THE ACRE AND THE HIDE.

(Continued from Vol. 2, page 739.)

PART II.

HE name of " hide," occasionally written "higid" in old charters, may probably be derived from "hiog" or "higo" (a family), a root equally traceable in "hiwisc," another name applied to a measure of land. As the Lindisfarne glossarist uses "hiogwuisc-fæder" and "hiwes-fæder" to express the "pater-familias" of the Vulgate, so the "hide-land" or "hiwisc-land" may be supposed to have represented the "terra familiæ " of Beda, the "holding" of a married man with a family, answering in a certain sense to the continental "mansus," the German "huba " or "hufe," all being measures of a very fluctuating amount of land. The ordinary mansus, according to various Italian authorities quoted by Ducange, was a messuage or dwelling-house — it always implied the existence of a house for the "casatus" or "hus-bond," the "buend" with a "casa" or "hus"-with as much arable land attached to it as would afford employment to a yoke of oxen; but it was of different sizes, and the normal amount of the ordinary or smallest mansus amongst the Franks seems, from Papias and Hincmar, to have been twelve "jugera" or "bunnariæ ”—from ten to fifteen statute acres, according to the size of the arpent. By the enactments of the Capitularies, every priest with a church was to receive his manse or house with this amount of land, together with a male slave and a female slave, from his free parishioners. The mansus was usually classed as "ingenuilis," "letalis," or "servilis," according as it had been allotted originally to the fullfreeman, the "lat" or "hospes," or to the serf, the obligations always remaining attached to the holding till, after the lapse of ages, they were gradually commuted for quit-rents. The mansus ingenuilis was often of large extent, every holding of this description in the Ardennes, where such mansi were known as "hovæ regales" “kuenishoben” (king's hufen), amounting to 160 " jurnales ;" but as a general rule the free mansus seems to have doubled the extent of the servile or "customary" holding; for, in the Capitularies, wherever the former is assessed at four, the latter is rated at two pence. Hence when Aventinus describes two kinds of mansi in Bavaria, the "hof" or "curtis," requiring a team of four horses, the "hube "

or

mansus, requiring a team of two, he is evidently alluding to the classes originally rated as above; and a similar distinction in the respective amounts of the freehold and the farm-holding may be traced in many other quarters.a

The "hufe" or "huba" is, or was lately, a land-measure varying in different parts of Germany from 12, 15, 18, and 24 to 30, and in some instances to 42 "morgen," though 30 is by far the most ordinary number. This was its normal amount in the olden time-“ una hoba quod est xxx jugera terræ araturæ "—which was supposed to give employment to a yoke of oxen, and was known as hufe, huba, or mansus. It was a very ancient principle that assigned "a yoke” to the lowest order of proprietary freemen, for the third of Solon's classes was the "zeugita" (yoke-men), after whom came the "thetés "—" proletarii," or freemen without property. Some authorities, however, limit the hof or curtis to the plot of ground immediately around the dwelling, always the absolute property of the "bauer," from which he could not be removed; for in the rest of the property he had a right of occupancy, or of usufruct, rather than of ownership, in early times. The plot in question was known in Low Germany as the "toft," a word once familiar throughout the limits of ancient Northumbria, and the proprietorship in it only lasted as long as it enclosed the house and buildings; for it was laid down, "Si quis ædes a villa transportaverit, et aream illam coluerit, tum postea haker dicitur (cultivable land) non vero tofft vel area." There were in the olden time four descriptions of hufen in Low Germany, the smallest known as the "haker-hufe" of fifteen morgen, an amount in theory not enough to employ a yoke of oxen or pair of horses, but supposed to be cultivated by manual labour,-hacked or hoed up. It seems to have been the equivalent of the priest's manse amongst the Franks, which was managed by one male serf, and may be regarded as a type of the original servile holding. Next in size was the ordinary "land-hufe" or "dorf-hufe" of thirty morgen,

