faithful to the big hide. We have seen reason for believing that in the
oldest days the real number of the 'real' hides was largely
over-estimated. It would be an interesting, though perhaps an
unanswerable, question whether any governmental or fiscal arrangements
were ever based upon these inflated figures. A negative answer would
seem the more probable. In Bede's day there was no one to tax all
England or to force upon all England a scheme of national defence. So
soon as anything that we could dare to call a government of England came
into being, the truth, the unpleasant truth, would become apparent bit
by bit. All along bits of the truth were well enough known. The number
of hides in a village was known to the villagers; the kingling knew the
number of hides that contributed to his maintenance. As the folks were
fused together, these dispersed bits of truth would be slowly pieced
into a whole, though for a long while the work of coordination would be
hampered by old mythical estimates. Perhaps The Burghal Hidage may
represent one of the first attempts to arrange for political purposes
the hides of a large province. There is still exaggeration, and,
unfortunately for us, new causes of perplexity are introduced as the
older disappear. On the one hand, statesmen are beginning to know
something about the facts; on the other hand, they are beginning to
perceive that tenements of equal size are often of very unequal value,
and to give the name _hide_ to whatever is taxed as such. Also there is
privilege to be reckoned with, and there is jobbery. It is a tangled
skein. And yet they are holding fast the equation 1H. = 120A.
[Continental analogies.]
There is, however, another point of view from which the evidence should
be examined, though a point to which we can not climb. How will our big
hide assort with the evidence that comes to us from abroad? Only a few
words about this question can we hazard.
[The German _Hufe_.]
If we look to the villages of Germany, or at any rate of some parts of
Germany, we see that the typical fully endowed peasant holds a mass of
dispersed acre-strips, a _Hufe, hoba mansus_ which, while it falls far
short of our hide, closely resembles our virgate. The resemblance is
close. As our virgate is compounded of acres, so this _Hufe_ is
compounded of acres, or day's-works, or mornings (_Morgen_). When the
time for accurate measurement comes, these day-work-units differ
somewhat widely in extent as we pass from one district to another. The
English statute acre is, as we have already said[1719], an unusually
large day-work-unit. It contains 40.46 _ares_, while in Germany, if
there is nothing exceptional in the case, the _Morgen_ will have no more
than from 25 to 30 _ares_[1720]. This notwithstanding, the _Hufe_, is
generally supposed to contain either 30 or else 60 _Morgen_, the former
reckoning being the commoner. In the one case it would resemble our
virgate, in the other our half-hide.
[Sidenote: The _Königshufe_.]
Then, however, we see--and it has occurred to us that some solution of
our difficulty might lie in this quarter--that in Germany there appears
sporadically a unit much larger than the ordinary _Hufe_, which is known
as a _Königshufe_ or _mansus regalis_. This is sometimes reckoned to
contain 160, but sometimes 120 _Morgen_. It seems to be an unit
accurately measured by a _virga regalis_ of 4·70 meters and to contain
21,600 square _virgae_. In size it would closely resemble an English
hide of 120 statute acres; the one would contain 47·736, the other 48·56
hectares. To explain the appearance of these large units by the side of
the ordinary _Hufen_, it has been said that as the Emperor or German
king reigned over wide territories and had much land to give away, he
felt the need of some accurate standard for the measurement of his own
gifts, so that he might be able to dispose of 'five manses' or 'ten
manses' in some distant province and yet know exactly what he was doing.
This theory, however, does not tell us why the unit that was thus chosen
and called a king's _Hufe_ or 'royal manse' was much larger than an
ordinary manse or _Hufe_, and we seem invited to suppose that at some
time or another a notion had prevailed that when an allotment of land in
a village was made to a king, he should have for his tenement twice or
thrice or four times as many strips as would fall to the lot of the
common man[1721].
[Sidenote: The English hide and the _Königshufe_.]
