Part 47

No doubt it is clumsy to have only one term for two quantities, one of which is perhaps a hundred-and-twenty times as great as the other; but the context will tell us which is meant, and the difference between the two is so large that blunders will be impossible. In course of time there will be a differentiation and specification of terms. To our ears, for example, _rōd_ (_rood_) will mean one thing, _rŏd_ another, _yard_ a third; but even in the nineteenth century royal commissioners will report that a 'yard of land' may mean a quarter of an acre or 'from 28 to 40 acres[1303].' When men have not apprehended 'superficial measure' (the measurement of shapeless size), when their only units are the human foot, a rod, an average day's work and the tenement of a typical householder, their language will be poor, because their thought is poor.

[The yard-land a fraction of a hide.]

We have now arrived at a not insignificant truth. The virgate or yard-land of 30 acres or thereabouts is not a primary unit like the hide, the rod, the acre. It is derivative; it is compound. In its origin it is a rod's breadth in every acre of a hide. In course of time in this case, as in other cases, size will triumph over shape. The acre need not be ten times as long as it is broad; the virgate need not be composed, perhaps is rarely composed, of scattered quarter-acres; quartering acres is an uneconomical process; it leads to waste of time. But still the term will carry on its face the traces of an ancient history and a protest against some modern theories. The virgate in its inception can not be a typical tenement; it is a fraction of a typical tenement.

[The yard-land in laws and charters.]

What we have here been saying seems to be borne out by the Anglo-Saxon laws and charters. They barely recognize the existence of such entities as yard-lands or virgates. The charters, it must be confessed, deal with large tracts and seldom have need to notice less than a hide. When, however, they descend below the hide, they at once come down to the acre, and this although the quantity that they have to specify is 90, or 60 or 30 acres[1304]. On the other hand, any reference to such an unit as the virgate or yard-land is exceedingly rare. To judge by the charters, this is a unit which was but beginning to force itself upon men's notice in the last century before the Conquest[1305]. From a remote time there may have been many tenements that were like the virgates or yard-lands of later days; but the old strain of language that is preserved in the charters ignores them, has no name for them, and, when they receive a name, it signifies that they are fractions of a householder's tenement.

[The hide not at first a measure.]

As an unit larger than the acre men have known nothing but the hide, the manse, the land of one family, the land of one householder. This is what we find in England: also it is found in Germany and Scandinavia[1306]. The state bases its structure, its taxation, its military system, upon the theory that such units exist and can be fairly treated as equal or equivalent. This theory must have facts behind it, though in course of time the state may thrust it upon lands that it will not fit, for example, upon a land of ring-fenced property where there is no approximate equality between the various tenements. In its origin a hide will not be a measure of land. A measure is an idea; a hide is a tenement. The 'foot' does not begin by being twelve inches; it begins by being a part of the human body. The 'acre' does not begin by being 4840 square yards; it begins by being a strip in the fields that is ploughed in a forenoon. But unless there were much equality between human feet, the foot would not become a measure; nor would the acre become a measure unless the method of ploughing land were fairly uniform. A great deal of similarity between the 'real' hides or 'householder's lands' we must needs suppose if the hide becomes a measure; not only must those in any one village be much alike, there must be similarity between the villages.

[The hide as a measure.]

After a certain sort the hide does become a measure. Bede does not believe that if the families in the Isle of Wight were counted, the sum would be just 1200. The Anglo-Saxon kings are giving away half-hides or half-manses as well as manses or hides. They can speak of three hides and thirty acres[1307] or of two hides less sixty acres[1308]. Men are beginning to work sums in hides and acres as they work sums in pounds and pence. Indubitably such sums are worked in Domesday Book. In the thirteenth century the hide can even be treated as a pure superficial measure. An instance is given by an 'extent' of the village of Sawston in Cambridgeshire. The content of about two hundred small parcels of land is given in terms of acres and roods. Then an addition sum is worked and a total is stated in hides, virgates and acres, the equation that is employed being 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. It is a remarkable case, because the area, not only of arable land, but of meadows, pasture, crofts, gardens and messuages is added up into hides. The hide is here a pure measure, a mere multiple of acres[1309]. The men who made this 'extent' could have spoken of a hide of cloth. But this seems a rare and it is a late instance. At an earlier time the hide is conceived as consisting only of arable acres with appurtenances.

[The hide as a measure of arable.]

