Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth CenturiesRound, John Horace
History
Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Round, John Horace
Domesday book; Feudalism -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- History -- Norman period, 1066-1154; Normans -- Great Britain
Hundreds of Ely', in which, so far as our evidence goes, there would
seem to have been similarly no reduction. As the two horns of the
crescent, so to speak, are the Hundreds of Erningford and Cheveley, we
will now glance at the latter, and compare the evidence of the two.
HUNDRED OF CHEVELEY
(_Inq. Com. Cant._, pp. 9-11)
_Hides_
T.R.E. T.R.W. _Ploughlands_
Silverley 6-1/2} 4} 8}
Ashley 3-1/2} 10 2} 6 4} 12
Saxon Street 5 3 7[93]
Ditton 5 3[92] (or 4) 10
Ditton 10 1 16
Kirtling 10 6 21
Cheveley 10[91]
--
50
As a preliminary point, attention may be called to the fact that
the grouping of Ashley and Silverley, although they are surveyed
separately in the _Inq. Com. Cant._, is justified by their forming,
as 'Ashley-cum-Silverley' a single parish. So too, Saxon Street may be
safely combined with Ditton, in which it is actually situate. We thus
have a Hundred of fifty hides divided into five blocks of ten hides
each, and thus presenting a precise parallel to the Hundred of
Staines, the first that we examined.
And now for the reductions. As the Vill of Cheveley, unluckily, is
nowhere surveyed as a whole, we have in its case no evidence. But of
the five remaining Vills above (counting Ashley-cum-Silverley as one),
four we see had had their assessments reduced on a _uniform_
scale, just as in the Hundred of Long Stow. Now this is a singular
circumstance, and it leads me to this conclusion. I believe that,
precisely as in the latter case, the assessment of the Hundred _as
a whole_ was reduced by twenty hides. This was equivalent to 40 per
cent, which was accordingly knocked off from the assessment of each
of its constituent Vills. One of the Dittons is clearly an exception,
having nine hides, not four, thus knocked off. I would suggest, as the
reason for this exception, that Ditton having now become a 'dominica
villa regis' (_Inq. Com. Cant._, p. 10), was specially favoured by
having a five-hide unit further knocked off its assessment, just as in
the case of Chippenham (_Ibid._, p. 2).[94]
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