"In the [Hundred] rolls for Huntingdonshire [England] a series of entries occurs, describing, contrary to the usual practice of the compilers, the number of acres in a virgate, and the number of virgates in a hide, in several manors. … They show clearly—(1) That the bundle of scattered strips called a virgate did not always contain the same number of acres. (2) That the hide did not always contain the same number of virgates. But at the same time it is evident that the hide in Huntingdonshire most often contained 120 acres or thereabouts. … We may gather from the instances given in the Hundred Rolls for Huntingdonshire, that the 'normal' hide consisted as a rule of four virgates of about thirty acres each. The really important consequence resulting from this is the recognition of the fact that as the virgate was a bundle of so many scattered strips in the open fields, the hide, so far as it consisted of actual virgates in villenage, was also a bundle—a compound and fourfold bundle—of scattered strips in the open fields. … A trace at least of the original reason of the varying contents and relations of the hide and virgate is to be found in the Hundred Rolls, as, indeed, almost everywhere else, in the use of another word in the place of hide, when, instead of the anciently assessed hidage of a manor, its modern actual taxable value is examined into and expressed. This new word is 'carucate'—'the land of a plough or plough team,'—'caruca' being the mediæval Latin term for both plough and plough team. … In some cases the carucate seems to be identical with the normal hide of 120 acres, but other instances show that the carucate varied in area. It is the land cultivated by a plough team; varying in acreage, therefore, according to the lightness or heaviness of the soil, and according to the strength of the team. … In pastoral districts of England and Wales the Roman tribute may possibly have been, if not a hide from each plough team, a hide from every family holding cattle. … The supposition of such an origin of the connexion of the word 'hide' with the 'land of a family,' or of a plough team, is mere conjecture; but the fact of the connexion is clear." _F. Seebohm, English Village Community, chapter 2, section 4, and chapter 10, section 6._ ALSO IN: _J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, book 1, chapter 4._ See, also, MANORS. HIERATIC WRITING. See HIEROGLYPHICS. HIERODULI, The.