growth of new villages. The village of Hamton has been a large village
with 20 hides. Some of its arable land has lain two or three miles from
the clustered steads. A partition of its fields is made and a new
cluster of steads is formed; for housebuilding is not a lengthy or
costly process. And so Little Hamton or 'Other' Hamton with 5 hides
splits off from the old Hamton which has 15. We must not now try to
force 20 hides into the territory of either village[1662]. And as this
danger increases, the other hardly diminishes, for we come to the time
when a king will sometimes give a large jurisdictional district and call
it all by one name. If the once heathen Osric of the Hwiccas gave to a
church '100 _manentes_ adjoining the city that is called the Hot Baths,'
he in all probability gave away the 'hundred' of Bath; he gave Bath
itself and a territory which in the eleventh century was the site of a
dozen villages[1663]. We have the best reason for believing that when a
king of the eighth century says that he is giving 20 manses in the place
called Cridie he is giving his rights over a tract which comprises ten
or twelve of our modern parishes and more than the whole of the modern
hundred of Crediton[1664].
[The numerous hides in ancient documents.]
We have given above some figures which will enable our readers to
compare the hides and the teamlands of a county with its modern acreage.
Also we have confessed to thinking that we can hardly concede to every
teamland that Domesday mentions 120 statute acres of arable land[1665].
On the other hand, we do not think that there would in general be much
difficulty in finding 120 arable acres for every fiscal hide, though
perhaps in the south the average size of the acre would be small[1666].
However, we have admitted, or rather contended, that before the middle
of the eleventh century the hides of the fiscal system had strayed far
away from the original type, and the sight of an over-hided vill would
not disconcert us. But unfortunately we can not be content with such
results as we have as yet attained. We have already seen that the hides
attributed to a district show a tendency to increase their number as we
trace them backwards[1667], and there are certain old documents which
deal out hides so lavishly that we must seriously face the question
whether, notwithstanding the continuity of the land-books, we must not
suppose that some large change has taken place in the character of the
typical tenement.
[_The Burghal Hidage._]
We have said above that we have inherited three ancient documents which
distribute hides among districts. We call them in order of date (1) The
Tribal Hidage, (2) The Burghal Hidage, (3) The County Hidage. Of the
youngest we have spoken. We must now attend to that which holds the
middle place. It states that large round numbers of hides belong to
certain places, which seem to be strongholds. The sense in which a large
number of hides might belong to a _burh_ will be clear to those who have
read the foregoing pages[1668]. This document has only come down to us
in a corrupt form, but it has come from a remote time and seems to
represent a scheme of West-Saxon defence which was antiquated long years
before the coming of the Normans. We will give its effect, preserving
the most important variants and adding within brackets some guesses of
our own.
THE BURGHAL HIDAGE[1669]
Hides.
to Heorepeburan, Heorewburan[1670] 324
to Hastingecestre [Hastings] 15 or 500
to Lathe, Lawe [Lewes][1671] 1300
to Burhham [Burpham near Arundel] 726
to Cisseceastre [Chichester] 1500
to Portecheastre [Porchester] 650
to Hamtona and to Wincestre [Southampton and Winchester] 2400
to Piltone, Pistone[1672], Wiltone [Wilton] 1400
to Tysanbyring [Tisbury][1673] 700
to Soraflesbyring, Soraflesburieg, Sceaftesbyrig [Shaftesbury] 700
to Thoriham, Tweonham, Twenham [Twyneham][1674] 470
to Weareham [Wareham] 1600
to Brydian [Bridport or more probably Bredy][1675] 1760
to Excencestre [Exeter] 734
to Halganwille, Hallgan Wylla [Halwell][1676] 300
to Hlidan, Hlida [Lidford] 140
to Wiltone Wisbearstaple, Piltone wið Bearstaple [Pilton[1677]
with Barnstaple] 360
to Weted, Weced [Watchet][1678] 513
to Orenbrege, Oxenebrege, Axanbrige [Axbridge] 400
to Lenge, Lengen [Lyng][1679] 100
to Langiord, Langport [Langport] 600
to Bathan, Badecan, Baderan [Bath] 3200(?)
to Malmesberinge [Malmesbury] 1500
to Croccegelate, Croccagelada [Cricklade] 1003 or 1300
to Oxeforde and to Wallingeforde [Oxford and Wallingford] 2400
to Buckingham and to Sceaftelege, Sceafteslege, Steaftesege
[Buckingham and ?][1680] 600 or 1500
to Eschingum and to Suthringa geweorc [Southwark
and Eashing][1681] 1800
These figures having been stated, we are told that they make a total of
27,070 hides[1682]. And then we read 'et triginta[1683] to Astsexum
[_al._ Westsexum], and to Wygraceastrum mcc, hydas. to Wæringewice
[_al._ Parlingewice] feower and xxiiii. hund hyda.'
