Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/95

 1920 THE FIRMA UNIUS NOGTIS 87 Haec tria maneria. . . reddebant firmam unius noctis cum suis con- suetudinibus.^ Hoc manerium cum appendiciis suis reddit firmam unius noctis cum omnibus consuetudinibus.^ It was made up of those customary hundred-pemiies from its appendicia Tolland, Oak, Holford, Upper and Lower Cheddon, Maidenbrooke, Ford, Hillfarrence, Hele, Nynehead, Nortone, Bradford, Halsa, Heathfield, Scobindare, Stoke, and Bagborough, just as the render of Curry, for instance, included ferm-customs from Ashill, the three Bradons, Donyat, Bickenhall, and Hache.^ There can be no doubt that the lands giving hundred-pennies to Taunton were in Taunton hundred, nor can we reasonably doubt that the lands paying ferm-customs to Curry, lands lying in its surrounding country as they do, were in Curry hundred,^ the neighbour to Taunton.* And just as the hundred-pennies were a public due from the hundred of Taunton, alone of that kind among the customs owing from it, so the ferm-customs seem to have been a public due not contingent upon land being part of the royal demesne, for such land belonged to the fiefs of the Count of Mortain, Ralph de Pomaria, Ralph de Limesi, and others, and though its customary renders to the demesne ferm were in arrears, they were still owing the king.^ Moreover, the manors of King Edward in Somerset had not been assessed to the geld since they were in royal demesne, whereas the appendicia had entered into the geld-hidage.^ I conclude, therefore, that the ferm-customs are hundred- pennies, and that, as the ferm of a night from the demesne itself was looked upon as a tax comparable with Danegeld in acquitting that land of its ' defence ', so the customs of the ferm were a tax levied upon outlying lands in the hundred, a necessary and complementary render to the demesne ferm.' By the time Domesday takes up the tale of the ferm, whatever uniformity had prevailed in its earlier assessment and collection must mani- festly have been interfered with. Saxon kings had been generous • Ibid. * D. B. 86 b. ^ Cf. Ermentone, Axminster, and Tawton, in D. B, 100 b, 100 ; Exon Domesday, 79, 467-8, 421, 439, 458. Similar groups of tributaries surround these manors each in its own hundred. lattT lists of geld-himdreds it was called Abdick hundred ; cf. Eyton, Domesday Studies, Somerset, ii, 11. ' D.B. 92; cf. D. B. 100, Exon Domesday 79, 198, 467. See ante, xxxiii. 67 ff. « AtUc, xxxiii. 68 ; cf. D. B. 92 ; Exon Domesday, 79, 198, 467. ' The Exon Domesday, fo. 198, refers the ordinary ' customs ' of the ferm directly to the ferm of the demesne manor : ' De hac mansione [Femendella] calumniantur hundredmanni et praepositus regis 30 d. et consuetudinem placitorum ad opus firmae Ermtone mansionis regis.' Cf. Exon Domesday, 78, 467-8 ; ante, xxxiii. 69.
 * Curry hundred occurs in an old index of himdreds, Exon Domesday, 57-8. In