Preface. 



IX 



the actual number of those classes ; again it seems 

 to amount to a matter of demonstration that the 

 Carucates of Norfolk (supposedly also Suffolk), 

 were usually neither Fiscal Units nor Teamlands. 



A theory is current that the total "Service" of 

 the Military Fees of England was equivalent to 

 the number of Milites due from the feudal tenants 

 in exercitu ; such a doctrine has nothing a priori 

 in its favor, save facility of computation, nor has 

 it (so far as I am aware), any general support from 

 records, but very much the reverse. 



There is, of course, no attempt here to develope 

 the History of the Feudal System in England ; 

 the publication of some recent volumes of the 

 Rolls Series allowed their editor the opportunity of 

 suggesting (and little more), at considerable length, 

 certain views, scarcely probable in themselves, and 

 which could not have been put forward at all, had 

 a few elementary data, concerning the military 

 tenures of this country, been available for general 

 reference. 



The view that one plough could, and did, //'// 

 annually 120 acres of arable land, has been long 

 established, and is, of course, completely at vari- 

 ance with any known practice of Agriculture in 

 this country ; as theories of this Art are usually 



