Part 62

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.