The suggestion then might be made that the manse, _terra unius familiae,
terra unius manentis_, of our English documents is not the typical
manse of the common man, but the typical king's-manse. We might
construct the following story:--When England was being settled, the
practice was to give the common man about 30 acres to his manse, but to
give the king 120. Thus in the administration of the royal lands a
'manse' would stand for this large unit. Then this same unit was
employed in the computation of the _feorm_, _victus_ or _pastus_ that
was due to the king from other lands, and finally the royal reckoning
got so much the upper hand that when men spoke of a 'manse' or a 'family
land' they meant thereby, not the typical estate of the common man, but
a four times larger unit which was thrust upon their notice by fiscal
arrangements.
[The large hide on the Continent.]
Some such suggestion as this may deserve consideration if all simpler
theories break down. But it is not easily acceptable. It supposes that
in a very early and rude age a natural use of words was utterly and
tracelessly expelled by a highly technical and artificial use. This
might happen in a much governed country which was full of royal
officials; we can hardly conceive it happening in the England of the
seventh and eighth centuries. Moreover, the continental evidence does
not lie all on one side. There was, for instance, one district in
Northern Germany where the term _Hufe_ was given to an area that was but
a trifle smaller than 120 acres of our statute measure[1722]. Also there
are the large Scandinavian allotments to be considered. Even in Gaul on
the estates of St. Germain the _mansus ingenuilis_ sometimes contained,
if Guérard's calculations are correct, fully as much arable land as we
are giving to the hide[1723]. Nor, though we may dispute about the
degree of difference, can it be doubted that the Germanic conquest of a
Britain that the legions had deserted was catastrophic when compared
with the slow process by which the Franks and other tribes gained the
mastery in Gaul. Just in the matter of agrarian allotment this
difference might show itself in a striking form. The more barbarous a
man is, the more land he must have to feed himself withal, if corn is to
be his staple food. There were no ecclesiastics in England to maintain
the continuity of agricultural tradition. Also the heathen Germans in
England had a far better chance of providing themselves with slaves than
had their cousins on the mainland. Also it seems very possible that
throughout the wide and always growing realm of the Frankish king, the
fiscal nomenclature would be fixed by the usages which obtained in the
richest and most civilized of those lands over which he reigned, and
that the 'manse' that was taken as the unit for taxation was really a
much smaller tenement than supported a family in the wilder and ruder
east. Besides, when in Frankland a tax is imposed which closely
resembles and may have been the model for our danegeld, the _mansus
ingenuilis_ pays twice as much as the _mansus servilis_[1724]. This
suggests that the Frankish statesmen have two different typical
tenements in their minds, whereas in England all the hides pay equally.
[The large hide not too large.]
No doubt at first sight 120 arable acres seem a huge tenement for the
maintenance of one family. But, though the last word on this matter can
not be spoken by those ignorant alike of agriculture and physiology,
still they may be able to forward the formation of a sound judgment by
calling attention to some points which might otherwise be neglected. In
the first place, our 'acre' is a variable whose history is not yet
written. Perhaps when written it will tell us that the oldest English
acres fell decidedly short of the measure that now bears that name and
even that a rod of 12 feet was not very uncommon. Secondly, when our
fancy is catering for thriftless barbarians, we must remember that the
good years will not compensate for the bad. Every harvest, however poor,
must support the race for a twelvemonth. Thirdly, we must think away
that atmosphere of secure expectation in which we live. When wars and
blood-feuds and marauding forays are common, men must try to raise much
food if they would eat a little. Fourthly, we must not light-heartedly
transport the three-course or even the two-course programme of
agriculture into the days of conquest and settlement. It is not
impossible that no more than one-third of the arable was sown in any
year[1725]. Fifthly, we may doubt whether Arthur Young was further in
advance of Walter of Henley than Walter was of the wild heathen among
whom the hides were allotted; and yet Walter, with all his learned talk
of marl and manure, of second-fallowing and additional furrows, faced
the possibility of garnering but six bushels from an acre[1726].
