of
Henry II. The old danegeld is still being occasionally levied, and in
the main the old assessment prevails. But alongside of this we see a
newer tax. From time to time the king takes a gift (_donum_, _assisa_,
_gersuma_) from the counties. A certain round number of marks is
demanded from every shire. For this purpose a new tariff is employed,
and yet it is not wholly independent of the old, for we can hardly look
at it without seeing that it is so constructed as to redress in a rude
fashion the antiquated scheme of the danegeld. In the first column of
the following table we give, omitting fractions, the pounds that the
counties contribute when a danegeld is levied, in the second and third
the half-marks (6_s._ 8_d._) that they pay by way of gift on two
different occasions early in the reign of Henry of Anjou[1547].
Danegeld Donum of Donum of
2 Hen. II. 4 Hen. II.
£ half-marks half-marks
Kent 106 320 240
Sussex 217 202 160
Surrey 180 160 160
Hampshire 185 200
Berkshire 206 148 120
Wiltshire 390 200 160
Dorset 248
Somerset 278 200 300
Devon 104 368 300
Cornwall 23
Middlesex 86 175 80
Hertford 110 120
Buckingham 205} 200 240
Bedford 111}
Oxford 250 140 200
Gloucester 194 218 260
Worcester 101 100 120
Hereford 94 80 140
Cambridge 115 160
Huntingdon 71 100
Northampton 120 240 280
Leicester 100 100 160
Warwick 129 100 240
Stafford 45 80 100
Shropshire 118 80 140
Derby } 112 160 280
Nottingham }
York 165 1000[1548] 1000
Lincoln 266 540 600
Essex 236 400 400
Norfolk 330 400 } 400
Suffolk 235 240 }
The variable tariff of _dona_ hits most heavily just those counties
which have been too favourably treated; Kent and Devon must make large
'gifts' because they pay little geld. Yorkshire, which once more is
becoming prosperous, heads the new list, though it pays less geld than
Surrey; and, on the other hand, Wiltshire, which makes the largest of
all contributions to the ancient tax, is leniently treated. When men
have acquired a vested right in an iniquitous assessment, the fertile
politician neither reforms nor abolishes the old, but invents a new
impost.
[Acreage of the fiscal hide.]
And now, after all these inconclusive meanderings, we will state our
cheerful belief that the hide of Domesday (_A_) is always[1549] composed
of 120 acres and that the carucate for geld of Domesday (_A_) is always
composed of 120 acres. We are speaking only of a fiscal system. Let us
forget for a time that the terms that we are using can be employed to
describe masses of land. Let us treat them as red and white counters. In
the game played at the Exchequer the red counter called a hide is the
equivalent of 120 white counters called acres.
[Equation between hide and acres.]
If Domesday Book is to serve its primary purpose, if it is to tell the
king's officers how much geld is due, it is absolutely necessary that by
some ready process they should be able to work sums in hides and acres
and in carucates and acres. They must understand such statements as the
following:--'it defends itself for 2 hides and 5 acres[1550]': 'it
gelded for 3 hides, 1 virgate and 1-1/2 acres[1551]': 'he has 5 bovates,
13 acres and 1 virgate for geld[1552].' Now it is conceivable that the
treasury contains a book of tables which will teach the clerks that a
hide has _a_ acres in Surrey and _b_ acres in Devon; but this seems
highly improbable. As we have already said[1553], the variations between
the numbers of 'real' acres that go to make 'real' hides are not
provincial, they are villar variations. That the financiers at
Winchester should consider villar variations is out of the question.
Therefore if we can prove that in one district they employed a given
equation, there is a strong presumption that they used it in other
districts. And unfortunately our proof has to be of this kind, for in
many counties acres are rarely mentioned and we get no sums that are
worked in acres and hides. But further, if we see one equation holding
good in a considerable number of cases, we shall still believe that this
is the one true equation, though other cases occur in which it breaks
down. We have to remember the possibility of mistranscription, the
possibility of bad arithmetic, the possibility of a haughty treatment of
small numbers: the actual existence of all these dangers can be amply
proved. Therefore if once we have inductively obtained an equation which
serves in many instances, we shall hold by it, unless the instances in
which it fails point either to some one other equation or to the
conclusion that the equation varies from parish to parish.
[Evidence from Cambridgeshire.]
Now the Cambridgeshire Inquest professes to give us the total hidage of
a vill and then proceeds to allot the hides among the various tenants in
chief. Sometimes when it does this it speaks of virgates and acres and
thus gives us an opportunity of seeing how many acres are reckoned to
the hide or to the virgate. The equation 1 H. = 4 V. is implied in many
entries. But further, there are at least ten cases which assume one or
both of the following equations: namely, 1 H. = 120 A. and 1 V. = 30 A.
On the other hand, there are some cases in which the sum that is put
before us is not rightly worked if these equations be correct; but in
some of these cases the Inquisitio and Domesday Book contradict each
other and in some a small quantity is neglected. The very few remaining
cases point to no one rival equation, and are not too numerous to be
ascribed to carelessness[1554].
[Evidence from the Isle of Ely.]