A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE therefore, for this district are altogether abnormal. There are, for instance, forty entries relating to the modern Hundred of Sutton ; in twenty-eight of these the hides stand to the ploughlands in the exact ratio of 2 to 5 ; in four others it is almost exact ; and the eight remain- ing ones do not differ from it widely enough to prevent the ratio for the whole Hundred being 2 to 5.* It is obvious that something must be hidden behind this artificial arrangement ; and it is the more obvious when we see, as the Domesday expert does, how peculiarly inconvenient its figures were, in practice, for the payment of the 'geld.' The point is too technical for full discussion here, but its essence is that a tax which was reckoned in shillings on the ' hide ' could not be paid with exactitude on one or more ' fifths ' of a hide, which were the fractions resulting from this peculiar assessment. To obviate this difficulty, the awkward fractions, we find, were in some cases ingeniously adjusted so as to preserve the assessment on the whole vill intact, and yet to enable its constituent portions to pay, each of them, an even number of pence. Of this, we have beautiful examples in Silverstone and Blakesley. SiLVERSTONE Blakesley Hides Ploughlands Hides Ploughlands I 3 I I 2 3i 5 2 5 4 10 Here, the superficial inquirer might say, there is but one out of six entries in which the ratio is 2 to 5. And yet, when we group the entries under their respective vills, the ratio is seen to hold good, while the actual fractions are so adjusted that their liability under a tax of one or more shillings on the hide presented no difficulty. It was only, of course, in the case of fractions that such adjustment was needed." Now for this peculiar ratio I have advanced the explanation that it really represents the result of a great reduction of assessment, a uniform reduction of sixty per cent. My theory is that the so-called ploughlands of the Northamptonshire Domesday are not ploughlands at all, but represent the old assessment before this great reduction. That is to say, that when a vill is entered as assessed at four ' hides ' and as containing ten ploughlands, the combination really means that its assess- ment has been reduced from ten units to four. This theory is so novel, ' See, for the details, my paper on 'The Hidation of Northamptonshire,' in English Historical Review^ January, 1900. ' The whole subject is worked out in my above paper. 264