Sixthly, we have to provide for men who love to drink themselves drunk
with beer[1727]. Their fields of barley will be wide, for their thirst
is unquenchable. Seventhly, without speaking of 'house-communities,' we
may reasonably guess that the household was much larger in the seventh
than it was in the eleventh century. We might expect to find married
brothers or even married cousins under one roof. Eighthly, there seems
no reason why we should not allow the free family some slaves: perhaps a
couple of huts inhabited by slaves; there had been war enough. Ninthly,
the villein of the thirteenth century will often possess a full virgate
of 30 acres, and yet will spend quite half his time in cultivating his
lord's demesne. Tenthly, in Domesday Book the case of the _villanus_ who
holds an integral hide is by no means unknown[1728], nor the case of the
_villanus_ who has a full team of oxen. When all this has been thought
over, let judgment be given. Meanwhile we can not abandon that belief to
which the evidence has brought us, namely, that the normal tenement of
the German settler was a hide, the type of which had 120 acres of
arable, little more or less.
[The large hide and the manor.]
If we are right about this matter, then, as already said[1729], some
important consequences follow. We may once and for all dismiss as a
dream any theory which would teach us that from the first the main and
normal constitutive cell in the social structure of the English people
has been the manor. To call the ceorl's tenement of 120 acres a manor,
though it may have a few slaves to till it, would be a grotesque misuse
of words, nor, if there is to be clear thinking, shall we call it an
embryo manor, for by no gradual process can a manor be developed from
it. There must be a coagulation of some three or four such tenements
into a single proprietary unit before that name can be fairly earned.
That from the first there were units which by some stretch of language
might be called manors is possible. The noble man, the eorl, may have
usually had at least those five hides which in later days were regarded
as the proper endowment for a thegn, and these large estates may have
been cultivated somewhat after the manorial fashion by the slaves and
freed-men of their owners. But the language of Bede and of the charters
assures us that the arrangement which has been prevalent enough to be
typical has been that which gave to each free family, to each
house-father, to each tax-payer (_tributarius_) one hide and no more;
but no less. Such a use of words is not engendered by rarities and
anomalies.
[Last words.]
However, we would not end this essay upon a discord. Therefore a last
and peaceful word. There is every reason why the explorers of ancient
English history should be hopeful. We are beginning to learn that there
are intricate problems to be solved and yet that they are not insoluble.
A century hence the student's materials will not be in the shape in
which he finds them now. In the first place, the substance of Domesday
Book will have been rearranged. Those villages and hundreds which the
Norman clerks tore into shreds will have been reconstituted and pictured
in maps, for many men from over all England will have come within King
William's spell, will have bowed themselves to him and become that man's
men. Then there will be a critical edition of the Anglo-Saxon charters
in which the philologist and the palæographer, the annalist and the
formulist will have winnowed the grain of truth from the chaff of
imposture. Instead of a few photographed village maps, there will be
many; the history of land-measures and of field-systems will have been
elaborated. Above all, by slow degrees the thoughts of our forefathers,
their common thoughts about common things, will have become thinkable
once more. There are discoveries to be made; but also there are habits
to be formed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1616] See above, p. 389.
[1617] See above, p. 393.
[1618] Dr Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 79, has endeavoured to find a _via
media_. To me it seems that his suggestion is open to almost
all the objections that can be urged against our Big Hide,
for he seems prepared to give the normal household of the
oldest day its 120 acres. Mr Seebohm's adhesion to the party
of the Big Hide is of importance, for I can not but think
that a small hide (which afterwards was called a virgate)
would have assorted better with his general theory.
Conversely, it is curious that Kemble, the champion of the
free ceorls, was also the champion, if not the inventor, of
the Little Hide.
[1619] See above, p. 385.
[1620] D. B. i. 32 b.
[1621] K. 812 (iv. 151).
