Feudal Statistics 3 1 





they were lords as above, which hypothesis is Modern 

 incompatible with the non-subjection of the majority Andent f 

 of the rest of the population to said small owners, Land ~ , 



, , r . r . , ~ , , r . ' ownership 



and hence contains in itself the elements or its own impractic- 

 destruction ; tho' of course a nation of such pro- able ' 

 prietors might exist as an aristocracy of yeomen, 

 and a democracy of farm-labourers in proper pro- 

 portions. But the postulate seems rather to be 

 that some half of the heads of families^were peasant 

 proprietors with such relatively enormous holdings 

 as to be quite impracticable on the given conditions ; 

 whether or not this pleasing but unreal picture has 

 had its originals in the congested atmosphere of 

 our own fountains of learning, or was imported 

 already constructed from across the ocean is beyond 

 our power to discern, but so great an oddity is 

 there in the appearance thereof, as to deny any 

 kinship with the open air of the fields. 



The Hide appears in the Heptarchic memo- 

 randum already cited, in the laws of Ine before 

 A.D. 694, in the endorsement of Nunna's grant 

 (K. 1000), in A.D. 725 at the end of Wiglaf's 



There were some 15,000-18,000 places in the counties Places, 



recorded in D. B. 1086, and possibly Manors somewhat Mf, 001 " 3 ' ^ 

 ,. . . i r L r i Vills, and 



corresponding, giving each of the former an average popula- Parishes, 



tion of about 100 : in 1315-16 the vills fall far short of this 1086-1377. 

 number, but no statistical results can be drawn from these 

 returns of 9 Ed. II., owing to deficiencies and lack of 

 uniformity ; thus, in Yorks there are about the same no. 

 of vills, as places in 20 Wm. I., but in certain counties the 

 former are less than the no. of parishes recorded in 1371, 

 which in all England (save Cheshire) amounted to 8,600, 

 answering to an average of 300 folR, or rather less per 

 parish, as by the Poll Tax of 1377 ; in 16 Ed. II. (Parl. 

 Writs, vol. ii.) is a classification of vills, \ vills, hamlets, and 

 parts of vills. 



