But formidable arguments have been advanced against the "small" hide. There is no doubt that at the time of Domesday the hide was equated with 120 and not with 30 acres. Then, taking the word _familia_ in its proper sense, a household with many dependent members, and making an allowance for primitive methods of agriculture, it is questionable whether 30 or 40 acres were sufficient for its support; and again if the equation 1 hide = 120 acres is rejected there is no serious evidence in favour of any other. A possible explanation is that, although in early Anglo-Saxon times the hide consisted of 30 acres or thereabouts, it had come before the time of Domesday to contain 120 acres. But no trace of such change can be found; there is no break in the continuity of the land-charters which refer to hides and manses. Reviewing the whole question Professor Maitland accepts the view that the hide contained 120 acres. The difficulties are serious but they are not insuperable. Bede, writing in a primitive age and speaking for the most part of lands far away from Northumbria, uses figures in a vague and general fashion; then the hide of 120 acres does not mean 120 times 4840 yds., it means much less; and lastly at the time of Domesday the hide was not a unit of measurement, it was a unit for purposes of taxation. On the other hand, Mr. H. M. Chadwick (_Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions_) says there is no evidence that the hide contained 120 acres before the 10th century. He suggests that possibly the size of the hide in Mercia may have been fixed at 40 acres, while in Wessex it was regarded as containing 120 acres. Dr Stubbs (_Const. Hist._ i.) suggests that the confusion may have arisen because the word was used "to express the whole share of one man in all the fields of the village." Thus it might refer to 30 acres, his share in one field, or to 120 acres, his share in the four fields. He adds, however, that this explanation is not adequate for all cases. But these differences about the size of the hide are not peculiar to modern times. Henry of Huntingdon says, _Hida Anglice vocatur terra unius aratri culturae sufficiens per annum_, while the _Dialogus de scaccario puts its size at 100 acres, though this may be the long hundred, or_ 120. Perhaps, therefore, Selden is wisest when he says, "hides were of an incertain quantity." Certainly he gives a very good description of the early hide when he says (_Titles of Honour_): "Now a hide of land regularly is and was (as I think) as much land as might be well manured with one plough, together with pasture, meadow and wood competent for the maintenance of that plough, and the servants of the family." The view that the size of the hide varied from district to district is borne out by Professor Vinogradoff's more recent researches. In his _English Society in the Eleventh Century_ he