The Frisian tribute of hides was perhaps an example of this. The Frisians were a pastoral people, and a hide for every so many oxen was as ready a mode of assessing the tribute as counting the plough teams would be in an agricultural district. The word 'hide,' which still baffles all attempts to explain its origin, may possibly have had reference to a similar tribute. Even in England it does not follow that it was in its origin connected with the plough team. Its real equivalent was the _familia_, or _casatum_--the land of a family--and 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; just as in A.D. 1175 Henry II. bound his Irish vassal, Roderic O'Connor, to pay annually '_de singulis animalibus decimum corium placabile mercatoribus_'--perhaps a tenth of the hides he himself received as tribute from his own tribesmen.[621] The supposition of such an origin of the connexion of the word 'hide' with the 'land of a family' [p399] or of a plough team is mere conjecture; but the _fact_ of the connexion is clear. All these three things, the _hide_, the _hiwisce_, and the _sullung_, and their subdivision the _yard-land_, were the units of British 'hidation,' just as the _centuria_ and the _jugum_ were the units of the Roman 'jugatio.' VII. THE GAFOL AND GAFOL-YRTH. Passing now to the serfdom and the services under which the 'yard-lands' and the 'huben' were held, it may at least be said that their practical identity suggests a common origin. We learned from the _Rectitudines_ and from the _Laws of Ine_, to make a distinction between the two component parts of the obligations of the 'gebur' in respect of his yard-land. There was (1) the _gafol_, and (2) the _week-work_. The _gafol_ was found to be a semi-servile incident to the yard-land. The week-work was the most servile one. A man otherwise free and possessing a homestead already, could, under the laws of Ine, hire a yard-land of demesne land and pay _gafol_ for it, without incurring liability to _week-work_. But if the lord found for him both the yard-land and the homestead, then he was a complete 'gebur' or 'villanus,' and must do _week-work_ also. «The Saxon 'gafol' and 'gafol-yrth.'» Taking the _gafol_ first, and descending to details, it was found to be complex--_i.e._ it included _gafol_ and _gafol-yrth_. [p400] The _gafol_ of the 'gebur,' as stated in the _Rectitudines_, was this:-- For _gafol proper_:-- 10d. at Michaelmas. 23 sesters of beer, and 2 fowls, at Martinmas. 1 lamb at Easter, or 2d. For _gafolyrth_:--the ploughing of 3 acres, and sowing of it from the 'gebur's' own barn. Comparing the _gafol_ proper with the _census_ of the St. Gall charters, and the _tribute_ of the 'servi' of the Church under the Alamannic laws of A.D. 622, the resemblance was found to be remarkably close.