[1622] K. 986-988 (v. 14-21); B. i. 55-9, 64.
[1623] Plummer, Bede, ii. 217.
[1624] K. 917 (iv. 165).
[1625] D. B. i. 66 b, 67.
[1626] K. 355 (ii. 179).
[1627] K. 263 (ii. 35). Accepted by Kemble.
[1628] K. 174 (i. 209).
[1629] K. 24 (i. 28).
[1630] It is fair to say that the instances here given are picked
instances and that the Malmesbury title to some other lands
is not so exceedingly neat.
[1631] See above, p. 112.
[1632] This is so even in the case of the Kentish churches, see
above, p. 466. The Chronicle of Abingdon affords good
materials for comparison with D. B. As a general rule the
charters will account for just about the right number of
manses, if the manses are to be the hides. There are
exceptions; but not more than might be fairly explained by
changes such as those recorded in the following words (Chron.
Abingd. i. 270):--'Fuerunt autem Witham, Seouecurt,
Henstesie, Eatun membra de Cumenora temporibus Eadgari regis
Angliae, habentes cassatos xxv; nunc vero Hensteseie membrum
est de Bertona; Witheham et Seouecurt militibus datae; Eatun
omnìmodo ablata.' See also an excellent paper by Mr C. S.
Taylor, The Pre-Domesday Hide of Gloucestershire, Trans.
Brist, and Glouc. Archæol. Soc. vol. xvíii.
[1633] Round, Feudal England, 44 ff.
[1634] Nasse, Agricultural Community, Engl. transl., 23-5. Seebohm,
Village Community. 111.
[1635] K. 552 (iii. 35).
[1636] K. 617 (iii. 164).
[1637] Charter of Æthelwulf, K. 1057 (v. 113); T. p. 115; H. & S.
646. We should not be surprised if at least one part of the
mysterious 'decimation' turned out to be an early act of
'beneficial hidation.'
[1638] Charter of Edward, K. 342 (ii. 153).
[1639] Charter of Æthelstan, K. 1113 (v. 224).
[1640] Charters of Edgar, K. 512 (ii. 401); K. 583 (iii. 111).
[1641] Writ of Æthelred, K. 642 (iii. 203).
[1642] D. B. i. 40-41.
[1643] Kitchin, Winchester, 7: 'Cenwalh built the church, the parent
of Winchester cathedral ... The monks at once set themselves
to ennoble toil, to wed tillage with culture; and it is
interesting to note that the first endowment of the Church in
Wessex fell to them in the form of a great grant of all the
land for some leagues around the city, given for the building
of the church.' Did the monks till the land for some leagues
around the city? I think not. Was it all occupied by their
serfs? I think not. What was given was a superiority. One
last question:--Did the monks really ennoble toil by
appropriating its proceeds?
[1644] D. B. i. 65 b: 'Episcopus Wintoniensis tenet Duntone. T. R.
E. geldavit pro 100 hidis tribus minus. Duae ex his non sunt
episcopi, quia ablatae fuerunt cum aliis tribus de aecclesia
et de manu episcopi tempore Cnut Regis.'
[1645] K. 985 (v. 12).
[1646] K. 1036 (v. 80).
[1647] K. 342 (ii. 153).
[1648] K. 1108 (v. 211).
[1649] K. 421 (ii. 287).
[1650] K. 599 (iii. 139).
[1651] K. 698 (iii. 299).
[1652] As to the limits of Downton, see W. H. Jones, Domesday for
Wiltshire, 213.
[1653] D. B. i. 31; K. 1058 (v. 114); 1093 (v. 176); 605 (iii. 149).
[1654] D. B. i. 40. Forty hides said to have been given by
Cenwealla. K. 997 (v. 39); 1039 (v. 85); 1086 (v. 162); 1090
(v. 162); 601 (iii. 144).