A word to explain this conception. In very old times when men thought of land as the subject-matter of grants and taxes they spoke only of arable land[1310]. If we are to understand their sayings and doings, we must think ourselves into an economic arrangement very different from that in which we are now immersed. We must well-nigh abolish buying and selling. Every village, perhaps every hide, must be very nearly self-sufficient. Now when once population has grown so thick that nomadic practices are forsaken, the strain of supporting mankind falls almost wholly on the ploughed land. That strain is severe. Many acres feed few people. Thus the arable becomes prominent. But further, arable implies pasture. This is not a legal theory; it is a physical fact. A householder can not have arable land unless he has pasture rights. Arable land is land that is ploughed; ploughing implies oxen; oxen, pasture. Our householder can not use a steam-plough; what is more, he can not buy hay. If he keeps beasts, they must eat. If he does not keep beasts, he has no arable land. Lastly, as a general rule men do not possess pasture land in severalty; they turn out their beasts on 'the common of the vill.' Therefore, in very old schemes of taxation and the like, pasture land is neglected: not because it is unimportant, but because it is indispensably necessary. It may be taken for granted. If a man has 120 acres of arable land, he must have adequate pasture rights; there must be in Domesday's language _pastura sufficens carucis_. And in the common case there will be not much more than sufficient pasture. If there were, it would soon be broken up to provide more corn. Every village must be self-supporting, and therefore an equilibrium of arable and pasture will be established in every village. Thus if, for fiscal and governmental purposes, there is to be a typical tenement, it may be a tenement of _x_ arable acres, and nothing need be said of any other kind of ground.

[Sidenote: The hide of 120 acres.]

We are going to argue that the Anglo-Saxons give 120 acres, arable acres, to the hide. Our main argument will be that the equation 1 H. = 120 A. is implied in the fiscal system revealed by Domesday Book. But, by way of making this equation probable, we may notice that, if we had no evidence later than the Conquest, all that we should find on the face of the Anglo-Saxon land-books would be favourable to this equation. In the first place, on the only occasion on which we hear of the content of a hide, it is put at 120 acres[1311]. In the second place, when a number of acres is mentioned, it is commonly one of those numbers, such as 150, 90, 80, 60, 30, which will often occur if hides of 120 acres are being

## partitioned[1312]. The force of this last remark may seem to be

diminished if we remember how excellent a dividend is 120. It is neatly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12. But then we must reflect that this very quality recommended it to organizers, more especially as there were 240 pence in the pound.

[Real and fiscal hides.]

Supposing for a moment that we bring home this equation to the Anglo-Saxon financiers, there would still remain the question how far it truthfully represented agrarian facts. To that question no precise answer can be given: the truth lies somewhere between two extremes. We must not for one instant believe that England was so neat a chess-board as a rude fiscal theory paints, where every pawn stands on its square, every 'family' in the centre of 120 acre-strips of 4 by 40 perches. The barbarian, for all his materialism, is an idealist. He is, like the child, a master in the art of make-believe. He sees things not as they are, but as they might conveniently be. Every householder has a hide; every hide has 120 acres of arable; every hide is worth one pound a year; every householder has a team; every team is of eight oxen; every team is worth one pound. If all this be not so, then it ought to be so and must be deemed to be so. Then by a Procrustean process he packs the complex and irregular facts into his scheme. What is worse, he will not count. He will assume that a large district has a round 1200 hides, and will then ordain that those hides must be found. We see this on a small scale if we study manorial 'extents' or village maps. The virgates are not equal; the acres are far from equal; but they are deemed to be equal[1313]. Nevertheless, we must stop short of the other extreme or we shall be over-estimating the power of such government and the originality of such statesmanship as existed. Theories like those of which we are speaking are born of facts and in their turn generate new facts. Our forefathers really lived in a simpler and a more chess-board-like England than that which we know. There must have been much equality among the hides and among the villages. When we see that a 'hundred' in Cambridgeshire has exactly 100 hides which are distributed between six vills of 10 hides apiece and eight vills of 5 hides apiece, this simple symmetry is in part the unreal outcome of a capricious method of taxation, but in part it is a real economic fact. There was an English conquest of England, and, to all seeming, the conquest of eastern England was singularly thorough. In all probability a great many villages were formed approximately at one time and on one plan. Conveniently simple figures could be drawn, for the slate was clean[1314].

[Causes of divergence of fiscal from real hides.]

