Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/87

 1920 THE FIRMA UNIU8 NOCTIS 79 following pages I propose to trace more closely the nature of this connexion, a direct inter-relation between the hundred-penny tax and the assessment of the royal ferm. The characteristic entry of the ferm of the Conqueror is, Rex tenet in dominio Chenistone et Done. Octo liberi homines tenue- runt in alodium de rege Edwardo. Tunc geldaverunt pro ii hidis, modo pro nichilo,. . . Horum v tainorum terram tenet rex in firma sua,. . et appreciatur c sol. et tamen reddit viii libras de firma.^ . Though the Conqueror's ferm, as in this instance, was commonly commuted into money, there are instances even in his time, which become more frequent in the Confessor's day, of the ferm being paid in kind, in food, or material supplies for the king's use. Rex tenet Guerminstre. Rex Edwardus tenuit. Non geldavit nee hidata fuit. . . . Hoc manerium reddit firmam unius noctis cum omnibus consuetudinibus suis.^ In Suinheve hundredo erant tempore regis Edwardi ad firmam xxxvi hidae in Betune cum ii membris Wapelei et Wintreborne. . . Hoc manerium tempore regis Edwardi reddebat firmam unius noctis et modo similiter facit.^ It was evidently a relic of the time of King Edward, who had it from his father Ethelred before him,* a ferm customarily rendered as the ferm of a day or night, or some aliquot part of it, the meaning of this archaic term being the amount of food and other materials necessary for the king and his followers for that length of time. It harks far back to a time when kings made regular progress over their lands, dispensing justice as they went. Where they stopped for a day or night or more, there was the regular station it would seem for the collection of the royal ferm.^ Both the time and conditions of its origin are lost in tradition, and its subsequent history is hardly more than hinted at in Anglo-Saxon charters recording the king's grant of his pastus or victus, the food-ferm, we believe, to his beneficiaries.^ It is thought, how- ever, that one significant moment in its history is marked when a law of King Ine (a. d. 688-695) demands that ' ten hides ' yield ' ten vessels of honey, three hundred loaves, twelve ambers of Welsh ale, thirty of clear ale, two old oxen or ten wethers, ten geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, an amber full of butter five salmon, twenty pounds weight of fodder and a hundred eels '.' » D. B. 39 b. « D. B. 64 b. » D. B. 162 b. tenet Mereberie cum v berewichis. Rex Edwardus tenuit. Ipse comes tenet Wititone cum VII berewichis et dimidia. Rex Edwardus tenuit. Tempore Adeldredi patris Edwardi regis reddebant haec tria maneria dimidiam firmam unius noctis.' ' Kemble, Saxons in England, ii. 58 ; Seebohm, Tribal Custom, pp. 41-2. ° Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, i. 256, 174, ii. Ill ; Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 318 ; Kemble, Saxons, i. 294. ' Liebermann, Gesetze der Angehachsen, i. 118.
 * D. B. 253 b. ' Ipse comes tenet Cereberie. Rex Edwardus tenuit. . . . Ipse comes