inheritance and partition can be expressed in various ways.
Thus two-thirds of a hide can be expressed as 80 A. or as
'half a hide and 20 acres.' Three-quarters of a hide appears
sometimes as 'half a hide and 30 A.,' sometimes as 'a hide
less 30 A.' We might add to our other arguments derived from
Essex that used by Morgan (op. cit., p. 31). It seems fairly
clear that the holding of Roger 'God Bless the Dames', which
is called 3 V. in one place is called 1/2 H. + 30 A. in
another place (D. B. iv. 21 b, 96 b).
[1585] D. B. i. 141 b, Wallingtone.
[1586] D. B. i. 141, Stuterehele.
[1587] D. B. i. 165. There is here a transition from geldable area
to real area. This land is rated at a hide, but when you come
to plough it, you will find only 64 acres.
[1588] D. B. i. 93 b, Dudesham; iv. 396.
[1589] D. B. i. 79 b. Eyton, Dorset, 16, says that this is a clumsy
way of describing 1 H. + 1 A. Round, Domesday Studies, i.
213, makes some just remarks on Eyton's treatment of this
passage.
[1590] D. B. i. 95 b, Ecewiche; iv. 333.
[1591] D. B. ii. 389 (Cratingas). In Northamptonshire also there is
talk of virgates; e.g. D. B. 225 b, 226 b: 3V. - 1 B.; 2 V. +
1 B.
[1592] D. B. ii. 377 b.
[1593] D. B. i. 276 b, 278.
[1594] If I hold two and a half acres in one place and three roods
in a neighbouring place and you ask me how much land I have,
I may tell you that I have two and a half acres and three
roods. If you ask me how much money I have in my purse, I may
tell you that I have half-a-crown and three shillings. But
returns to governmental inquiries would not be habitually
made in this way.
[1595] D. B. i. 13: 'pro uno solin se defendit; tria iuga sunt infra
divisionem Hugonis et quartum iugum est extra.'
[1596] D. B. i. 2.
[1597] Elton, Tenures of Kent, 133-4.
[1598] D. B. i. 12 b.
[1599] D. B. i. 9 b.
[1600] D. B. i. 12.
[1601] Kemble, Saxons, ch. iv. and App. B.
[1602] Saxons, i. 490.
[1603] D. B. iv. 42. Cf. D. B. i. 81 b.
[1604] Robertson, Hist. Essays, 95, 96. He has entirely
misunderstood the entry touching the hundred of Ailestebba.
The equation involved in it is merely the following: 16 H.
(i.e. 10 + 4-1/2 + 1-1/2) + 37 H. + 20 H. = 73 H.
[1605] Eyton, Dorset, 15; Bound in Domesday Studies, i. 213.
[1606] Dr Isaac Taylor, The Ploughland and the Plough, in Domesday
Studies, i. 143. Of this paper there is an excellent review
by W. H. Stevenson in Engl. Hist. Rev. v. 142.
[1607] Domesday Studies, 150; D. B. i. 324.
[1608] D. B. i. 311 b.
[1609] Round, Feudal England, 60.
[1610] See above, p. 397.
[1611] See above, pp. 402, 435.
[1612] See above, p. 471.
[1613] See above, p. 480.
[1614] Dial. de Scac. i. 17.
[1615] The appearance in D. B. of a few 'hides' which apparently
consist altogether of wood-land (e.g. ii. 55 b) is one of the
many signs that the fiscal hide has diverged from its
original pattern. A block of wood-land would not be 'the land
of one family.'
§ 3. _Beyond Domesday._
[The hide beyond Domesday.]
We have now seen a good deal of evidence which tends to prove that the
hide has had for its model a tenement comprising 120 acres of arable
land or thereabouts. Some slight evidence of this we have seen on the
face of the Anglo-Saxon land-books[1616]. A little more evidence
pointing in the same direction we have seen in the manorial extents of a
later day[1617]. And now we have argued that the fiscal hide of the
Conqueror's day is composed of 120 (fiscal) acres. From all this we are
inclined to infer that the hide has, if we may so speak, started by
being a tenement which, if it attained its ideal, would comprise a
long-hundred of arable acre-strips, and thence to infer that in the very
old days of conquest and settlement the free family or the free
house-father commonly and normally possessed a tenement of this large
size.
