The proportionate sums contributed by the several counties to the Danegeld present a fruitful field of inquiry, but one, it would seem, as yet unworked. Mr Eyton, it is true, observed that 'in Devon and Cornwall the scope of the gheld-hide was enormous',[172] that is, in other words, the assessment was strangely low, but it did not occur to him to seek the cause of the phenomenon he observed. If, as was the case, West Wales was assessed on quite a different scale to the counties adjoining it on the east, it may suggest a conclusion no less important than that, when the latter were originally assessed, West Wales was not yet a portion of the English realm. But, before concluding that the hide assessment is proved to be as ancient as this, we must see whether it is possible to detect any principle at work in the total assessments of the several counties, any relation between their area and the sums they contributed to the geld as entered in the Pipe Roll of 1130, our first evidence on the subject. For such an enquiry it is especially needful to insist on breadth of treatment. In the first place, the modern area of the counties may vary more or less from the original extent;[173] in the second we have no proof that the assessment had always been the same, though the tendency in early days, no doubt, was to stereotype such figures. We must not, therefore attempt close or detailed investigation but if, on a review of the whole evidence, we detect certain broad features, uneffaced by the hand of time, we may fairly claim that we have in these the traces of a principle at work, the witness to a state of things prevailing in the distant past. On comparing the contributions to a 'geld' at two shillings on the hide with the (modern) area of counties, we find that a rate of about a pound for every seven square miles prevailed widely enough to be almost described as normal. The three eastern counties work out thus: Square Miles (At 1/7) Actual Sum £ £ s d Norfolk 2,119 302-5/7 330 3 2 Suffolk 1,475 210-5/7 235 0 8 Essex 1,542 220-2/7 236 8 0 In all three cases the proportion to the square mile is between a sixth and a seventh of a pound. In Cambridgeshire it is just under, in Sussex, just over, a seventh: Square Miles (At 1/7) Actual Sum £ £ s d Cambridgeshire 820 117-1/7 114 15 0 Sussex 1,458 208-2/7 209 18 6 Most remarkable, however, is this Midland group: Square Miles (At 1/7) Actual Sum £ £ s d