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\par }{\b\insrsid10058183 THE HIDE (JRM)
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri-29\widctlpar\tx284\nooverflow\faroman\rin-29\lin0\itap0\pararsid10058183 \cbpat8 {\cf1\insrsid10058183 The Sussex Survey contains some informative statements about the hide which are paralleled in few other counties.  
\par 
\par The hide was the unit of land measurement and assessment. Its use abounds in apparent contradictions, whose discussion has sometimes prompted over-simple generalizations. Since Domesday states some of its meanings more clearly in the Survey of Sussex than
 
of many other counties, it is appropriate to list here the main evidence. But its interpretation cannot be adequately attempted until all the Domesday information in each place in each county has been closely studied, in relation to earlier records and to
 the nature and extent of the lands concerned.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab The evidence is clear in outline. In the seventh and eighth centuries the hide meant 'land for one family'; in Domesday it normally meant a number of acres, usually, but not always, 120, and it was regularly d
ivided into four virgates. The detail is complex, chiefly because land use changed, by the extension or abandonment of cultivation at different times in different places, and because the assessments both of land cultivated and of land taxed were often rev
ised piecemeal, so that many were out-of-date.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid7950249 The Sussex Evidence}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid7950249 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 Throughout England, Domesday reports either hides that are (or were) 'there', or 'held', or else hides 'taxed' or 'answerable'. Usually, one wording or the other is dominant in one county, 
chapter or district. When only the hides 'there' or 'held' are given, the text usually states or implies that they are the same as the taxed hides, since its main concern was with the present. But Sussex is one of the few counties whose entries often give
 different figures for hides 'there' and hides taxed, both before and after 1066. At Bosham (1,1) 'there were then 56 \'bd
 hides; it paid tax for 38 hides; now the same'; and similar large reductions before 1066 are recorded at Westbourne (11,30) and Stoughton
 (11,37), both about four miles from Bosham. One Hampshire entry (HAM 2,15) suggests a possible explanation. At Fareham 'the hides are 30 in number', but King Edward had reduced the taxable hides 'because of the Vikings, since it is on the sea'. Whatever 
the occasion or risk of 'Viking' damage, Bosham and its neighbourhood, fifteen miles from Fareham and in the same waters, was exposed to the same attacks.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab Reductions after 1066 are differently explained. Up Waltham (11,112) 'answered for 6 hides then; now 
for 4'; 2 hides were in Earl Roger's park. The hides of other places were reduced because they lost their outliers, as at Iford, where 77 \'bd
 hides were reduced to 58, and Rodmell, 79 to 64, because the other hides were in different Rapes (12,3-4); Bosham Ch
urch was reduced from 112 hides to 65 because 47 hides were taken away (6,1). Bosham Church answered for all its remaining 65 hides, but at Iford the 58 hides answered only for 36, at Rodmell the 64 hides for 33. In 1086, Domesday still distinguished 'hid
es there' from 'hides taxed', though here it offers no explanation for the difference. Its incidental notices make the same distinction. At Stoughton there were '36 hides there, but then and now it}{\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
answered for 15 hides. 16 of these hides were put in the ma
nor of Westbourne, but they are now in Stoughton again'. The 16 hides were part of the 36, not of 15, and constituted a recognizable piece of land, that could be transferred from one manor to another. Men knew what a hide was, irrespective of tax liabilit
y.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid7950249 The Seventh Century Hide}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid7950249 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 Sussex has many instances of revision. Other evidence has much to say of when, where and why revisions were undertaken.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab The }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 earliest evidence is a Mercian survey, the so-called }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Tribal Hidage}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  (Birch, }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Cartularium Saxonicum}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 2
97), of the seventh century, on which see Wendy Davies in Davies and Vierck, 'Contexts of the Tribal Hidage', p. 226, superseding earlier studies. It groups smaller districts into multiples of three hundreds of hides, with larger round figures for the gre
ater southern kingdoms}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ; Sussex, and six other medium-sized regions, are also allocated a round figure, 7,000 hides each; the }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid12476586 Isle of Wight}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
, recently conquered by the Mercians, is listed at 600 hides.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab About fifty years later, Bede gave a number of individual figures, and explained what the word meant to him. His ninth-century English translator spoke of hides, but his own polished Latin translated the word as }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 possessiones }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ['property'],}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 or }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 terra}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  ('land'), of so many }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 familiae}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
.}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 He still rated Sussex at 7,000, b
ut the Isle of Wight had increased to 1200. These figures do not concern 120-acre hides, for the entire surface of the Isle of Wight (about 95,000 acres) has only room for about 700 such hides. But the figures fit Bede's 'family' hide. In 1086 the fertile
 Downs and coasts of Sussex, with their dependent pig pastures and sheep folds, supported a rural population of roughly 6,000 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 villani}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
