A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



[a] county was relieved of about half of its hides.' ' After long and care- 

 ful consideration of the subject, I am of opinion that the roll, on the 

 contrary, records a vast reduction of assessment previous to its compila- 

 tion. We should indeed naturally expect that such reduction would 

 follow promptly on the impoverishment of the district by 'waste' (if 

 such was its cause), and not be granted later on when the county was 

 recovering from its effects. But we need evidence to that effect. Such 

 evidence, I think, is found in the second column. It must be remem- 

 bered that the document itself, when it gives the nominal assessment of 

 a Hundred, uniformly adds to that total the words : ' So it was in King 

 Edward's day.' This assessment, therefore, is only given as that which 

 was in force before the Conquest. If we now turn to the second 

 column, we find it headed ' Inland.' Discussing the meaning of this 

 term, I defined it as that by which ' Domesday describes land not liable 

 to geld ' ; in Oxfordshire it meant land not subject to geld at the time 

 when it was so described. In short, ' the true meaning of " inland " is 

 land free from liability to geld (" qua; est sine geldo regis ").' * 



Now on looking carefully at the ' Inland ' column, it will be ob- 

 served that the amount is the same for the first three Hundreds on the 

 list, and that, in all, seven Hundreds have exactly 40 hides — neither 

 more nor less — ' Inland ' each. Moreover, two have 30 hides, and two 

 others 20 hides, and one 60 hides.' These, from their regularity, 

 must be arbitrary sums. The conclusion, therefore, at which I arrive, 

 is that these 'hides' of 'Inland' represented the reduction of assessment 

 granted by the Crown on each Hundred since the Confessor's death. 

 The grand total of these deductions seems to have amounted, at the time 

 of the Roll, to 935I hides on the 2,664 of the assessment under Edward. 

 It would perhaps be slightly larger if the text were not corrupt, but in 

 any case it was considerably increased before the Pipe Roll of 1 130. 



The probable cause of this reduction is an interesting subject for 

 enquiry. Professor Maitland seems to have considered that Northamp- 

 tonshire was relieved because the old assessment was far too high. My 

 own suggestion was that the appalling proportion of the county which 

 was returned as ' waste ' in the ' geld-roll ' pointed to some terrible de- 

 vastation, such as is actually recorded in the English Chronicle under 

 1065.* It is thus described by Mr. Freeman, paraphrasing the words of 

 the Chronicle : — 



Morkere's Northern followers dealt with the country about Northampton as if 

 it had been the country of an enemy. They slew men, burned corn and houses, 

 carried off cattle, and at last led captive several hundred prisoners, seemingly as 

 slaves. The blow was so severe that it was remembered even when one would have 

 thought that that and all other lesser wrongs would have been forgotten in the general 



* Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 457. 



^ See, for the above quotations, Domesday Studies (1888), pp. IO7-IIO. 

 ' Four other ' Inland ' totals are multiples of five, and others approximate closely to such 

 multiples. 



* Feudal England, p. 149. 



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