[ vii ]
reduced to the aſſeſſment of two Hides at the time of the Conqueror's ſurvey.
Domeſday, Fol. 137, No 19. Robertus de Olgi, et Radulfus Baſſet de eo tenet Theiſecote. Pro quatuor hidis ſe defendebat T. R. E. Et modo pro duabus. Terra eſt 4 carucatæ.
With this conſtruction the Sections in Domeſday will be intelligible, but, without it, no ſenſe could be extracted from them, and the whole would be contradiction and confuſion.
I ſhall therefore make no ſcruple to define Hida to be an uncertain portion of land, that might annually be worth about twenty Norman ſhillings: and as the Value depended upon the quality of the land, it conſiſted accordingly of a greater or leſs number of acres, in proportion to their poverty or fertility.
An objection may ariſe to this definition, that the value of the eſtate doth not always agree with the aſſeſſments, neither in the time of Edward the Confeſſor, nor in that of William the Conqueror. But to this I anſwer, that the aſſeſſments were made prior to either of their times (for the origin of Danegeld is of a more antient date than even the Confeſſor's reign), and many of them might not have been altered, though the Lands had been either improved or depreciated
