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For the purposes of this Paper it is necessary to offer further 
explanation, and to refer to controversial matter. In the time 
of Edward the Confessor (usually written T. R. E.) or perhaps 
_ earlier, an assessment of the whole Kingdom was made, and 
continued in force when the King required taxes, till the new 
one of Domesday had been completed. 
The Geld inquest of which this Hundred of the Borough of 
Bath and Bath forinsecum forms a part is a highly important 
_ document, and only exists for the Western Counties, viz., 
Devonshire cum Cornwall, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire cum 
Dorset. The King needed taxes in the year 1084, and the Geld 
inquest is the official record of the taxes then collected. It is 
of the greatest consequence to fix in our minds that this 
assessment is based on the one T. R. E. Lyton has failed in 
dealing with 1084 because he did not realise this. If you take 
his Vol. 2 you will find that his estimate of hidage in a Hundred 
often differs from the Geld List by three or four hides. Imagine 
the hundred men handing in to the Sheriff the account of their 
Hundred, and showing too much or too little by three or four 
hides, and then you may see the absurdity of such an Account. 
In this Hundred the Account tallies in appearance. 
We have been told by a great authority that the Kingdom 
had been parcelled out into areas of 5 hides each. There is a 
_ very great a priori difficulty in giving our assent to this, because 
it involves a fixed area of manors adjoining one another, and so 
a displacement of territorial property, a record of which we ask 
for invain. But, moreover, I will try to show that it is based 
on a mistake. 
_ The Domesday Commissioners were to take the Hundreds in 
order. They were to visit each manor in the Hundred, and ask on 
the oath of certain well qualified persons : (1) Its hidage, that is 
(as I will soon show), its assessment in money value ; (2) Its 
acreage, that is, the number of plough-lands in it; (3) How 
much in demesne, how much held by the undertenants, &c.. &c.; 