with about 4,000 cultivators of lesser status, 7,000 is a not unreasonable hit and miss estimate of the seventh century population.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab 'Land for one family' cannot mean a fixed acreage, irrespective of the terrain; it is a measure of productivity, akin to the late Roman }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 iugum }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
('yoke'), which in some provinces included more poor land than average, less good land. A similar notio
n persisted in Kent, where the English took over a relatively undamaged Roman economy in the fifth century. There land was normally granted not by the hide, but by the }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 aratra}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{
\cf1\insrsid10058183 the classical Latin word for a plough, called in English 'sulung', from }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 sulh }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ('plough'), and divided into four }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 ioclets }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ('yokes'), called }
{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 iuga }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 in Latin.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab Early laws and charters also equate hide with family, and explain the meaning of 'family'. Many of the early charters simply grant a }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
named place, without mention of its hides. The oldest known grants that record the hides are Northumbrian, reported by Bede, a single hide before 651 (Bede, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Ecclesiastical History}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , iv. 23) and twelve holdings, each of 10 hides, in 655 (Bede, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Ecclesiastical History}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
, iii. 24). Early Sussex charters commonly grant so many }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 tributarii}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 the Roman technical}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183  term for tax-paying provincials, the literal equivalent of Old English }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 gafolgelda}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 , ('taxpayer'); one such charter, of about 725 (Birch, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 Cartularium Saxonicum}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid10901126 ,}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  no. 144), which probably preserves the original Latin and English wording, granted 20 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 tributarii }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 in Latin, but 20 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 hida 
}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 in English. Elsewhere, the neutral term }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 manentes}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  ('inhabitants') is m}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ore usual.}{\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 \tab The early laws (see Attenborough,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  Laws of the Earliest English Kings}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
) classified men by the value set upon their lives or the fines they paid. In seventh century Wessex, King Ine's values equate the }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 gafolgelda }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
with a man who 'has one hide', rated much above the humble cultivator, the (}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ge}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 )}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 bur}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ;}{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 see 'Laws of Ine' 6,3 (where the }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Quadripartitus}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
 reading of 30s is probably right) and  23,1  in Attenborough,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  Laws of the Earliest English Kings}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , pp. 39, 43, 184-85. He is also called }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ceorl }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ('man'), and }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 twyhunda}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 because his life was valued at 200 shillings, in contrast with the noble }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 twelfhunda}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 valued at 1200 shillings. A ninth-century law (Alfred and Guthrum 2 = Attenborough,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  Laws of the Earliest English Kings}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
, pp. 98-99) distinguishes the noble from the }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ceorl }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 who 'occupies}{\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 taxland' (}{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 the on gafollande sit}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 )}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 . }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 The seventh-century Kentish laws explain that the }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ceorl}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 's}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 household, his }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 familia}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 included his dependents, his 'loaf-eaters' and his maidservants (Aethelbert 16; 25 = Attenborough,}{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  Laws of the Earliest English Kings}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , pp. 6-7). A twelfth-century restatement of Ine's laws (}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Consuetudo West Sexe }{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 70,l in}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  Liebermann, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 Gesetze der Angelsachsen}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 , i. p. 462; compare i. p. 458) equates these seventh}{\insrsid10058183 -}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
