_Hides_ Erningford 100 Long Stow 100 Triplow 90 Staplehow 90[100] Whittlesford 80 Wetherley 80 Radfield 70 Cheveley 50 Staines 50 This list speaks for itself, but it may be as well to point out how convenient for the Treasury was this system. At the normal Danegeld rate of two shillings on the hide, an assessment of fifty hides would represent £5, one hundred hides £10, and so on. Can we discover in other counties traces of this same system? Let us first take the adjacent county of Bedfordshire. I am anxious to explain that for the means of utilizing the Bedfordshire evidence I am entirely indebted to the _Digest of the Domesday of Bedfordshire_ by the late Rev. William Airy (edited by his son, the Rev. B. R. Airy[101]). It was, most happily, pointed out to the author by the Rev. Joseph Hunter 'that what we want is not translations but analyses of the surveys of the several counties' (p. viii). To this most true remark we owe it that Mr Airy resolved to give us a 'digest' instead of that usual 'extension and translation', which is perfectly useless to the Domesday student. It is easy to take from the record itself such an instance as these Beauchamp Manors entered in succession (213): Willington 10 hides, Stotford 15; 'Houstone' 5, Hawnes 5, 'Salchou' 5, Aspley 10, Salford 5; but it is only Mr Airy's work that enables us to reconstruct the townships, and to show how fractions--apparently meaningless--fit in, exactly as in Cambridgeshire, with one another. His work is all the more valuable from the fact that he had no theory to prove, and did not even add together the factors he had ascertained. His figures therefore are absolutely free from the suspicion that always attaches to those adduced to prove a case. _Risely_ _Tempsford_ _Wymington_ _H._ _V._ _H._ _ V._ _H._ _V._ 7 0 1 1-3/4 0 3 1 0 1 1 3 0 1/2 0 4 1 4 0 1/2 0 2 0 1/2 0 1 0 1 1/4 0 3 1 0 ------------ ------------ ------------ 10 0 10 0 10 0 _Cople_ _Eversholt_ _Clophill_ _H._ _V._ _H._ _V._ _H._ _V._