It is particularly instructive to follow out the Northamptonshire fief of William Engaine. In Domesday (i. 229) he is entered only as 'Willelmus' holding 3-1/2 hides in Pytchley (_Piteslea_), and Laxton (_Lastone_), worth at that time, £3 10s. 'Vitalis' Engaine was his heir in 1130, for the Pipe-Roll of 31 Hen. I (p. 82) records his discharge of a debt to the crown 'ut rehabeat terram suam de Laxetona'. And this is confirmed by the survey of 1125 in the _Liber Niger_ of Peterborough, where we read under 'Pihtesle' (p. 162): 'Et Vitalis reddit iii. solidos pro i. virga', this being the 'i. virga' assigned to him in the list of Peterborough knights (_ibid._, p. 169). The 'Rotulus de Dominabus' (1185) shows us the 'Piteslea' estate in the hands of Margaret Engaine, makes it worth £6, and mentions that her heir was Richard Engaine (p. 14). The 'Testa de Nevill' (p. 37) enters Richard 'de Angayne' as holding five carucates of land in 'Pettesle' and 'Laxeton' worth £6 a year. It tells us, further, that he held them by serjeanty--'et est venator leporum, et facit servitium'. From the nature of this return I assign it to the inquest of 1198, in which case it is of some value, as identifying five carucates under the new assessment with the 3-1/2 hides recorded in Domesday.[17] Fulc de Lisures, on the other hand--the heir of the Richard Engaine of Domesday--returned himself in 1166, as the King's forester in fee and attending the King's person, with his horn hanging from his neck.[18] The association of Pytchley with hunting is carried back even further still. For Richard and William Engaine had for their predecessor in title, Ælfwine the huntsman ('venator'), who owned their lands when King Edward sat upon the throne. Among the lands deducted we observe in Spelho Hundred 'fif and xx. hida byrigland'. This represents the assessment in hides of the Borough of Northampton, and, so far as I know, is the only mention of that assessment to be found. In my paper on 'Danegeld and the Finance of Domesday', I pointed out that Bridport and Malmesbury were assessed at five hides each, Dorchester, Wareham, and Hertford at ten hides, Worcester at fifteen, Bath and Shaftesbury at twenty, etc.[19] Northampton (we now see) was assessed in the same manner, and Chester and Huntingdon at no less than fifty hides each. Thus they admirably illustrate assessment in terms of the five-hide unit. We find this primitive system obsolete in 1130, when a borough gave an 'auxilium' where its county paid Danegeld. But our roll implies that, here at least, it was already obsolete in the early days of the Conquest; for the twenty-five hides of 'byrigland' are, for the payment of 'geld', deducted from the Hundred. From the date I have assigned to this document (_ante_-1075), it may fairly claim to represent our earliest financial record. Its illustrative value for Danegeld and the Hundred, and consequently for Domesday Book, will be obvious to every student.