We have now to confess that this theory is open to attack, and must
endeavour to defend it, or rather to explain why we think that, when all
objections have been weighed, the balance of probability still inclines
in its favour.
[Arguments in favour of the small hide.]
That all along from Bede's day downwards Englishmen have had in their
minds a typical tenement and have been making this idea the framework of
their scheme of government can not be doubted. Nor can we doubt that
this idea has had some foundation in fact. It could not occur to any one
except in a country where a large and preponderant number of tenements
really, if roughly, conformed to a single type. Therefore the contest
must be, and indeed has been, between the champions of different typical
tenements, and in the main there are but two theories in the field. The
one would give the Anglo-Saxon hide its long-hundred of acres, the other
would concede to it but some thirty or forty, and would in effect equate
it with the virgate rather than with the hide of later days[1618].
Perhaps we may briefly state the arguments which have been urged in
favour of this small hide by saying that small hides are requisite (1)
if we are to find room enough within the appropriate areal boundaries
for the hides that are distributed by Domesday Book and the Anglo-Saxon
charters, (2) if we are to explain the large quantities of hides or
family-lands which are assigned to divers districts by Bede and by that
ancient document which we call The Tribal Hidage, (3) if we are to bring
our own typical tenement into line with the typical tenement of Germany,
(4) if we are not to overdo our family or house-father with arable acres
and bushels of corn.
[Continuity in the hide of the land-books.]
A 'name-shifting' must be postulated. Somehow or another, what was the
hide becomes the virgate, while the name 'hide' is transferred to a much
larger unit. Now in such a name-shifting there is nothing that is very
improbable, if we approach the matter _a priori_. Thought has been poor
and language has been poor. The term 'yard of land' may, as we have
seen[1619], stand for a quarter-acre or for a much larger space. But
this particular name-shifting seems to us improbable in a high degree.
For when did it happen? Surely it did not happen after the Norman
Conquest. We have from Edward the Confessor quite enough documents to
warrant our saying with certainty that the hides and manses of his
charters are the hides of Domesday Book. Suppose for a moment that all
these parchments were forged after the Conquest, this would only
strengthen our case, for stupid indeed must the forger have been who
did not remember that if he was to make a title-deed for the abbey's
lands he must multiply the hides by four or thereabouts. This argument
will carry us far. We trace the stream of land-books back from Edward to
Cnut, to Æthelred, to Edgar, to Offa, nay, to the very days of Bede;
nowhere can we see any such breach of continuity as that which would
appear had the hypothetical name-shifting taken place. The forgers know
nothing of it. Boldly they make the first Christian kings bestow upon
the church just about the number of manses that the church has in the
eleventh century if the manse be Domesday's hide.
[Examples from charters of Chertsey.]
Both points might be illustrated by the Chertsey charters. In Domesday
Book St. Peter of Chertsey is credited with many hides in divers parts
of Surrey[1620]. A charter is forthcoming whereby Edward the Confessor
confirms the abbey's possession of these estates[1621], and in the main
the number of 'manses' that this charter locates in any village is the
number of 'hides' that the abbey will have there in the year 1086. The
two lists are not and ought not to be identical, for there have been
rearrangements; but obviously the manse of the one is the hide of the
other. Then the monks have books which profess to come from the seventh
century[1622] and to show how Frithwald the kingling of Surrey endowed
their monastery. These books may be forgeries; but the scale on which
they are forged is the scale of the Confessor's charter and of Domesday
Book. It has been thought that they are as old as Edgar's day[1623]; but
at any rate their makers did not suppose that in order to tell a
profitable story they must portray Frithwald bestowing four manses for
every hide that the abbey possessed.
[Examples from charters of Malmesbury.]
Or look we at the estates of St. Aldhelm. The monks of Malmesbury have
a book from the Confessor[1624] which agrees very accurately, perhaps
too accurately, with the Domesday record[1625]. The latter ascribes to
their house (among other lands) 10 hides at Dauntsey, 5 at Somerford, 5
at Norton, 30 at Kemble 35 at Purton. The Confessor has confirmed to
them (among other lands) 10 'hides' at Dauntsey given by Æthelwulf, 5 at
Somerford and 5 at Norton given by Æthelstan, 30 at Kemble and 35 at
Purton given by Ceadwealla. Then behind this book are older books. Here
is one dated in 931 by which Æthelstan gives _quinque mansas_ at
Somerford and _quinque mansas_ at Norton[1626]. Here is another dated in
850 by which Æthelwulf gives _decem mansiones_ at Dauntsey[1627]. Here
is a third by which in 796 Egfrith restores that _terram xxxv manentium_
at Purton[1628]. Here from 682, from the days of Aldhelm himself, is a
deed of Ceadwealla bestowing _xxxii cassatos_ at Kemble[1629]. It is
pretty; it is much too pretty; but it is good proof that the Malmesbury
monks know nothing of any change in the conveyancer's unit[1630].
