Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/288

 NOTES AND QUEKIES. [n s. x. OCT. 10,

THE HID AGE OF ESSEX.

IT is possible that some assistance in recover- ing the ancient constitution of the county of Essex may be afforded by considering its ecclesiastical divisions. Essex, as a part of the East Saxon kingdom, was in- cluded in the diocese of London, but the local organization had marked peculiarities. The county contained two archdeaconries (Essex and Colchester) and a fragment of a third, viz., Middlesex. The Essex boundary of this last divided the county into two parts by a line running (roughly) from the junction of Essex, Middlesex, and Hertfordshire to Bures in Suffolk, but in the north-west corner of it was a detached part of the arch- deaconry of Colchester. Thus ecclesiastic- ally the county had four parts : ( 1 ) the arch- deaconry of Essex in the south, along the Thames ; (2) that of Colchester in the north- east between the Blackwater and the Stour, with (3) an unexplained detached portion in the extreme north-west ; (4) part of Middlesex archdeaconry running right across the centre of Essex, as an offshoot of its chief constituents in Middlesex and Hertfordshire. On arranging the hidage of the county according to these divisions, by the help of the tables compiled by Mr. George Rick- word, and published a few years ago in the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society (xi. 251), it will be found that the totals of the figures as recorded suggest that there was a clear and simple standard under- lying the apparently confused and irregular details. The only assumption here made is that Colchester itself originally had twenty hides assigned to it; but exempt juris- dictions like Booking have been included in their natural topographical positions. The standard and recorded figures (with the twenty hides added) are shown in the following table :

ESSEX.

Standard. Recorded.

hides. hides, acres.

Barking, Chaff ord, Ongar. . 400 396 76

Chelmsford, Barstable. . 575 576 43

Dengie, Rochford. . . . 400 400 40

1375

COLCHESTER.

Lexden, Witham, Tendring 650 Detached part. . . . 350

1373 39

651 355

48 91

1000

MIDDLESEX. Harlow, Dunmow, Heding-

haia

375

2750

1007 19

370 1 2750 59

It thus appears that the total of 2,75O hides was divided equally between Essex proper and the rest of the county ; and that of the northern moiety Colchester had 1,000 hides assigned to it, the odd 375 being^ placed on the outstretched arm of Middlesex. The Colchester hidage was further divided into 650 hides for Colchester proper, and' 350 for the isolated part in the north-west. The differences between the recorded figure* and the assumed standard, nowhere as- much as 1 per cent, are only such as might 9 reasonably be expected in the course of a. century or more at a time when parish and township boundaries had not become rigidly fixed. It will be noticed that the excess (as recorded) in the detached part of Col- chester supplies the defect in Middlesex,, the defect in Essex being similarly supplied from the excess in the main part of Col- chester. The odd 59 acres in the total may,, if desired, be cancelled by the exclusion of Bures as belonging to the diocese of Norwich.

The total of 2,750 is a moiety of 5,500 ; and if it were safe to assume that the hidage of Essex had been reduced by half, while- those of Middlesex and Hertford remained stationary, the larger figure might be re- ferred back to the traditional 7,000 hides ofjj the East Saxons as recorded in the 'TribaF Hidage,' thus: Essex, 5,500; Middlesex 1 ,., (say) 900 ; and the East Saxon part of Hertford, 600. The part of this last county* 1 retained in the diocese of London contained very nearly 300 hides. If, however, Col-j Chester was about 660 practically indepen- dent the town was later styled a " city " its 1,000 hides may be omitted, and the remaining 1,750 are exactly a quarter of 7,000. As Middlesex (880 hides) and Hert-. ford could supply another quarter, the old 7,000 may have been reduced to half before the Domesday assessment was fixed. But a- different solution may be put forward. At the end of the ' Burghal Hidage ' is a later or supplementary entry of " Ast Saxhum et Wygeaceastrum 1,200 hide." If this means- "Essex and Wigborough or Colchester 1,200- hides each," then, with the addition of 350" hides for the odd north-west corner, the total of 2,750 is at once obvious. It has- been suggested in a previous article that the ' Burghal Hidage ' goes back in its main portion to the time of Alfred, and indicates the rudimentary formation of the southern counties.

The partition of the gross 2,750 hides into- equal halves shows that the county bound- aries had been fixed as they are to-day when