A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



instances result from the addition of fractional assessments, the details of 

 which are meaningless by themselves and by no means well adapted to a 

 convenient payment of the geld. 



Archbishop of York. 

 Bishop of Bayeux 

 Walter de Aincurt 



Total 



Oxton 



Archbishop of York 

 Roger de Busli . 

 Walter de Aincurt . 



Total 



Car. Bov. Team-lands 

 06 2 



i o ai 



o 4 



ii 



6 



Moreover in contrast to these fractional assessments it is important 

 to note that in seven out of the above nine cases the number of ' team- 

 lands ' is integral and ' duodecimal ' in character. As, with the exception 

 of Calverton which was assessed at ij carucates, 1 the above table includes 

 every vill in the wapentake the assessment of which can be distinguished 

 from that of its neighbours, the recurrence of this nine-bovate unit cannot 

 well be regarded as accidental. Whatever its origin it strikingly 

 differentiates the assessment of this particular district from that of the 

 rest of the shire, and illustrates the solidarity of the wapentake in matters 

 of taxation. 



South-east of the Trent it is more difficult to detect the influence of 

 any system of assessment. The subdivision of vills was carried much 

 further in the open land of the vale of Belvoir and the Nottinghamshire 

 wolds than in the largely afforested north and west of the shire, with 

 the result that the assessment of the former district is far more compli- 

 cated than that of the latter. It must be confessed that the several frac- 

 tions of villar assessment do not work out so well as might be expected 

 into even duodecimal totals, and we possess for this county no clue to the 

 system by which vills were combined in roundly assessed fiscal groups, 

 although by analogy with Lincolnshire and Leicestershire we know that 

 such a principle must have been in operation. 2 And another difficulty 

 which should not be ignored lies in the fact that many of these southern 

 assessments are expressed in very small fractions involving thirds, quarters, 

 and fifths of a bovate. Now Mr. Round has shown that for some reason 

 or other the compilers of Domesday were not very careful in recording 

 minute fractions of assessment, 3 a failing which at once introduces an 

 element of doubt into our calculations. It so happens that in the one 

 case in which the assessment of a Nottinghamshire vill is recorded in 

 another document than Domesday we find a divergence between the two. 

 In Domesday, Collingham is rated at 4 carucates, oj bovate ; in the 

 Black Book of Peterborough it stands for 4 carucates, of bovate.* Here 

 the discrepancy is so small that it gives us no reason to suppose a fresh 

 assessment to have taken place, but it is quite enough to suggest that 



1 It is probable that this is only an apparent exception, for Salterford, which is in the modern 

 parish of Calverton was rated at 6 bovates, so that the combined assessment of both places would stand 

 at 2 carucates, 2 bovates. 



8 See Feudal England, 75-81. 3 Feudal England, 1 6-2 1 . 



' Chrm. Petroburgense (Camden Soc.), 159. 



210 