[Permanence of the hidation.]
If we examine any reputable set of land-books, those of Worcester, for
example, or those of Abingdon and try to trace the history of those very
hides the existence of which is chronicled by Domesday Book, we shall
often fail. This was to be expected. Any one who has 'read with a
conveyancer' will know that many difficulties are apt to arise when an
attempt is made to identify the piece of land described in one with that
described in another and much older document. In the days before the
Conquest many causes were perplexing our task. We have spoken of them
before, but will recall them to memory. New assessments were sometimes
made, and thenceforth an estate which had formerly contained five hides
might be spoken of as having only four. New villages were formed, and
the hides which had been attributed to one place would thenceforth be
attributed to another. Great landlords enjoyed a large power of
rearranging their lands, not only for the purposes of their own economy,
but also for the purposes of public finance. In some cases they had
collected their estates into a few gigantic _maneria_ each of which
would pay a single round sum to the king[1631]. Lastly, the kings gave
and the kings took away. The disendowment of churches and simple
spoliation were not unknown; exchanges were frequent; no series of
land-books is complete. But when some allowance has been made for the
effects of these causes, we shall see plainly that, if the charters are
to account for the facts displayed by Domesday Book, then the manses of
the charters, even of the earliest charters, can not have been of much
less extent than the hides of the Norman record. We know of no case in
which a church, whatever its wealth of genuine and spurious parchments,
could make a title to many more manses than the hides that it had in
1086[1632].
[Gifts of villages.]
Another test of continuity may be applied. In the Conqueror's day a
village in the south of England will very commonly be rated at five or
some low multiple of five hides, ten, fifteen or twenty[1633]. Now we
have argued above that the land-book of an Anglo-Saxon king generally,
though not always, disposes of an integral village or several integral
villages, and if we look at the land-books we shall commonly see that
the manses or hides which they describe as being at a single place are
in number five or some low multiple of five. We open the second volume
of the Codex Diplomaticus and analyze the first hundred instances of
royal gifts which do not bear a condemnatory asterisk and which are not
gifts of small plots in or about the towns of Canterbury and Rochester.
In date these land-books range from A.D. 840 to A.D. 956. In sixty out
of a hundred cases the number of manses is 5 or a multiple of 5. In
eighteen it is 5; in sixteen 10; in six 15; in thirteen 20; in three 25;
in one 30; in one 80; in two 100. There are a few small gifts; one of a
yokelet; six of 1 manse; four of 2 manses; five of 3. The great bulk of
the gifts range from 5 to 25 manses. Only four out of 100 exceed 25; of
these four, one is of 30, another of 80, while two are of 100. At this
rate of progress and if the manse had no more than some 30 acres, we
shall have extreme difficulty in accounting for the large territories
which on the eve of the Conquest were held by the churches of Wessex,
and by those very churches which have left us cartularies that are only
too ample. This is not all. If these manses were but yard-lands, then,
unless we suppose that the average village was a tiny cluster, it is
plain enough that the kings did not usually give away integral villages,
and yet a church's lordship of integral villages and even of divers
contiguous villages is one of the surest and most impressive traits that
the Conqueror's record reveals.
[Gifts of manses in villages.]
Parenthetically we may admit that the king is not always giving away a
whole village. Nasse has contended that when a land-book professes to
dispose of a certain number (_x_) of manses at the place called _X_, and
then sets forth the boundaries of _X_, we must not infer that the whole
of the land that lies within those boundaries is comprised in the
grant[1634]. The proof of this consists of a few instances in which, to
all appearance, two different tracts of land are conveyed by two
different books and yet the boundaries stated in those two books are the
same. We will allege one instance additional to those that have been
mentioned by others. In 969 Bishop Oswald of Worcester gave to his man
Æthelweard seven manses, whereof five lay in the place called Tedington.