Ducange, in voc. Mansus, &c. The French arpent of arable land generally contained a hundred square perches, and was in ordinary cases measured by the greater, medium, or lesser perch of 22, 20, and 18 feet respectively, which would give an extent of 48,400, 40,000, or 32,400 square feet (French measure), according to the length of the perch. Giving 76°736 English inches to the toise of six French feet, these arpents may be reckoned, for all ordinary purposes, at five, four, and three roods and a half. There were many other measuring-poles and land-measures in France, but these may be looked upon as, in some sort, the legal or standard arpents for arable land.

or

the "yoke-land" or usual holding of the bauer or ordinary tenant of the "vill "or " torp-carl" of the Northmen. As the Bavarian "hof," or four-horse holding, contained from fifty to sixty "jucharts," the "hube," or two-horse holding, must have averaged from twenty-five to thirty, evidently being the equivalent of the Saxon "dorf-hufe ;" and both may be regarded as the ordinary holdings assigned in Saxony and Bavaria to the representatives of the "colonus," "hospes," or husbandman of early days, and answering to the "mansus letalis." The "tripel-hufe" of forty-five and the "häger-hufe" of sixty morgen-the "hedged off" or separate hufecompleted the four classes of hufen. The Saxon "hägerman" was of a superior class to the ordinary bauer. He owed a certain stated service and paid a certain fixed rent (" erbzins") to the "hägerherr " hägerjunker" (the lord of the fee) for his holding, which he thus held, as it were, in fee-farm. A new hägerman had "belehnung ansuchen" from the lord of the fee-to obtain his consent and be enfeoffed by him-and to buy out or compensate the heir of the former holder; whilst all "häger-gute," or property held by this tenure, was under a separate "hägergerichte," who had his own "häger-recht," or court. Thus the privileged häger-hufe of sixty morgen, doubling the dorf-hufe of thirty, may be supposed to have represented the mansus ingenuilis under the beneficiary or feudal systems; after pure allodial right or absolute property in the fief had either ceased to exist, or had grown into a hereditary tenancy. The Saxon hägerman would have found his counterpart, in a certain sense, amongst his English kindred in the "privileged " villein, or villein socman, generally a tenant upon the crown-lands, the representative of the less-thegn holding his carucate or half-carucate of land before the Conquest as an "upland man," "pro uno manerio," apart and separate from the ordinary geneats or "sharers" in the vill, with a right of hereditary tenancy on fulfilling the obligations of his fief, but without the proprietary right of the "alodiarius," the tenant in pure socage, or the Kentish gaveller. If he paid his relief and fulfilled his obligations, he was irremovable from his father's land, whilst he could throw up his tenancy if he chose, and "go where he willed;" but he could not "go where he willed with his land.” ↳

Adelung, in voc. Hufe, Häger-hufe, &c. The Bavarian "juchart" contained 400 square ruthen, the ruthe measuring 10 Bavarian feet, or 97225 statute measure. This would give 38,088 square feet to the juchart, or 27 square feet less than 3 roods. The "hof" would therefore have averaged from 44 to 52 acres, the "hube" from 21

