A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



of the ninth century. Place-names, for instance, which end in the ' Danish * 

 termination * by ' are very common in the county, especially in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Wreak Valley ; the map of Leicestershire thus bears good 

 testimony to the Scandinavian phase in the history of the shire. But the 

 evidence of local nomenclature is immensely reinforced by a study of the 

 fiscal organization of the county, which at once places Leicestershire, 

 together with the whole district of which we are speaking, in a class quite 

 apart from the shires of the south midlands and the west of England. 



In the northern Danelaw, of which Leicestershire thus forms a part, 

 the unit of taxation was the ' carucate,' consisting of 8 bovates, and 

 (probably) of 120 acres ; in the south of England these carucates are replaced 

 by ' hides,' composed of 4 virgates, each virgate being probably reckoned to 

 contain 30 acres. But in addition to this difference in terminology there lies 

 a still more important distinction between the Danelaw and the rest of 

 England in the manner in which these fiscal units were distributed among the 

 several vills in the respective counties. It was shown by Mr. Round in 

 Feudal ILngland that, whereas a Cambridgeshire or Oxfordshire vill will 

 probably be assessed at some fraction or multiple of 5 hides, a Lincolnshire 

 vill will commonly answer for some fraction or multiple of 6 carucates. 5 

 In other words the assessment of the hidated counties was decimal in 

 character, that of the Danelaw was duodecimal, and in no part of the latter 

 district is the duodecimal system of reckoning more clearly shown than in 

 Leicestershire. In the following table some of the simplest instances in 

 point are collected : 



Assessment 



24 carucates 

 18 

 18 



12 



12 



12 



12 



12 



12 

 12 



Vill 



Croxton Kerrial 

 Harby . . 

 Thrussington 

 Billesdon . 

 Harston . 

 Great Easton 

 Noseley . 

 Carlton Curlieu 

 Peatling Magna 

 Cold Overton 

 Nether Broughton 12 

 Cotesbach . 9 



Sibson . . -9 



Bagworth . 9 



Hallaton . . 6 



Tugby . . 6 



Twycross . . 6 



Holwell . . 6 



Ragdale . . 6 



Cossington . 6 



The above set of figures affords good evidence of the existence of the 

 6-carucate unit in Leicestershire, but in those counties in regard to which 

 we are dependent for our information upon Domesday alone it often becomes 

 difficult to reconstitute the fiscal groups owing to the fact that the basis of 

 assessment was the vill as a whole and not the manor, and that the survey 



' Feud. Engl. 69. 

 278 