century classes with the terms used in Domesday, stating }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 twyhindi}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  id est villani}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  twelfhindi}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  id est taini}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 .}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab 
The evidence is clear and consistent. A hide meant land sufficient to maintain one taxpayer and his dependents. That was the basis of the Mercian assessment. But assessments were not revised systematically to keep pace with change. Some charters give figu
r
es that remained unaltered between the seventh or eighth centuries and 1066, but others show differing figures. The researches of the last twenty years have recorded very many thousands of English villages that shrank, moved, or were abandoned, as well as
 
others that grew and later declined, and others that maintained their growth. There is no reason to suppose that population change and movement was any less before the eleventh century than after. It may well have been greater, for in and after the ninth 
century Scandinavian invasions caused extensive destruction, and also disrupted the basis of assessment.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183 Tenth-}{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid1381442 Century Changes}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid1381442 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 The wars also greatly changed the status of the cultivator. Seventh-century England had distinguished the noble from the commoner
, the lord from his dependent, but prolonged warfare much extended lordship. More evidence of lands granted to laymen survives, partly because more was written and more has been preserved. But language also changed. Charters increasingly granted }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 cassati}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 men installed in a }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 cot}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 or cottage, by their lords, and 
}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 mansae}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
parcels of land, rather than taxpayers and inhabitants. When the king granted a charter, he gave or sold to its recipient the annual tribute he had received from it, its }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 census}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 
 gafol }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 or }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 gablum}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
. Until 1066 there were still plenty of 'free men', but they were already a small minority; most men owed dues to a lord, in cash, in kind, or in labour, and could not quit their land. Changed relationships outstripped existing vocabulary. Domesday found 
n
o generalized terms for such payments, and modern attempts to supply them tend to blur understanding. Modern English distinguishes tax, paid to the central government, from rates paid to a local authority and rent paid to a private landlord; but neither L
atin nor Old English had words for these distinctions. The Latin }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 tenere }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
means 'to hold', and nothing else. The modern terms 'rent' and 'tenant' are best avoided, for they imply a contract, to be ended by agreement, altogether different from the }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 census}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 
 gablum }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 and }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 tenet }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 of Domesday. 'Tax' is best confined to Domesday's }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 geld}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
then the main royal tax, 'which no man escapes'. Most cultivators paid varying dues to lords great or small, and held a small acreage from them. The taxpaying }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 ceorl }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 with a family hide cea
sed to be a practicable basis for assessment.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab The wars also caused both sides to construct numerous fortified boroughs, whose population was necessarily recruited from the surrounding countryside. In the midlands, many became the centres of later shires; 
but in the south, shires or ancient smaller kingdoms already existed. There, the }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid11103832 'Burghal Hidage'}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  (see \{Introduction: the Rapes\}
) gives detail, probably at about 915. In Sussex about 4,000 hides, much less than the earlier Mercian figure, were assigned to 
borough defence, at one man per hide. Most doubtless served only in emergency, but the five Sussex boroughs may well have absorbed up to 1,000 men between them, perhaps a tenth of the rural population. The Scandinavians accelerated the break-down of earli
er assessments; in many areas where they settled}{\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 permanently, the 'carucate' replaced the hide; elsewhere they disturbed the structure and location of the rural population.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab Domesday records three major innovations in assessment, whose origin or first record arises from the wars. In the late ninth century, in face of the second major Danish onslaught, King Aethelred levied a}{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  geld}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 or tax, upon each hide, which was continued after the wars, probably raised annually by 1086. Dome}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
sday also regularly records an assessment of plough capacity, 'land for so many ploughs', sometimes meticulously noting the shortfall, when ploughs in use were fewer; occasionally, in counties where land was reckoned by the hide, }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 car}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 (}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 r)ucata }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 is used as an 
