DOMESDAY SURVEY which are set down in the above table, but nowhere else do we obtain so definite a clue to the system which governed their distribution. In the assessment of Alstoe Wapentake we are given, by a fortunate chance, an explicit example of a fiscal organization, the existence of which in other shires is only probable by deduction and hypothesis. It will be evident that the ' carucate ' in North Rutland was in no sense a term of land measurement. Not a few Lincolnshire vills in 1086 were reputed to contain as many carucates as are here assigned to the whole of Alstoe Wapentake. When we are told that Earl Waltheof had held 4 carucates of land in Whissendine we are only to understand that he had been required to pay Ss. in respect of this vill when the geld had been levied at the normal rate. But at first sight it might seem that we are dealing with areal quantities when we approach the question of the ' plough-land.' The statement 'there is land for 12 ploughs' bears, on the surface, the obvious meaning that the vill in question contained an amount of arable land sufficient to find employment for twelve of those eight-ox ploughs which formed the staple implements of English agriculture in the i ith century.^ In many counties it is probable that this formula really does bear its obvious meaning, but an exception must certainly be made in the case of northern Rutland. It is clear at least that the ' plough-lands ' were distributed among the vills of this district according to a system just as artificial as that which governed the distribution of the carucates ; the division of Alstoe Wapentake into two portions, each of which contained its forty-two plough- lands and 1 2 carucates, is too symmetrical to be the representative of agrarian facts. Then, too, it will not escape notice that in eight out of these eleven vills the number of plough-teams exceeded the number of plough-lands. If this were an isolated phenomenon it would be intelligible ; it might well happen that some enterprising manorial lord or steward had been attempting to increase the value of his estate by crowding on to it more plough-teams than were necessary according to traditional agricultural practice. But when, as here, the overstocked manor is the rule, the problem assumes serious proportions, especially when it appears that in this respect Rutland is sharply distinguished from the neighbouring counties. Of late years increasing attention has been paid to the problems which centre round the Domesday plough-land, but up to the present no theory on the subject has proved valid beyond the limits of a single county or group of counties, and it seems probable that the Domesday Commissioners in different shires adopted different methods of conducting the inquiry about potential plough-teams. In recent studies on the Northamptonshire Domesday it has been proved that the 'plough-land' of that county really represents an obsolete assessment,^ higher than the assessment of 1086, and in general bearing some definite but variable relation tD it. In Nottinghamshire, again, although no consistent ratio appears between the carucates and plough-lands of this county it has been argued on other grounds that the latter term is in reality ' In regard to the vill of Exton we happen to know that there was room in 1086 for the reclamation of waste land ; for subsequently to 1 128 David I, King of Scotland, then in possession of the manor, granted to the monks of St. Andrew's Priory at Northampton ' ut apud Extonam terra ilLi quod vocatur Wiliges frangatur et seminetur.' Land and tithes in Exton had originally been given to the priory by Earl Simon I of Northampton, the son-in-law of the Countess Judith. ' See Baring in Eng/. Hist. Rev. xvii; and Round in F.C.H. Northants, i, 266-8. 123
