Feudal Statistics 41 



and villenage. Could we transfret the centuries 

 doubtless a landowner would be able to indicate 

 the exact boundaries of his property, and likewise 

 inform of its total Hides, and indicate exactly by 

 whom each item of taxes and rates was paid 

 further it might be found that some tenants paid 

 neither rates nor taxes, and others perhaps in pro- 

 portion to their holdings in the common fields, the 

 owner acquitting the demesne at a more or less 

 arbitrary computation for arable, wood, and grass, 

 by Hides, which may indicate different quantities 

 of ground on 2 adjoining properties. Again either 

 the whole estate may be, say, 10 Hides, or but such 

 portions of it as are concerned in defending them ; 

 in Yorkshire (1086) there can be small doubt that Yorkshire 

 wood and rough pasture is within the carucate, as 

 the dimensions of same are often given and com- 

 prised within the larger areas of the Manors 

 see also Kelham's D. E. Illustrated (p. 231) ; 

 " took from this land i Hide of the aforesaid 

 wood," and " J a Hide of wood." Now tho' it 

 might have been practicable to fix a tax by the 

 acre (instead of the Hide) on arable and grass 

 enclosures, to bring woods and rough pasture land 

 into a similar computation in proportion to their 

 area would be a hard matter, premising that the 

 latter would have to be sought out and measured, 

 and charged at a suitable and varying rate. The 

 scope of the Hide appears to approach to 400 Scope of 

 acr.es in 1086, and its fiscal value then to be 1 20 

 ac. ; and possibly at that period a rough estimate 

 equivalent to 10,000,000 acres (made up as of 

 arable, several meadow and pasture, some wood, 