The book which effected this conveyance states the bounds of
Tedington[1635]. In 977 the same bishop gave to his man Eadric three
manses at Tedington by a book which describes the boundaries of that
place in just the same manner as that in which they were set forth by
the earlier charter[1636]. Some care, however, should be taken before we
assume that the two deeds which deal with land at _X_ dispose of
different tracts; for book-land had a way of returning to the king who
gave it; also the gift of one king was sometimes confirmed by another;
and even if the one book purports to convey _x_ and the other _y_
manses, we must call to mind the possibility that there has been a
reassessment or a clerical error. Still it seems to be fairly well
proved that there are cases in which the _x_ manses which the donor
gives are but some of the manses that lie within the meres drawn by his
deed of gift. This certainly deserves remark. At first sight nothing
could look more foolish than that we should painfully define the limits
of the village territory and yet leave undefined the limits of that part
of the village territory which we are giving away. But this practice is
explicable if we remember the nature of a manse in a village. It
consists of many scattered strips of arable land and of rights over
uncultivated waste. To define the limits of the whole territory is
important, for the donee should know how far his cattle can wander
without trespass. To specify each acre-strip would, on the other hand,
be a tedious task and would serve no profitable end. However, there can
be little doubt that very generally what a charter bestows is the whole
of the land of which the boundaries are described, and therefore the
whole territory of a village or of several neighbouring villages.
[The largest gifts.]
But at the moment the charters which will be the most instructive will
be those which attribute to a single place some large number of hides.
In these the champions of a small hide have found their stronghold. They
see perhaps 100 hides ascribed to the place called _X_; they look for
that place in modern maps and gazetteers and then tell us that in order
to pack our 100 hides within the parochial boundary we must reduce the
size of the hide to 30 acres at the most.
[The Winchester estate at at Chilcombe.]
The dangers that beset this process may be well illustrated by the
documents relating to one of the most interesting estates in all
England, the great Chilcombe estate of the church of Winchester, which
stretched for many a mile from the gates of the royal city of the West
Saxon kings. Let us follow the story as the monks told it in a series of
charters, few of which have escaped Kemble's asterisk. In the first days
of English Christianity, Cynegils, king of the West Saxons, gave the
Chilcombe valley to St. Birinus. King after king confirmed the gift,
but it was never put into writing until the days of Æthelwulf. He
declared by charter that this land should defend itself for one hide.
This was part of that great tithing operation which puzzles the modern
historian[1637]. In 908 Edward the Elder confirmed this act by a charter
in which he declared that the land at Chilcombe (including that at
Nursling and Chilbolton) contained 100 manses, but that the whole was
to be reckoned as a single manse. He also remarked that the land
included many _villae_[1638]. The next book comes from Æthelstan; the
whole valley (_vallis illuster Ciltecumb appellata_) with all its
appendages was to owe the service of a single manse[1639]. Two charters
were obtained from Edgar. However much land there might be at Chilcombe,
it was to defend itself for one hide[1640]. A writ of similar import,
which Kemble has accepted, was issued by Æthelred the Unready[1641]. It
said that there were a hundred hides at Chilcombe and proceeded to allot
them thus:--
Æstun 4 Easton
Afintun and Ufintun 5 Avington and Ovington
Ticceburn 25 Titchbourne
Cymestun 5 Kilmiston
Stoke 5 Bishopstoke
Brombrygce and Oterburn 5 Brambridge and Otterbourne
Twyfyrde 20 Twyford
Ceolbandingtun 20 Chilbolton
Hnutscilling 5 Nursling
This territory extends along the left-hand bank of the Itchen from
Kilmiston to Titchbourne, thence past Ovington, Avington, Easton,
Chilcombe, and Winchester itself, Twyford, Brambridge, Otterbourne to
Bishopstoke. If we journeyed by straight lines from village to village
we should find that our course was a long twenty miles. Then, to
complete the 100 hides, Nursling which is near Southampton and
Chilbolton which is near Andover are thrown in. But all these lands lie
'into Ciltecumbe.'
[The many hides at Chilcombe.]