alternative (for example in HEF 1,50; see also SUS 12,32 carucates note). Both the word, and the estimate that differs from ploughs in use, imply a count or assessment. Its occasion may have been the imposition of payments on each plough, chiefly, though 
not entirely, for church dues, first attested in the 920s (Edward and Guthrum 3 = Attenborough,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  Laws of the Earliest English Kings}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
, pp. 98-99); and see references under 'Plough', indexed in Attenborough,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  Laws of the Earliest English Kings}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , and Robertson, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 La
ws of the Kings of England}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ). The differences in Domesday between plough-capacity estimates and plou}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ghs in use may mark changes in land use over a period of up to 150 years or more.}{
\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab At about the same time, in the decades after the defe}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 at of the first Danish invasions south of the River Humber, the 'measured (}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ametenes}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 )}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 acre' (see, for example, Robertson, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Anglo-Saxon Charters}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 no. 40, p. 80) and the 120-acre hide (for example, Whitelock, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Anglo-Saxon Wills}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no.}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 2 (of Ealdorman Algar), p. 8, lines 26-27, and }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Liber Eliensis}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , 2,32-33 = Blake, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Liber Eliensis}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
, pp. 105-108) are first recorded, in southern East Anglia. The need to specify the measurements suggests that not all acres were then measured, nor all hides were of 120 acres. In the same 
years some smaller arable holdings in Worcestershire and Northamptonshire were measured in units of 60 and 30 acres; see, for example, Robertson, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Anglo-Saxon Charters}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
, no. 55 pp. 114-15, 360-62 (= Kemble, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Codex Diplomaticus}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 612 [= Sawyer, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Anglo-Saxon Charters}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 1332]) (from Hearne, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Hemingi Chartularium}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , i. pp. 163-164) and Birch, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
Cartularium Saxonicum}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 1130; the equivalents of Domesday's half-hide and virgate. But not all hides were confined to arable; in tenth-century Warwickshire (Robertson, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 L
aws of the Kings of England}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 43 pp. 88-89, 335-36 = Birch, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Cartularium Saxonicum}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 1182 [= Sawyer, }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Anglo-Saxon Charters}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 1310] (from  Hearne, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Hemingi Chartularium}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
, i. pp. 206-207)) a 3-hide holding apparently included 20 acres of meadow and a}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  3-acre mill-site; in 1086 Domesday noted (GLS 6,3) that 'in this hide there are only 64 acres of land, when it is ploughed (}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 
quando aratur}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 )'.}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 The wording suggests both that hides normally contained more than 64 acres, and that the acreage was greater than the
 arable. Domesday also sometimes lists hides of woodland (for example, BDF }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
32,14. 39,3; ESS 24,1-2). Measurement, however, took centuries to become universal. In the early thirteenth century the St Paul's Domesday [Hale, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Domesday of St. Paul's}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
, p. 69] repo
rted that at Runwell in Essex (near Southend), an 8-hide manor, the hide contained 120 acres, although the 'Old Inquiry' stated that it customarily contained only 80, the reason being that the lands had subsequently been investigated and measured: }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 hida continet sexcies viginti acras}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  set antiqua inquisitio dicit quod non consuevit continere nisi quattuor viginti}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  ;}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  quia postmodo exquisite sunt terre et mensurate}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
 ['a hide contains 120 acres, but the old enquiry says that it normally contained only 80 acres. [It is assessed at 120 aces] because subsequently the lands were examined and measured').}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 The modern parish contains about 2070 acres. The measured hides account for 960 acres. Domesday (ESS 5,9) enters 8 hides, cultivated in 1066 by 8 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 villani}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 8 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 bordarii }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 and 2 }{
\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 servi}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 a population probably of the order of between 50 and 100 persons;}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183  in 1901 the population was 239.
