Feudal Statistics 33 



rather than the plough,* and in 1222 (St. Paul's 

 Domesday, Camd. Soc.) Hides are continually 

 defended against both King and Sheriff, whilst the 

 jurors of Draitone name exactions made in common 

 by Hides, which supports the view that taxation 



* W. H. Stevenson (writing in the E. H. R., vol. iv., Carucage. 

 p. 109) challenges the statement that Carucage was ever 

 levied on the plough-team itself (citing A.D. 1220) ; as the 

 Close Rolls for that year (4 Hen. III., 1220) contain writs 

 (Rot. Cl. i. 437^ and b} to all the Sheriffs of England to levy 

 2s. on each plough_, as it was joined on. the morrow of the feast 

 of St. John the Baptist last past, it would seem to require 

 that extreme abstraction (so conspicuous a mark of the 

 ex cathedra writer), to explain the union of Hides or Carucates 

 on the morrow, etc. : the writ of course refers to the yoking 

 of oxen in the plough-teams, and not to some absolutely 

 meaningless junction of acre to acre at a particular date. The 

 above [E. H. R., vol. iv., p. 109] seems seriously enough 

 written, but merely shows the modern usages of the Schools, 

 whereby the critic can expound what he has either not 

 read, or is incompetent to understand : these writs (Cl. 

 4 Hen. III.) show that in Northants (and perhaps in all 

 counties) the demesnes of all clerks and their rustics were 

 exempted, and that the ploughs of their Knights and free 

 tenants were not to be answered by the collectors in their 

 rolls ; Subsidy -- (marked /. Hen. III. in the official slips, 

 and certainly of the time when Falkes de Breaute was in 

 power) is presumably the return for this county (the best 

 carucage known to the writer), stating the exemption of the pre- 

 lates and their rustics, together with omissions of 9 other fees, 

 honours, etc., and responding for 26l^\ ploughs (possibly from 

 of the shire), as against 2422 teams in the whole county in 

 1086 (D. B.), at which date were some 1356 Hides. There 

 are other carucages in existence, but usually of little statistical 

 value, omitting mention of exemptions, and parts of the 

 counties otherwise collected ; in addition to this there would 

 be the usual mediaeval tendency towards assessment rather Mediaeval 

 than enumeration (vide writ as above) : in 4 Hen. III., taxation ' 

 Yorks, and Lines, pay 200 and 40 (the equivalent of 

 2,000 and 400 ploughs) respectively figures which can 

 scarcely deceive the most credulous. 



3 