However, at an early time the hide becomes an unit in a system of assessment. The language of the land-books tells us that this is so[1315]. Already in Ine's day we hear of the amount of victual that ten hides must find for the king's support[1316]. About the end of the tenth century the duty of maintaining burgs is bound up with the possession of hides[1317]. Before the end of that century heavy sums are being raised as a tribute for the Danes. For this purpose, as we shall try to show hereafter, 'hides' are cast upon shires and hundreds by those who, instead of counting, make pleasantly convenient assumptions about the capacity of provinces and districts, and in all probability the assumptions made in the oldest times were the furthest from the truth. Now and again the assessments of shires and hundreds were corrected in a manner which, so far as we are concerned, only made matters worse. It becomes apparent that hides are not of one value or nearly of one value. This becomes painfully apparent when Cornwall and other far western lands are brought under contribution. So large sums of hides are struck off the poorer counties. The fiscal 'hide' becomes a lame compromise between an unit of area and an unit of value. Then privilege confounds confusion; the estates of favoured churches and nobles are 'beneficially hidated.' But this is not all. Probably the real hides, the real old settlers' tenements, which you could count if you looked at a village and its fields, are rapidly going to pieces, and the fragments thereof are entering into new combinations. In the lordless villages economic forces of an easily imaginable kind will make for this end. Not only may we suppose some increase of population, especially where Danes swarm in, and some progress in the art of agriculture, but also the bond of blood becomes weaker and the _familia_ that lives in one house grows smaller. So the hides go to pieces. The birth of trade and the establishment of markets help this process. It is no longer necessary that every tenement should be self-sufficient; men can buy what they do not grow. The formation of manors may have tended in some sort to arrest this movement. A system of equal (theoretically equal) tenements was convenient to lords who were collecting 'provender rents' and extending their powers; but under seignorial pressure virgates, rather than hides, were likely to become the prominent units. We may well believe that if to make two ears of corn grow where one grew is to benefit mankind, the lords were public benefactors, and that the husbandry of the manors was more efficient than was that of the lordless townships. The clergy were in touch with their fellows on the Continent; also the church's reeve was a professional agriculturist and might even write a tract on the management of manors[1318]. There was more cooperation, more communalism, less waste. A family could live and thrive upon a virgate[1319].

[Effects of the divergence of fiscal from real hides.]

But, what concerns us at the present moment is the, for us disastrous, effect of this divergence of the fiscal from the real hide. Even if finance had not complicated the problem, we should, as we have already seen, have found many difficulties if we tried to construe medieval statements of acreage. Already we should have had three different 'acres' to think of. We will imagine that a village has 590 'acre strips' in its field. In one sense, therefore, it has 590 acres. But the ideal to which these strips tend and were meant to conform is that of acres measured by a rod of 15 feet. Measured by that rod there would, we will suppose, be 550 acres. Then, however, we may use the royal rod and say that there are 454 acres or thereabouts. But the field was divided into five tenements that were known as hides, and the general theory is that a hide (householder's land) contains, or must be supposed to contain, 120 acres. Therefore there are here 600 acres. And now a

## partitionary method of taxation stamps this as a vill of four hides.

Consequently the 'hide' of this village may have as many as 150 or as few as 90 'acres.' It ought not to be so. It would not be so if men were always distinguishing between 'acre strips' and measured acres, between 'real' hides (which, to tell truth, are no longer real, since they are falling to pieces) and 'fiscal' or 'geld' hides. But it will be so. Here and there we may see an effort to keep up distinctions between the 'carucate for gelding' and the 'carucate for ploughing,' between the real acre and the acre 'for defence (_acra warae_)[1320]'; but men tire of these long phrases and argue backwards and forwards between the rateable and the real. Hence some of the worst puzzles of Domesday Book[1321].

[Acreage of the hide in later days.]

Such being the causes of perplexity, it is perhaps surprising that in the thirteenth century when we begin to obtain a large stock of manorial extents, 'the hide' should still exhibit some uniformity. But, unless we have been misled by a partial induction, a tendency to reckon 120 rather than any other number of acres to the hide is plainly perceptible. The following are the equations that prevailed on the manors of Ramsey Abbey, which were scattered in the eastern midlands[1322].

_Huntingdonshire_ Upwood with Raveley 1 H. = 4 V. = 80 A. Wistow 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. Broughton 1 H. = 6-1/2 V. = 208 A. Warboys 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. Holywell 1 H. = 5 V. = 90 A. Slepe (St Ives) 1 H. = 5 V. = 80 A. Houghton with Wyton 1 H. = 6 V. = 108 A. Hemingford 1 H. = 6 V. = 96 A. Dillington 1 H. = 6 V. = 201 A. Weston 1 H. = 4 V. = 112 A. Brington 1 H. = 4 V. = 136 A. Bythorn 1 H. = 4 V. = 176 A. Gidding 1 H. = 4 V. = 112 A. Elton 1 H. = 6 V. = 144 A. Stukeley 1 H. = 4 V. = 96 A. Ripton with Remington 1 H. = 4 V. = 62 A.