\par }{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid10714268 The Surrey Evidence}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid10714268 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 Comparable evidence survives only from a few districts and places. There it indicates that the 120-
acre hide was introduced piecemeal over a long period, not all at once over the whole country; and that the hide might be confined to the arable, or might include all cultivated land.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab Areas cannot be measured in Sussex, for many manors included unnamed outliers of unknown size. But measurement is possible in Surrey, where}{\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
Domesday also records large reductions in the number of hides between 1066 and 1086, especially in the crowded areas by the Thames. There the adjacent manors of Mortlake (with Putney and 
Barnes) and Battersea were assessed at 153 hides in 1066, 43 hides in 1086. Their approximate area is known, for their neighbours are listed on all sides, and the bounds of some are recorded. The largest reckoning of their superficial area is not much abo
ve 12,000 acres, only 100 hides at Domesday reckoning. The 1066 assessment could not have been based on 120-acre hides; the 1086 assessment might have been.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab The records of Chertsey Abbey afford some insigh}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 t into these assessments. In a contemporary copy of a grant of 947 (Birch, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Cartularium Saxonicum}
{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 , no. 820) Merstham contained '20 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 mansae}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
called in English 20 hides'. The bounds are given. They have been identified and mapped; see Rumble, 'Merstham Charter Bounds' and Rumble, 'Medieval Boundary of Coulsdon
'. They are almost identical with the bounds of the modern parish, and enclose a little over 2500 acres; if these hides had been 120 acres each, then almost every acre would have been cultivated in the tenth century. Chertsey also preserved three lists of
 holdings which gave the numbers of hides in e}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ach place (Birch, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 Cartularium Saxonicum}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid10901126 ,}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  nos. 39, 1195 =  Kemble, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 
Codex Diplomaticus}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 , no. 812). Merstham remained at 20 hides in each, and is also entered in Domesday (SUR 2,5) as answerable for 20 hides in 1066; but by 1086 it answered for only 5 hides, cultivated by 21 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 
villani}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 with 4 }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 bordarii}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 .}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
The original assessment remained valid until revised over 100 years later. In Domesday, the number of villagers was almost identical with the number of old hides; in relation to the population, these were family hides.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab Nearly all the places in the Chertsey lists which were still church land resembled Merstham, rated at the old hides in 1066, but greatly reduced thereafter, and similar reductions were made throughout Surr
ey, in church and lay lands alike. On some 50 large holdings, listed at 10 or more hides in 1066, the hides of all but two had been cut by 1086, the majority to a quarter or less of their former total. On most of these holdings, Domesday records one villa
g
er or less for each old hide, with varying numbers of other cultivators, and none had more than two villagers to the hide. Widespread drastic reductions are reported on this scale for Surrey alone; they cannot be explained by 'beneficial hidation' or camp
a
ign damage in 1066, for the king's indulgence was not indiscriminately spread over an entire county, and the values show no corresponding fall. There is no direct evidence for the origin of the old hides, but the Domesday Survey demonstrates that most wer
e
 much smaller than 120 acres, and that on the larger holdings there were about the same number of villagers as hides in 1066. The implication of this evidence is that in Surrey the large measured hide was still exceptional in 1066, and in much of the coun
ty did not replace the family hide un}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 til after 1066.}{\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 The Middlesex Evidence}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 On the north bank of the River Thames, the Domesday record is quite different. There are no such sweeping reductions in Middlesex. But Midd}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 lesex is the only county where the indivi
dual holdings of the cultivators are systematically recorded, down to the cottager's half acre. On average, there were about 4 villagers to the hide; see }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid10714268 MDX \{Appendix\}}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
. In most manors, there is some discrepancy, usually not large, between the totals of th
e land cultivated and the hides held, or answerable. The exception is the lands of Westminster Abbey. On all the abbey's manors the cultivated and assessed hides correspond at 120 acres to the hide, either exactly or within a few acres, with the exception
 
of the last-named, Hendon, where cultivated land coincides with plough assessment, but not with hide assessment. All Westminster grants were very recent, most of them made in the last years and months of King Edward's reign. In Middlesex they were assesse
d on the}{\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
land then cultivated, at 120 acres to the hide; in Surrey they were assessed in the old hides still prevalent in the county, which King William reduced. In both counties the 1086 hides, at 120 acres, seem to account for about one third of the acrea
ge of comparable modern parishes; the figure is not unreasonable, for about two-thirds of the acreage of modern England is cultivated, nearly half of it arable, with more building but less woodland, and there is much more arable in the south than in the c
ountry as a whole. The evidence suggests that Middlesex had been assessed in 120-acre hides before 1066, but that Surrey had not.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid2764383 Sussex Regional Variation}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid2764383 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 Hide figures comparable with those of both Middlesex and Surrey are reported in Domesday in different parts of Sussex. In the seventh century, Sussex had been roughly estimated at somewhere about 7,000 families or hides. The }{
\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid11103832 'Burghal Hidage'}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  (see \{Introduction: the Rapes\}
), about 250 years later, assigned about 4000 hides to the county's boroughs. It does not say that all hides were so assigned; but in East Sussex it enters about the same figures as the total hides of 1066 and 1086, with virtually no revisi
on after 1066, as in Middlesex. But the West Sussex hides were almost halved in the 150 years before 1066, and were further reduced soon after, in round figures by about 100 in Lewes Rape, 110 in Bramber Rape, 30 in Arundel Rape and 130 in Chichester Rape
.