[1655] D. B. i. 42 b. This belongs to the New Minster. In K. 336
(ii. 144) Edward the Elder is made to give 'quendam fundum
quem indigenae Myceldefer appellant cum suo hundredo et
appendicibus, habens centum cassatos et aecclesiam.' The
territory has 100 hides and is a 'hundred.'
[1656] D. B. i. 87 b. K. 1002 (v. 44); 1051-2 (v. 99, 101); 1084 (v.
157); 374 (ii. 209); 598 (iii. 136).
[1657] They are hardly the worse witnesses about this matter for
having been much 'improved.' They do not look like late
forgeries. Those which bear the earliest dates seem to be
treated as genuine in charters of the tenth century which are
not (if anything that comes from Winchester is not)
suspected.
[1658] Kemble, Saxons, i. 487; D. B. i. 87 b.
[1659] Eyton, Somerset, ii. 34.
[1660] See above, p. 499, note 1656.
[1661] Compare, for instance, the account of the estates of the
Bishop of Wells, D. B. i. 89, with the charter ascribed to
the Confessor, K. 816 (iv. 163). In the former we read of 50
hides at Wells; in the latter we see that these hides cover
24 villages or hamlets, each of which has its name. According
to Eyton (Somerset, 24) this estate extends over nearly
22,000 acres. The Malmesbury charter, K. 817 (iv. 165) is
another good illustration. Kemble's identifications were
hasty and have fared ill at the hands of those who have made
local researches. A few examples follow:--Keynsham, 50 H. =
3330 A. (Kemble), 11,138 A. and more (Eyton). Dowlish, 9 H. =
680 A. (Kemble), 1282 (Eyton). Road, 9 H. = 1010 A. (Kemble),
1664 (Eyton). Portishead, 11 H. = 1610 (Kemble), 2093
(Eyton). The instances that Kemble gives (vol. i. p. 106)
from the A.-S. land-books are equally unfortunate. Thus he
reads of 50 H. at Brokenborough, Wilts, and seeks for them
all in a modern parish which has 2950 A.; but the Domesday
manor of this name covered 'at least 6000 or perhaps 7000
acres' (W. H. Jones, Domesday for Wilts, p. xxvii.). In
several instances Kemble tries to force into a single parish
all the hides of a hundred which takes its name from that
parish.
[1662] Hanssen, Abhandlungen, i. 499.
[1663] See above, p. 229, and Mr Taylor's paper there mentioned.
[1664] Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Charters, 43. Compare D. B. i.
101 b. In the Confessor's time 'Crediton' gelded for 15
hides. There was land for 185 teams, and teams to that number
existed. There were 264 villeins, 73 bordiers and 40 serfs.
Æthelheard's charter suggests either that in his day this
part of Devon was very sparsely peopled, or that already,
under a system of partitionary taxation, a small number of
fiscal units had been cast upon a poor district. When at a
later time Eadnoth bishop of Crediton mortgages a yardland
for 30 mancuses of gold (Ibid. p. 5), this yardland will be a
fiscal virgate of wide extent. See above, p. 467, note 1531.
[1665] See above, p. 445.
[1666] See above, p. 400.
[1667] See above, p. 458.
[1668] See above, p. 188.
[1669] Birch, Cart. Sax. iii. 671; Munimenta Gildhallae, ii. 627;
Gale, Scriptores xv., i. 748; Liebermann, Leges Anglorum, 9.
10.
[1670] This we can not find. If Kent were included in the scheme, we
should read of Canterbury, Rochester etc. Therefore we
probably start in Sussex, but at some point east of Hastings.
In any case, unless a name has dropped out, we can not make
the five Sussex burgs correspond to the six rapes of a later
day, which, going from east to west, are Hastings, Pevensey,
Lewes, Bramber, Arundel, Chichester.
[1671] See the Læwe, Læwes of K. 499, 1237.
[1672] A confusion of P and W is common.
[1673] Tisbury lies between Wilton and Shaftesbury. See K. 104, 641.