It is to be feared that these charters tell lies invented by those who
wished to evade their share of national burdens. And they seem to have
failed in their object, for in the Confessor's day, though a very large
estate at 'Chilcombe' with nine churches upon it was rated at but one
hide, several of the other villages that we have mentioned were
separately assessed[1642]. But to lie themselves into an immunity from
taxes, this the monks might hope to do; to lie themselves into the
possession of square leagues of land, this would have been an impossible
feat, and the solid fact remains that their church was the lord of a
spacious and continuous block of territory in the very heart of the old
West Saxon realm, just outside the gates of the royal burg, along the
Itchen river, the land that would be seized and settled at the earliest
moment. The best explanation that they could give of this fact was that
the first Christian kings had bestowed mile after mile of land upon the
minster. What better theory have we[1643]?
[The Winchester estates at Downton and Taunton.]
The truth seems to be that some of the very earliest gifts of land that
were made to the churches might, if we have regard to the size of the
existing kingdoms, be fairly called the cession of provinces, the
cession of large governmental and jurisdictional districts. The bishops
want a revenue, and in the earliest days a large district must be ceded
if even a modest revenue is to be produced, for all that the king has to
give away is the chieftain's right to live at the expense of the folk
and to receive the proceeds of justice. Therefore not only whole
villages but whole hundreds were given. Chilcombe was by no means the
only vast estate that the bishop of the West Saxons acquired in very
early days. Domesday Book shows us how at Downton in Wiltshire the
church of Winchester has had a round 100 hides[1644]. For these 100
hides we have a series of charters which professes to begin in the days
when the men of Wessex were accepting the new faith. They bear the names
of Cenwealla[1645], Egbert[1646], Edward[1647], Æthelstan[1648],
Edred[1649], Edgar[1650], and Æthelred[1651]. Kemble has accepted the
last four of them. They tell a consistent story. There were 100 manses
at Downton, or, to speak more accurately, 55 at Downton itself and 45 at
Ebbesborne (the modern Bishopston) on the other side of the Avon[1652].
We might speak of other extensive tracts, of Farnham where there have
been 60 hides[1653], of Alresford where there have been 51[1654], of
Mitcheldever where there have been 106[1655], of Taunton where there
have been 54 and more[1656]. Whenever the West Saxons conquer new lands
they cede a wide province to their bishop. But perhaps we have already
said more than enough of these cessions, though in our eyes they are
very important; they are among the first manifestations of incipient
feudalism and feudalism brings manorialism in its train. We have
recurred to them here because the Winchester charters which describe
them testify strongly to the continuity of the hide and also indicate
the weak point in the arguments that are urged by the advocates of
little hides[1657].
[Kemble and the Taunton estate.]
Kemble has argued that it is impossible for us to allow the hide of
Domesday Book or the hide or manse of the charters as many as 120 acres.
Take a village, discover how many hides are ascribed to it, discover how
many acres it has at the present day, you will often find that the whole
territory of the village will not suffice to supply the requisite number
of hides if the hide is to have 120 or even 60 acres. Kemble illustrates
this method by taking nine vills in Somerset and Devon. One of them is
Taunton. Modern Taunton, he says, has 2730 acres, the Tantone of 1086
had 65 hides[1658]; multiply 65 even by so low a figure as 40 and you
will nearly exhaust all Taunton's soil[1658]. This argument involves the
assumption that the limits of modern Taunton include the whole land that
is ascribed to 'Tantone' in the Conqueror's geld-book. Strangely
different was the result to which Eyton came after a minute examination
of the whole survey of Somersetshire. The 'Tantone' of Domesday covers
some thirteen or fourteen villages and is now represented not by 2730
but by 24,000 acres[1659]. The editor of the Anglo-Saxon charters should
have guessed that many hides 'lay in' Taunton which as a matter of
physical geography were far off from the walls of the bishop's
burg[1660]. There are counties in which the list of the places that are
mentioned in Domesday is so nearly identical with the list of our modern
parishes, that no very great risk would be run if we circumspectly
pursued Kemble's method; but just in those counties to which he applied
it the risk is immeasurably great, for it is the land where many
villages are often collected into one great _manerium_ and all their
hides are spoken of as lying in one place. Not until we have compared
the whole survey of the county with the whole of its modern map, are we
entitled to make even a guess as to the amount of land that a place-name
covers. Often enough in those shires where there are large and ancient
ecclesiastical estates, those shires in which the feudal and manorial
development began earliest and has gone furthest, hides 'are' in law
where they are not in fact. They 'lie into' the hall at which they geld
or the moot-stow to which they render soke, and this may be far distant
from their natural bed[1661].
[Difficulty of identifying parcels.]