[Meaning of _The Burghal Hidage._]
Apparently we start at some burg in the extreme east of Sussex, go
through Hastings, Lewes, Burpham, Chichester, Porchester, and then pass
through Hampshire, through the south of Wiltshire, through Dorset to
Devon, keeping always well to the south. Then in Devon we turn to the
north and retrace our steps by moving to the east along a more northerly
route than that which we followed in the first instance. In short, we
make a round of Wessex and end at Southwark. This done, we cast up the
number of hides and find them to be somewhat more than 27,000. Then in
what may be a postscript the remark is made that to Essex and Worcester
belong 1200 hides (probably 1200 apiece) and to Warwick 2404. The writer
seems to know Wessex pretty thoroughly; of the rest of England he (if he
added the postscript) has little to tell us. We might perhaps imagine
him drawing up this statement under Edward the Elder[1684]. He hears
reports of what has been done to make Essex defensible and of two famous
burgs built in Mercia; but the military system of Wessex he knows[1685].
Of a military system it is that he is telling us. He does not take the
counties of Wessex one by one; he visits the burgs, and his tour through
them takes him twice through Wiltshire: westwards along a southerly and
eastwards along a northerly line.
It is an artificial system that he discloses to us. The 324 hides
allotted to 'Heorepeburan' (a place that eludes us) may seem
insufficiently round until we add it to the 726 given to 'Burhham.' The
Wiltshire burgs seem to be grouped thus:--
Wilton 1400}
Tisbury 700} 2800}
Shaftesbury 700} } 5600
Malmesbury 1500} 2800}
Cricklade 1300}
[_The Burghal Hidage_ and later documents.]
To compare these figures with those given in Domesday Book and in The
County Hidage is not a straightforward task, for the military districts
of 900 may not have been coincident with the counties of 1086, and, for
example, Bath may have been supported partly by Gloucestershire and
partly by Somerset[1686]. The best comparison that we can make is the
following:--
Burghal Hidage County Hidage Domesday Book
Sussex[1687] 4350 3474
Surrey[1688] 1800 (or 3600) 1830
Hampshire[1689] 3520 2588
Berkshire[1690] 2400 2473
Wiltshire[1691] 5600 4800 4050
Dorset[1692] 3360 2321
Somerset[1693] 4813 2951
Devon[1694] 1534 1119
Oxford 2400 2400 2412
Buckingham 1500 2074
Essex(?) 1200 2650
Worcester 1200 1200 1189
Warwick 2404 1200 1338
There is discord here, but also there is concord. According to our
reckoning, the Oxfordshire and Berkshire of Domesday Book have just
about 2400 hides apiece; then The County Hidage gives Oxfordshire 2400;
and The Burghal Hidage gives 2400 to Oxford and 2400 to Wallingford.
Both documents give 1200 to Worcester, and this is very close to the
number that Domesday Book assigns. Next we see that, with hardly an
exception[1695], all the aberrations of our Burghal Hidage from Domesday
Book lie in one direction. They all point to great reductions of hidage,
which seem to have been distributed with a fairly even hand. Further, in
the case of Wiltshire we see a progressive abatement. The hidage is
lowered from 5600 to 4800 and then to a little over 4000, and the first
reduction seems to have relieved the shire of just one-seventh of its
hides.
[Criticism of _The Burghal Hidage._]
Now it seems to us that, on the one hand, we must reckon with this
document as with one which, however much it may have been distorted by
copyists, is or once was a truthful, and possibly an official record,
and that, on the other hand, we can reckon with it and yet retain that
notion of the hide which we have been elaborating. In a general way it
both gives support to and receives support from the evidence that has
already come before us. We have seen reductions of hidage or carucatage
made in Yorkshire and Leicestershire after the Domesday survey; we have
seen reductions in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Cambridge,
Northamptonshire. Here we come upon earlier reductions. They are large;
but still they are not of such a kind as to make us think that any great
change has taken place in men's idea of a normal and typical hide. For
one thing, we might be rash if we denied that during that miserable
tenth century both the population and the wealth of Wessex were
declining, for, despite its Æthelstan and Edgar, a miserable time it
was. A real extinction of many a 'real hide' there may have been. But
our main explanation will be that, by a process which is gradual and yet
catastrophic, the ancient exaggerated estimates of population and wealth
are being brought into correspondence with the humbler facts.
