land as one team of oxen could plough in a year.[1] Hides were not even always of the same size—one that was mostly arable would be of smaller extent than one in which there was much forest and waste. The object of hidation was assessment, and what the land could pay was taken into account. This helps us to understand how a hide sometimes contains (as in Dorset) 240 acres. Usually, it is anything between 30 and 60 acres.
Long before Ethelred the whole land was divided into tithings and hundreds. We shall best understand the tithing by considering it as a parish. It could not consist of fewer than ten men—that is, ten families, or homesteads; and Domesday shows that it was seldom as small as this. It was called a tithing, because each of the ten householders would contribute one tenth of any fine or compensation adjudged to be due from the community for the offence of an undiscovered criminal. For, ferocious as the Saxons had shown themselves in war, in peace they preferred to punish criminals in purse, instead of in life or limb. Instead of hanging him, or chopping off a hand or a foot, they made the offender pay a fine. And if the offender could not be discovered, the little society of the village, or the larger society of the hundred or the shire, had to make good what he had done, so far as money could do. Thus crime was unpopular, and a criminal was looked upon with disfavour, even by those whom he had not personally injured. From the tithing upwards there were common responsibilities. The lord was responsible for the evil deeds of his villeins; and if there was no lord, but the land was held in community, then the community was liable.
The great man of a township did not own it in the sense in which it is owned by a modern squire. The part which he farmed himself—called in Norman times the demesne—was all that was his in this sense. The rest was held by tenants, sometimes called "sokemen" from the "soke" or jurisdiction; and said to hold in "soccage" because they gave plough-service by way of rent. In those days,
- ↑ A carucate was only plough-land. The rest of the estate is given in acres. Four virgates made 1 acre. This was long measure. When used in connection with a hide, a virgate means much more—it is then anything between 15 and 30 acres. The acre of Domesday is about the same as our own, as defined by Edward I. It is always unequal-sided, never square.