Mr Stevenson suggests that the word may be _Cysanbyrig_,
thereby being meant Chiselbury Camp. This also lies in the
right quarter.
[1674] _Tweoxneam_, A.-S. Chron. ann. 901.
[1675] See _Bridian_ in K. 656. Bredy lies about eight miles west of
Dorchester. It seems to contain a 'Kingston.'
[1676] There is a Halwell a little to the south of Totness. Already
in 1018 (Crawford Charters, pp. 9, 79) the Devonshire burgs
are Exeter, Lidford, Totness and Barnstaple.
[1677] Pilton lies close to Barnstaple.
[1678] A.-S. Chron. ann. 915: 'be eastan Weced.'
[1679] A little to the west of Langport; close to Athelney. A.-S.
Chron. ann. 878: 'And þæs on Eastron worhte Ælfred cyning
lytle werede geweorc æt Æþelinga eigge.' Green, Conquest of
England, 110. Observe that a very small district is assigned
to Lyng.
[1680] After seeing Oxford and Wallingford together, we should
naturally expect Bedford with Buckingham. See A.-S. Chron.
ann. 918-9. Or we might look for Hertford. Ibid. ann. 913.
[1681] Eashing is a tithing in the parish of Godalming. See King
Alfred's will (K. 314): 'æt Æscengum.' Eashing may have been
supplanted by Guildford.
[1682] Taking in the particulars the figures which seem the more
probable, we make a larger total.
[1683] If Essex is meant this figure seems impossibly small. Gale
gives 'Ast Saxhum et Wygeaceastrum 1200 hidas.' This may give
Essex and Worcester 1200 hides _apiece_.
[1684] Mr Stevenson tells me that, though the document is very
corrupt, some of the verbal forms seem to speak of this date.
[1685] Such a document is apt to be tampered with. Some bits of it
may be older than other bits, but the reign of Edward the
Elder seems the latest to which we could ascribe its core. If
we compare it with the list of Domesday boroughs we shall be
struck by the absence of Dorchester, Bridport, Ilchester,
Totness, Hertford, Bedford and Guildford, as well as by the
appearance of Burpham, Tisbury, Bredy, Halwell, Watchet, Lyng
and Eashing.
[1686] See above, p. 189, note 747.
[1687] 'Heorepeburan,' Hastings, Lewes, Burpham, Chichester.
[1688] Eashing, Southwark.
[1689] Porchester, Southampton, Winchester, Twyneham.
[1690] Wallingford.
[1691] Wilton, Tisbury, Shaftesbury, Malmesbury, Cricklade.
[1692] Wareham, Bredy.
[1693] Watchet, Axbridge, Lyng, Langport, Bath.
[1694] Exeter, Halwell, Lidford, Barnstaple.
[1695] A good deal of doubt hangs over the entries touching
Buckingham, Essex and Warwick.
[1696] Birch, Cartularium, i. 414; Birch, Journal Brit. Archæol.
Assoc. xl. 29 (1884); Earle, Land Charters, 458; Liebermann,
Leges Anglorum, 8; Stevenson, Engl. Hist. Rev., 1889, 354.
[1697] Unless the mention of Wessex is interpolated (and if it be
interpolated then the grand total has been tampered with) it
is difficult to suppose that 'Wiht gara 600' points to the
Isle of Wight, 'Gifla 300' to the district round Ilchester,
or the like. I owe this observation to Mr W. J. Corbett.
[1698] It is a little curious that if we multiply the 244,100 hides
by 120 we obtain 29,292,000, a figure which is not very far
off from the 32,543,890 which gives the total acreage (tidal
water excepted) of modern England. However, it is in the
highest degree improbable that the computer of hides was
aiming at pure areal measurement. Nor could his credit be
saved in that way, for the area of Kent is to that of Sussex
as 975:932, not as 15:7. The total of 'cultivated land' in
England is less than 25 million acres, that of arable is less
than 12 million.