On our own side of the Channel the measures of the Kentish men were of large extent. They reckoned in "sulings" and "juga" (in ploughlands and yokelands); for the jugum, or "gioc ærthe londes " of the charters, was evidently in early days the amount allotted to the yoke of oxen-the quarter-ploughland. In later days the jugum may be said to have usurped the place of the suling; for as every "caruca" or full team, in the vill of Darent, for instance, was bound to plough an acre of demesne, and every jugum was bound to plough a similar quantity, the yokeland evidently employed a full team; and hence when Diceto, Paris, and other authorities identify it with the hide, they are correct, for it will be found to have been identical in extent with the Wessex hide. The amount of acres in the jugum is easily ascertained. As a virgate of ploughing was due from ten acres, three times that amount from thirty acres, and a full acre from the jugum, the latter evidently contained 4 × 10, or forty acres. In Oldham there were three juga and a half in the hands of lesser tenants, whose holdings, including an acre of meadow, made up exactly 140 acres, thus again giving forty acres to the jugum. Consequently the old or greater Kentish ploughland, the suling, amounted to 160 acres, and seems as a rule to have contained three juga of "ge-sette" land, in the hands of customary" tenants known as "neatmen" or geneats, and occasionally as "bondmen"-a word used, not in the servile sense of "bond," but of "buend," or cultivator of the soil -with the remaining jugum in demesne. Thus every hide or suling in Hedenham was bound to plough three acres of demesne; in other words, each contained three juga. In Deniton, rated at a suling, there were three juga with one plough in demesne. In Frendesley, rated at seven sulings, there were twenty-one juga of gavel-land; Stokes, rated at three sulings, had nine juga of gavelland; and in a later age, there were in the manor of Mepham eighteen juga let out and six in demesne, quite in the usual proportion. It may be gathered then that the jugum was, strictly speaking, a measure of "gesette" or "gavel" land, three being usually contained in every suling or old ploughland of 160 acres, an amount that agrees exactly with the entry in Domesday, " four hundred acres and a half, which make two solins and a half,” thus giving 160 acres to the solin. The acres in question were evidently at the time of the Con

to 26. Reckoning the old Saxon morgen at half a “langenekre," or a little under 3 roods, the Saxon “hufen” would have contained respectively about 42, 314, 21, and 10 acres.

quest, and for some time afterwards, "langenekres," as can easily be shown. A "gavel" or rent of a penny an acre seems to have been exacted from the Kentish gavel-land; where the rent was higher, the "firma" and "opera" were less. Thus 7 acres paid 7d., 81

paid 8d. 1ob., 30 acres were rated at 30d., and a jugum at 40d. Occasionally the holdings were rated at a penny more or a penny less than their acreage; a singular custom, to which I may elsewhere allude, and which seems to have been familiar upon the Continent as the "sachsische frist." Thus the Waldenses, or woodmen, of Darent held a jugum rated at 39d., whilst two juga are elsewhere assessed at 81d. At a comparatively later period, the men of Thanet held certain lands of the See of Canterbury by fealty, relief, and a rent and service called "peny-gavel," paying annually for each "swilling" 19s. 8d., and for each "fourth of a swilling" 4s. 11d., or 59d. for a jugum, evidently a penny less than the full amount. Sixty acres were therefore reckoned in the jugum at this period instead of forty; the smaller "legal" acre had superseded the “langenekre,” which exactly tallies with the annotation in the old Leiger book quoted by Sir H. Ellis: "A solin, according to the old computation, contained 200 acres ; " which, by "the old computation," or reckoning "by English tale," six score to the hundred, would amount to 240. The old Kentish suling, then, was evidently a measure of 160 south-country or 240 north-country acres, and seems to have answered to the large king's hufe in the Ardennes, containing 160 "journales." c

The larger measurement does not appear to have been confined to Kent, for it is traceable in the neighbouring county of Sussex. The leuga" or "banlieue" of Battle Abbey, called the "rape" in Domesday, was reckoned as six hides. "Eight virgates make a hide, four make a "wista" ("hiwisc "). The English leuga measures "twelve quarantines." Thus the Abbey chronicle, which would give 1,440 acres (960 "langenekres") to the leuga or square league, and consequently 240 of the former to the hide, 120 to the wista, and 30 to the virgate. In the measurements of a later time, the wista is identified with the virgate. Some entries in the Survey go far to corroborate this identification of the Sussex hide with the Kentish suling. "Archbishop Lanfranc holds a manor in Malling. It is in the Rape of Pevensey, and in the days of King Edward was assessed at twenty hides; but the Archbishop has only seventy-five,

e Cust. Rof., pp. 5-10. Somner, Gavelk., pp. 26, 188. Ellis, Introd., vol. i. p. 153.