_Northamptonshire_

Barnwell 1 H. = 7 V. = 252 A. Hemington 1 H. = 7 V. = 252 A.

_Bedfordshire_

Cranfield 1 H. = 4 V. = 192 A. Barton 1 H. = 4 V. = 96 A. Shitlingdon 1 H. = 4 V. = 48 A.

_Hertfordshire_

Therfield 1 H. = 4 V. = 256 A.

_Suffolk_

Lawshall 1 H. = 3 V. = 156 A.

_Norfolk_

Brancaster 1 H. = 4 V. = 160 A. Ringstead 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A.

_Cambridgeshire_

Elsworth 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. Knapwell 1 H. = 4 V. = 160 A. Graveley Freehold 1 H. = 7 V. = unknown Villeinage 1 H. = 6-3/4 V. = 135 A. Over 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. Girton 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. Burwell 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A.

Here in thirty-one instances what we take to be the normal equation appears but seven times, but no other equation occurs more than twice. Moreover, so far as we have observed, the variations in the acreage that will be ascribed to a hide are not provincial, they are villar variations: that is to say, though we may see that the average hide of one county would have more acres than those that are contained in the average hide of another, we can not affirm that the hide of a certain county or hundred contains _a_ acres, while that of another has _b_ acres, and, on the other hand, we often see a startling difference between two contiguous villages. Lastly, where the computation of 120 acres to a hide is forsaken, we see little agreement in favour of any other equation. In particular, though now and again the hide of a village will perchance have 240 acres, we can find no trace of any 'double hide' in which ingenuity might see a link between the Roman and English systems of measurement and taxation[1323]. The only other general proposition which our evidence suggests is that a land which habitually displays unusually large virgates will often be a land in which a given area of arable soil has borne an unusually light weight of taxation, and this, as we shall hereafter see, will often, though not always, be a land where a given area of arable soil has been deemed to bear an unusually small value. But this connexion between many-acred hides and light taxation is not very strongly marked in our cartularies[1324].

[The carucate and bovate.]

In the land-books which deal with Kent the _aratrum_ or _sulung_[1325] is commoner than the hide or manse, and Domesday Book shows us that in Kent the _solin_ (_sulung_) is the fiscal unit that plays the part that is elsewhere played by the hide. That same part is played in Suffolk, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and the counties of Derby, Nottingham and Leicester by the _carucata_, which has for its eighth part the _bovata_. These terms seem to be French: that is to say, they apparently formed no part of the official Latin that had been current in England[1326]. We may infer, however, that they translated some English, or rather perhaps some Scandinavian terms, for only in Danish counties do we find them used to describe the geldable units. It is exceedingly doubtful whether we ought to treat this method of reckoning as older than the Danish invasions. Bede, himself a Northumbrian, uses the 'family-land' as his unit, no matter what be the part of England of which he is speaking, and his translator uses the _híd_ or _hiwisc_ in the same indiscriminate fashion. Unfortunately the 'carucated' shires are those which yield us hardly any land-books, and we do not know what the English jurors said when the Norman clerks wrote _carucata_ and _bovata_: perhaps _plough-gate_ and _ox-gate_, or _plough-gang_ and _ox-gang_, or, again, a _plough of land_, for these were the vernacular words of a later age. On the whole, the little evidence that we have seems to point to the greater antiquity in England of a reckoning which takes the 'house-land' rather than the 'plough-land' as its unit[1327].

[The ox-gang.]

As to the bovate or ox-gang, it seems to be an unit only in the same sense as that in which the virgate or yard-land is an unit; the one is the eighth, the other is the fourth of an unit. That, in days when eight oxen are yoked to a plough, the eighth of a plough-gang should be called an ox-gang will not surprise us, though, as a matter of fact, an ox never 'goes' or ploughs in solitude[1328]. In our Latin documents a third part of a knight's fee will be, not _tertia pars feodi unius militis_, but far more commonly, _feodum tertiae partis unius militis_. We do not infer from this that fractions of knights, or fractions of knight's fees are older than integral knights and integral fees. The bovate seems to have been much less widely known than the carucate, for apparently it had no place in the computation that was generally used in East Anglia, where men reckoned by carucates, half-carucates and acres and where the virgate was not absolutely unknown[1329].