The passage itself in the ‘Dialogus,’ which Mr. Hall translates _in extenso_ (pp. 180–182), requires careful examination. The “high authority” of which he speaks proves to be, in fact, only tradition, for the opening words of the passage run: “Sicut traditum est a patribus.” Now one would not strain unduly the words of the Dialogue’s author, but his meaning may be fairly understood to be that the rents of the royal demesne were not only paid in kind (for that he clearly asserts), but were also valued in kind alone. For he thus describes the change introduced under Henry I.: Destinavit [rex] per regnum quos ad id prudentiores et discretiores cognoverat, qui circueuntes et oculata fide fundos singulos perlustrantes, habita æstimatione victualium, quæ de hiis solvebantur, redegerunt in summam denariorum. This can only imply the substitution of a money valuation for a rent payable in kind. And yet we have to go no further than this very chapter to learn that these rents had previously been reckoned in money (not in kind). For if, as stated in the note below, they had, when they were paid in kind, to be reduced by the king’s officers to a money standard, it could only be because their amounts were due, not in kind, but in money.[144] Fortunately, however, we are not dependent on this obvious contradiction, for the evidence of Domesday makes it certain that, just as the assay was employed under the Conqueror, and indeed under the Confessor, instead of being first introduced under Henry I., so the valuation in money of the rents from the royal demesne was not a reform effected, as alleged, by the latter king, but was the rule under William I.; and, indeed, almost as much the rule before the Conquest.[145] We gather from Domesday that the Conqueror advanced the commutation of the old “firma unius diei,” etc., for a sum of money; but even under his predecessor there were only a few localities in which the archaic system had lingered on. I have said something in ‘Feudal England’[146] of the “Firma unius noctis,” and I would now add to the evidence that I there adduced on this curious and interesting subject. In Devonshire we meet with a singular feature, which, I think, has escaped attention. Exeter, we read, “reddit xviii. lib. per annum.” I have elsewhere[147] discussed this payment, and shown that it was strangely small; but I now proceed to a new point, namely, that the figure 18 may prove highly significant. Lidford, Barnstaple, and Totnes, we read,[148] “rendered” between them the same amount of (military) service as Exeter “rendered”; and this service was equally divided between them.[149] Now, if we turn from the service to the payments made by this group of boroughs, we find that the “render” of each was £3 a year, so that the whole group paid £9, exactly half the “render” of Exeter.[150]