 These reductions, of the order of a little over 10% of the total, are much less than those of Surrey, but are paralleled in Berkshire and Hampshire. As in Surrey, they have nothing to do with value, for the manors of the three western Rapes, whose taxabl
e hides were reduced by 270 between 1066 and 1086, increased their combined values by about \'a3
130 in the same period, while in the eastern Rapes, where reduced values 'when acquired' mark the damage done in 1066, values had about regained their 1066 level in
 Lewes Rape and Hastings Rape, though not yet in Pevensey Rape. Yet the reduced taxed assessment is reported in the relatively undamaged west, not in the war-scarred east.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab Such revision had a cause. One of the express instructions to the Domesday commissi
oners was to ascertain 'whether more could be had'. Several of their reports of cities and boroughs emphasise where more could not be had, recording that the present levies could not be met. In the countryside, the past changes noted are almost always red
u
ctions in tax liability. Those made after 1066 may have substituted the 120-acre hide for earlier hides of smaller or unfixed extent, but others spotlight places where it seems that more could reasonably be had. Domesday credits the three large manors of 
the Bosham area with 128 \'bd hides between them, but they were still assessed at the 65 hides to which King Edward had reduced them, very possibly after a disaster whose damage had long since been made good; for though their values were standardized at 
\'a340 each, their payments totalled \'a3165, well above the coastal average of around \'a3
1 a hide. At the other end of the county, at Wellhead (9,13), near the Kentish border, 'there is 1 hide ... Before 1066 and now it answered for 1 hide'. But 'of this hide' five nam
ed men held between them more than 3 hides, and the value, 66s before and after 1066, fits 3 hides. In this part of Sussex, the overall assessment was still much as it had been 170 years earlier; it seems probable that more land had been brought into cult
ivation, without revision of the assess\-
ment. Similar reports are numerous. Domesday provided evidence of 'where more could be had'; but the king died, and his successors did not undertake the thorough revision of assessments which the information collected in Domesday made possible.}{
\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid6698231 The Midland Evidence}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid6698231 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 The Mercian Shires were organized in their permanen}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 t form about 1008 (WAR 1,6 shire note), though some of them closely corresponded with the areas assigned to}{
\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 boroughs a century earlier. The 'County Hidage' (abstracted in Maitland }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 Domesday Book and Beyond}{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 ,}
{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid13699272 pp. 455-57), held to have been compiled in the middl}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
e decades of the eleventh century, probably preserves their original assessment, expressed in multiples of hundreds of hides, for the English Mercian shi
res assessed in hides. In most of these shires, the numbers of hides and of hundreds were little changed in Domesday. There, as elsewhere in England, many individual places were assessed in multiples of 5 hides. The neat symmetry of these figures has an o
utward appearance of artificiality, arbitrarily imposed by a central government for the convenience of the tax-collector. But multiples of 5-hide units are common in grants and laws from the seventh century, long before }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 geld }{
\cf1\insrsid10058183 was imposed on the hide. Then, t
he main recorded obligation on the hide was personal service or food. That obligation severely restricts the extent of artificiality; for though a government may seek to impose excessive money taxes, it cannot levy more men or provisions than there actual
ly are in the place. Some of these grants, particularly those which concern places ending in }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 -tun}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
are quite near to the date when the place was named and defined, and the bounds may well have been drawn to include approximately the number of hides stated, 