[_The Tribal Hidage._]
We must now turn to a more famous and yet older document, namely that
which we call The Tribal Hidage[1696]. It assigns large round quantities
of hides to various districts, or rather to various peoples, whose very
names would otherwise have been unknown to us. We are not about to add
to the commentaries that have been written upon it; but its general
scheme seems to be fairly plain. It begins by allotting to Myrcna land
30,000 hides. On this follow eighteen more or less obscure names to each
of which a sum of hides is assigned; 36,100 hides are distributed
between them. Then a grand total of 66,100 is stated. Ten other more or
less obscure names follow, and 19,000 hides are thus disposed of. Then
we have more intelligible entries:--'East Engle 30,000. East Sexena
7,000. Cantwarena 15,000. South Sexena 7,000. West Sexena 100,000.' Then
we are told that the complete sum is 242,700, a statement which is not
true as the figures stand, for they amount to 244,100. The broad
features, therefore, of this system seem to be these:--It ascribes to
Wessex 100,000 hides, to Sussex 7,000, to Kent 15,000, to Essex 7,000,
to East Anglia 30,000, to Mercia 30,000, to the rest of England 55,100.
Apparently we must look for this rest of England outside Wessex, Sussex,
Kent, Essex and East Anglia and outside the Mercians' land, though this
last term is probably used in an old and therefore narrow sense. The
least obscure of the obscure names that are put before us, those of the
dwellers in the Peak, the dwellers in Elmet and the men of Lindsey, seem
to point to the same conclusion[1697].
[Criticism of _The Tribal Hidage_.]
Now our first remark about this document will perhaps be either that it
is wild nonsense, or that its 'hide' has for its type something very
different from the model that has served for those hides of which we
have hitherto been reading. Domesday will not allow the whole of England
70,000 hides (carucates, sulungs) and now we are asked to accommodate
more than 240,000. Kent is to have 15,000 hides instead of 1200 sulungs.
Even the gulf between The Burghal Hidage and this Tribal Hidage is
enormous. The one would attribute less than 4500 hides to the Sussex
burgs, the other would burden the South Saxons with 7000. In the older
document Wessex has 100,000 hides, while in the younger the burgs of
Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and Devon have
as their contributories less than a quarter of that number. The
suspicion can not but cross our mind that the 'hides' of The Tribal
Hidage are yard-lands, or, in other words have for their moulding idea
rather a tenement of 30 than a tenement of 120 arable acres[1698].
[Bede's hidage.]
Before we decide this important question we must give audience to Bede,
whose testimony seems to point in the same direction. As already said,
he uses one and the same unit, namely, the land of a family, whenever he
speaks of a tract of soil, whether that tract be the territory of a
large tribe or an estate that is granted to a monastery. He gives 7000
of these units to the South Saxons, 5000 to the South Mercians, 7000 to
the North Mercians, 960 to Anglesey, 300 and more to Man, 600 to Thanet,
1200 to Wight, 600 to the Isle of Ely, 87 to the promontory of Selsey, 5
to Iona. Then he tells how Alchfrid bestowed on Wilfrid the land of 10
families at Stanford and a monastery of 30 families at Ripon, and in
various other cases we hear of a prelate acquiring the land of 20, 12,
10, 8 families or of one family[1699].
[Criticism of Bede's hidage.]
Now we must notice that in their estimates of one large province there
is a certain agreement between the Ecclesiastical History and The Tribal
Hidage. Both give the South Saxons 7000 hides or families[1700]. What
are we then to say? If we suppose that Bede is speaking to us of
tenements which tend to conform to the hide of 120 arable acres his
statements must fly far beyond their mark. For example, the Isle of
Wight is to have 1200 hides, and yet, according to Domesday Book, the
whole of Hampshire including that island will not have 3000 hides, nor
3000 'teamlands,' nor 3000 teams. Bede's Wight contains as many hides as
the Worcestershire or the Herefordshire of Domesday. He allots 600 of
his units to the Isle of Ely, which in 1086 had about 80 hides and 126
teamlands. He allots another 600 of his units to the Isle of Thanet,
which in 1086 had about 66 sulungs and 93 teamlands[1701].
[Bede and the large hide.]
