Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/89

 1920 THE FIRM A UNIU8 N0CTI8 81 Hoc manerium cum superior! Frome tempore regis Edwardi reddebat fir mam unius noctis. . . . Rex tenet Mileburne. Rex Edwardus tenuit. Nunquam geldavit nee scitur quot hidae sint ibi. . . Totum Mileburne cum praedictis appendiciis reddit quater xx libras de albo argento, ix solidos et v denarios minus (= 791. 10s. Id.) Tempore regis Edwardi reddebat dimidiam firmam unius noctis et quadrantem. The manors comprising King Edward's demesne in this county were in all but the case of Milborne and Bedminster explicitly grouped to render the ferm of a night, each member paying an aliquot part, one-quarter, three-quarters, one-fifth, two-fifths, if we may draw this conclusion from their propor- tionate renders in the time of King William.^ Mileburne and Beiminstre, though seeming exceptions, nevertheless show, I believe, the point of the ferm-grouping. They lie the width of the county apart, and could therefore form no contiguous group as do all the rest. Yet their renders, 791. lOs. 7d. and 2l. 2d. ob., are identical with those of Somerton and Cheddar, a ferm-group. This would seem to indicate that their renders were complementary, and that they likewise were regarded as forming a ferm-group. If this is true they were combined only in a fiscal, not in a geographical sense. It would therefore imply that the other groups, though made of adjacent manors, were essentially fiscal, the ferm having been assessed upon them, as it were, and divided into these aliquot parts according to the members in a group and the value of each. The whole county, therefore, would have been assessed for five-nights' ferms.^ Looking from the manors of Somerset to others in Domesday, the recurring ferm-group, the reappearing render of the whole, or half or quarter or some multiple of the ferm of a night, though by no means conclusive evidence, adds to the impression that this render may have been a tax imposed as a whole or in such aliquot parts for the better preservation of the unit itself and for ease and accuracy of account.^ The impression of assessment is confirmed by closer scrutiny of certain estates in Somerset appendant to the ferm-manors of the king. Ferm quotas were drawn not only from the royal estate but in addition from certain outlying lands called appen- dicia, which contributed customary dues, consuetudines.^ Among such appendicia in the ferm of Curry were three, each of which gelded for one hide and gave a sheep and a lamb ; one gelding ' Round, Feudal England, p. Ill : ' The system of grouping townships in the west for the payment of a food-rent (firma unius noctis) was exactly parallel to the grouping in the east not of rent but of geld.' trium noctium. . . Northamptonscire reddit firmam triumnoctium. . . ' : D. B. 154 b, 219. ' D. B. 20 b, 179 b, 38 b, 75 ; ii. 110, 111 b, 282. « See above, p. 80. VOL. XXXV. — NO. CXXXVII. G
 * So in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, ' Comitatus Oxenford reddit firmam