though hundred boundaries were doubtless rearranged at the formation of borough districts and shires. The probable size of these Mercian hides is not known. At 120 acres they would, with two exceptions, account for less than half the shire acreage, often 
much less, and they were deemed valid in 1086, for they were not revised, like the hides of Surrey and West Sussex, Berkshire and Hampshire.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab The exceptions were Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire, where the }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid10245453 'County Hidage'}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  figures would have covered two-t
hirds of the total area, at 120 acres to the hide. Before 1066, the hides of Cambridgeshire had been halved. More is known of Northamptonshire. A tax return survives, dated to about 1070 or soon after (}{\expnd1\expndtw6\insrsid10058183 Ellis, }{
\i\expnd1\expndtw6\insrsid10058183 General Introduction to Domesday Book}{\expnd1\expndtw6\insrsid10058183 , i. p. }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 184; }{\insrsid10058183 Robertson,}{\i\insrsid10058183  Anglo-Saxon Charters}{\insrsid10058183 
, Appendix I no. III pp. 230-37, 481-84}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ; discussed by Round, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 Feudal England}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 ,}{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 p. 147; }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 VCH Northamptonshire}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183 , i. p. 258, and by Hart, }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 Hidation of Northamptonshire}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 , with tabulated analysis and figures). The }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid10245453 'County Hidage'}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  rec
ords 3200 hides. The tax return lists 32 hundreds, a few of them regrouped as a 'double hundred' or 'hundred and a half', and states the number of hides in each hundred 'as in King Edward's time', and in each holding which had not yet paid tax. In the sou
th and east fifteen hundreds each retained their 100 hides apiece; in the centre and north two hundreds had been cut to 90 hides, six to 80. But in the north and east, reductions were greater, a double hundred to 108 \'bd
 hides, four hundreds to 62, one to 60, one to 47 and one to 40. As in Sussex, there had been a regional and erratic revision.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab The tax return also reported the aftermath of recent disaster; in 1065 Earl Morcar's men had ravaged Northampton, so that it 'and the neighbouring shires were the poor
er for many years', and 900 hides, more than a third of the revised total, were entered as waste. Action was soon taken. By 1086 King Edward's partial revision had been scrapped. The few identifiable holdings were cut from 10 to 4 hides, or in like propor
t
ion; and each of the 32 hundreds was evenly reduced from 100 to approximately 40 hides; though the tabulated Domesday figures require some adjustment, adjustment tends to bring them nearer to the norm rather than further. The virgate was similarly reduced
 to 12 acres, and was known to later records as the 'small virgate', so that the standard hide was reduced to 48 acres.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab There are also signs of smaller hides in the south-west. The 1084 Tax Returns in the }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 Liber Exoniensis}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  occasionally record sums paid on t
he acre. In Wiltshire, in 'Dolesfield', Damerham and probably Calne Hundreds, tax seems to have been paid at 72 acres to the hide, but in Dorset at 40 acres in Charborough Hundred, 48 in }{\insrsid10058183 'Langeburgh'}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
. However, these returns have not yet been critically analysed.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri-29\widctlpar\nooverflow\faroman\rin-29\lin0\itap0\pararsid10058183 {\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab King Edward's partial revision may have been part of a wider reassessment, for}{\insrsid10058183  }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
some of the unusual figures seem to recur in Sussex. On a provisional count, }{\insrsid10058183 'Easwrithe'}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 , 'Holmestrow' and Streat Hundreds each had 108 or 108 \'bd hides in 1066, Binsted H
undred 90, Preston and Malling Hundreds 80, with 'Totnore' Hundred at 160 and Steyning Hundred perhaps at 240 (12,29 Shipley note); }{\insrsid10058183 "Wandelmestrei"}{\cf1\insrsid10058183  Hundred had 62, Pagham, }{\insrsid10058183 "Ghidenetroi"}{