We have now reached the critical point in our essay. Before us lie two
paths and it is hardly too much to say that our whole conception of
early English history depends on the choice that we make. Either as we
pursue our retrogressive course through the centuries there comes a time
when the hide of 120 acres gives place to some other and much smaller
typical tenement, or the men of Bede's day grossly exaggerated the
number of the hides that there were in England and the various parts
thereof.
[Continuity of the hide in the land-books.]
We make our choice. We refuse to abandon the large hide. In the first
place, we call to mind the continuity of the charters. They have begun
to flow in Bede's day; they never cease to flow until they debouch in
Domesday Book. They know but one tenemental unit. To describe it they
use Bede's phrase, and his translator's phrases. It is the _hiwisc_, the
_terra unius familiae_, the _terra unius manentis_, the manse, the
hide[1702]. Between this and the acre they know nothing except the yard
of land. Of it they speak but seldom, and it can only be explained as
being a yard in every acre of a hide. No moment can we fix when an old
mode of reckoning by reference to small tenements is superseded by
references to a fourfold larger model.
[Gradual reduction of hidage.]
In the second place, we have been prepared for exaggeration. We have
seen the hides steadily increasing in number as we passed from Domesday
Book to The County Hidage and thence to The Burghal Hidage, and what may
we not expect in the remote age that we have now reached? Even in the
days of The Burghal Hidage there was a kingdom of England. There was a
king of the English who was trying to coordinate his various dominions
in one common scheme of national defence. But now we have penetrated to
an age when there is no English nation. The _gens Anglorum_ whose
ecclesiastical history is being written is but a loose congeries of
kindred folks. Rude indeed will be the guesses made at such a time about
the strength of tribes and the wealth of countries. The South Mercians
are a folk of 5000 families, 'so they say':--that is all that Bede can
tell us about them. It is not likely that they have underestimated their
numbers. When there is a kingdom of England, when there is a crushing
tax called 'danegeld,' then the day will have come when a county will,
if it can, 'conceal' its hides. At an earlier time the various folks
will brag of their strength and there will be none to mitigate their
boasts.
Moreover we can not put our finger on the spot where the breach of
continuity occurs. In 1086 Sussex has about 3100 teamlands; it has about
3500 hides. The Burghal Hidage would burden it with nearly 4500, and now
we are required to give it 7000. There is no place where we can see its
hides suddenly multiplied or divided by four.
[Over-estimates of hidage.]
Dare we set any limit to the power of exaggeration? In much later days
when England had long been strongly governed and accurate fiscal rolls
were being carefully stored in the treasury, men believed in 60,000
knight's fees; royal ministers believed in 32,000; and yet we now see
good reason for doubting whether there were more than 5000[1703]. In the
reign of Edward III. the collective wisdom of the nation supposed, and
acted upon the supposition, that there were more than 40,000 parishes in
England, and then made the humiliating discovery that there were less
than 9000[1704]. We hear that the same error was current in the days of
Wolsey. Men still believed in those 40,000 parishes[1705]. Such numbers
as these stood written in ancient manuscripts, some of which seem to
have taken our Tribal Hidage as a base for calculations[1706]. These
traditional numbers will not be lightly abandoned, though their
falsehood might be proved by a few days' labour spent among the official
archives. Counting hides is repulsive work. If then these things happen
in an age which is much closer to our own than to Bede's, ought we not
to be surprised at the moderation of those current estimates of tribal
strength that he reports?
[Size of Bede's hide.]
Thirdly, when Bede speaks not of a large province, but of an estate
acquired by a prelate, then his story seems to require that 'the land of
one family' should be that big tenemental unit, the manse or hide of the
land-books. Let us take by way of example the largest act of liberality
that he records. King Oswy, going to battle, promises that if he be
victorious he will devote to God his daughter with twelve estates for
the endowment of monasteries. He is victorious; he fulfils his vow. He
gives twelve estates, six in Deira, six in Bernicia; each consists of
'the possessions of ten families.' His daughter enters Hild's monastery
at Hartlepool. Two years afterwards she acquires an estate of ten
families at Streanaeshalch and founds a monastery there. According to
our reading of the story, Oswy bestows twelve 'ten-hide vills'; he
gives, that is, his rights, his superiority, over twelve villages of
about the average size, some of which are in Deira, some in Bernicia.
