Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/90

 82 THE FIRM A UNI US N OCT 1 8 January at two hides gave two sheep and as many lambs; two, each gelding at five hides, gave five sheep and their lambs.^ One tributary to South Petherton, co-member with Curry in a ferm- group, gave six sheep and their lambs, and was estimated at six gelding hides.^ Again, three lands, each gelding for one hide, rendered twelve sheep and as many lambs to Carhampton in a ferm-group with Williton and Cannington.' The number of hides indicates in each case the rate at which they had been assessed to Danegeld, that great tax first laid on England in the later tenth century. From the prevailing proportion between the hidage and the amount of ferm-custom, we may infer that the assessment of Danegeld had followed an assessment of the ferm in which the same territorial unit had been used. If the records of other counties were fuller we might detect further instances of this proportion, though we could not expect it to occur regularly, because of the well-known habit of beneficially hidating land, that is of arbitrarily estimating the number of hides upon which it should pay Danegeld without regard to the number of hides there. Land formerly assessed to the ferm might have been more or less heavily estimated in hides for Danegeld.* The survival of these few instances, however, is enough to show a connexion between the ferm and Danegeld, pointing to an earlier assessment of the ferm. A further connexion between the ferm and the hidage, one independent of any continuing proportion between ferm and Danegeld render, runs through several Domesday records. The importance of this fact is that the Domesday hidage is bound up with the assessment of a tax, Danegeld, and any connexion between the hidage and the ferm may reflect light upon an older assessment of the ferm itself. Danegeld, the greatest of early taxes on England, was first levied in 991 to raise a ransom to buy off Danish pirates infesting and ravaging the land. In this taxation the hide was used as the basis for assessment. Every estate was estimated to have a certain number of hides upon which it paid Danegeld at the prescribed rate. The hide as a unit of measurement was turned from areal to fiscal use. The phrase employed in Domesday to show hidation to the geld is ' X defends itself for Y hides '. » D. B. 92 ; cf. ante, xxxui. 67. • D. B. 86 b : ' Huic manerio [Sudperet] reddebatur tempore regis Ekiwardi de Cruche per annum consuetude, hoc est vi oves cum agnis et quisque liber homo unam blomam ferri. Turstinus tenet a Comite Moritonensis sed consuctudinem non reddidit postquam comes terram habuit.' Cf. D. B. 91 b, ' geldabat pro vi hidis » D. B. 96 b, 97 ; Exon. Domesday, 428 ; ante, xxxiii. 68. geld, but in themselves show some r^ular gradation, d., 30d., Is. dd., 10*., 20.«. (D. B. 100,100 b, 101).
 * In Devon the ferm customs T. R. E. were not proportioned to the hidage for Dane-