\cf1\insrsid10058183  and Eastbourne Hundreds 60, Baldslow Hundred 40. But Domesday hides ar
e not easy to count, for it is often uncertain whether one figure is included in another, or is additional thereto. Interpretation of the figures for Sussex and other counties must await painstaking analysis.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri-29\widctlpar\tx284\nooverflow\faroman\rin-29\lin0\itap0\pararsid10058183 \cbpat8 {\cf1\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\b\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid6698231 Summary}{\b\insrsid10058183\charrsid6698231 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 The texts here cited were written by m
en who knew what they meant, and there are many more such texts. Much of the meaning is obscure, and will probably remain so. But a thorough sifting of the evidence for each place and county is likely to increase understanding. In the meantime, a few conc
l
usions seem warranted. The evidence warns against over-easy generalizations, purporting to give the hide the same meaning in all contexts all over the country, as a 'purely fiscal notion' which was 'arbitrarily imposed', its variations dismissed without s
c
rutiny as 'beneficial hidation' or 'campaign damage', its size always 'reckoned at' 120 acres. There is strong evidence that the hide was originally the holding of a substantial family, but that by 1086 it meant both an assessment for tax and also an area
,
 sometimes identical, sometimes not, the differences sometimes distinguished by the Domesday phrases, 'hides held', 'hides there', and 'hides taxed'. There is evidence that several eleventh-century administrators tried to organize a neat administration, i
n which each hundred contained 100 hides and each hide a hundred acres; and that a 'hundred' sometimes meant a decimal 100, sometimes 80, like the }{\i\cf1\insrsid10058183 centuria }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
of the Roman army, but that the English 'long' hundred, 120, was preferred; but there is also evidenc
e that piecemeal revision in some areas, and lack of revision in others, thwarted such attempts at orderly arrangement. The evidence shows that 120-acre hides predominated in some counties and districts, but not in others; and in many counties Domesday gi
ves no indication of how many acres it reckoned to the hide.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab The constants are the virgate, almost always a quarter of a hide, whatever its size, and the acre. The acre varied regionally, but its meaning was real, as much land as could be ploughed in a lon
g day. Where the variations were abnormally large, Domesday makes corresponding adjustments. Across the Severn, it distinguishes the smaller Welsh hide; in Cornwall, entry after entry assesses taxable hides at precisely half the hides there; in Cheshire, 
where an acre two and a half times the size of the standard acre lingered into modern times, the }{\cf1\insrsid10058183\charrsid10245453 'County Hidage'}{\cf1\insrsid10058183 
 assessment of 1200 acres had been cut to a little over 500 by 1086, after the damage done in 1069 had been put right; at 120 standard acres, the
se hides amount to less than a tenth of the total area. In Shropshire, the hundreds and hides were both halved, to cover about a sixth of the acreage. Since hides were reduced when acres were unusually large, very wide variations are unlikely when no adju
stment was made.}{\insrsid10058183 
\par }{\cf1\insrsid10058183 \tab 
The tenor of the evidence defies generalities. The size of the hide varied from county to county, and within counties; and so did its relation to the taxable hide. There are specific reasons for these variations, but in each county and dis
trict the reasons differ. In each, decisions to estimate the extent or liability of particular lands, to revise older estimates or leave them unrevised, were taken by different men at different periods in their history. When all the evidence is studied lo
c
ally in detail, it is likely to suggest the probable occasions and causes of some of these decisions. The selection of evidence listed above is intended to help such study, and in particular to provide a context in which the Sussex statistics may be inves
tigated (JRM).
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri0\widctlpar\tx284\nooverflow\faroman\rin0\lin0\itap0\pararsid10058183 {\insrsid10058183\charrsid3036986 
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri0\widctlpar\nooverflow\faroman\rin0\lin0\itap0\pararsid8868318 {\insrsid15994128\charrsid8868318 
\par }}