It is a handsome gift made on a grand occasion and in return for a
magnificent victory; but it is on the scale of those gifts whereof we
read in the West Saxon and Mercian land-books, where the hides are given
away by fives and tens, fifteens and twenties. We feel no temptation to
make thirty-acre yard-lands of the units that Oswy distributed. Were we
to do this, we should see him bestowing not entire villages (for a
village of two-and-a-half hides would, at all events in later days, be
abnormally small) but a few of the tenements that lie in one village and
a few of those that lie in another, and such a gift would not be like
those gifts that the oldest land-books record. And so we think that the
unit which Bede employs is our large hide. When he speaks of the estates
given to those churches with whose affairs he is conversant, he will
state the hidage correctly; but when it comes to the hidage of Sussex or
Kent, he will report current beliefs which are far from the truth. This
is what we see in later days. The officers at the Exchequer know
perfectly well that this man has fifty knight's fees and that man five,
but opine that there are 32,000, or, may be, 60,000 fees in
England[1707].
[Evidence from Iona.]
Observe how moderate Bede's estimate of hidage is when he speaks of a
small parcel of land of which he had heard much, when he speaks of the
holy island of Hii or Iona. A Pictish king gave it to Columba, who
received it as a site for a monastery. 'Neque enim magna est, sed quasi
familiarum quinque, iuxta aestimationem Anglorum[1708] 'It is not a
large island; we might compare its size with that of one of our English
five-hide túns.' The comparison would be apt. Iona has 1300 Scotch
acres or thereabouts[1708]. Plough 600 acres; there will be ample
pasture left[1710]. If, however, we interpreted his statement about the
7000 hides of Sussex in a similar fashion, the result would be
ridiculous. The South Saxons had not 840,000 acres of arable; our Sussex
has not 940,000 acres of any kind; their Sussex was thickly wooded. The
contrast, however, is not between two measures; it is between knowledge
and ignorance. Bede's name is and ought to be venerated, and to accuse
him of talking nonsense may seem to some an act of sacrilege. But about
these matters he could only tell what was told him, and we may be sure
that his informants, were, to say the least, no better provided with
statistics than were the statesmen of the fourteenth century[1711].
[Evidence from Selsey.]
Also there is one case in which we have what may be called a very
ancient, though not a contemporary, exposition of Bede's words. He tells
us that Æthelwealh king of the South Saxons gave to Wilfrid the land of
87 families called Selsey[1712]. Then there comes to us from Chichester
the copy of a land-book which professes to tell us more touching the
whereabouts of these 87 hides[1713]. Ceadwealla with the approval of
Archbishop Wilfrid gives to a Bishop Wilfrid a little land for the
construction of a monastery in the place called Selsey: 'that is to say
55 _tributarii_ in the places that are called Seolesige, Medeminige,
Wihttringes, Iccannore, Bridham and Egesauude and also Bessenheie,
Brimfastun and Sidelesham with the other _villae_ thereto belonging and
their appurtenances; also the land named Aldingburne and Lydesige 6
_cassati_, and in Geinstedisgate 6, and in Mundham 8, and in Amberla and
Hohtun 8, and in Uualdham 4: that is 32 _tributarii_.' This instrument
bears date 683. Another purporting to come from 957 describes the land
in much the same fashion[1714]. Where, let us ask, did the makers of
these charters propose to locate the 87 hides? Some, though not all, of
the places that they mentioned can be easily found on the map. We see
Selsey itself; hard by are Medmeny or Medmerry, Wittering, Itchenor,
Birdham and Siddlesham. At these and some other places that are not now
to be found were 55 hides. Then we go further afield and discover
Aldingbourn, Lidsey, Mundham, Amberley, Houghton and perhaps Upper
Waltham. But we have travelled far. At Amberley and Houghton we are
fifteen miles as the crow flies from Selsey[1715]. Apparently then, the
87 hides consist of a solid block of villages at and around Selsey
itself and of more distant villages that are dotted about in the
neighbourhood. Be it granted that these land-books are forgeries; still
in all probability they are a good deal older than Domesday Book[1716].
Be it granted that the number of 87 hides was suggested to the forgers
by the words of Bede[1717]. Still we must ask what meaning they gave to
those words. They distributed the 87 hides over a territory which is at
least eighteen miles in diameter[1718]. Now it is by no means unlikely
that Æthelwealh's gift really included some villages that were remote
from Selsey. We have seen before now that lands in one village may 'lie
into' another and a distant village which is the moot-stow of a
'hundred.' But at any rate the forgers were not going to attempt the
impossible task of cramming 'the land of 87 families' into the Selsey
peninsula.
[Conclusion in favour of the large hide.]