74 Domesday and Feudal Statistics 



Fines ne 



trans 



fretant. 



Supposed 

 develop- 

 ment of the 

 Fee from 

 the Hide. 



Instances of the so-called " enfeoffment " prior 

 to the Conquest have been already cited from the 

 H. R., and I suppose few will deny that the Hide 

 was a Saxon, and the Fee a Norman institution ; 

 but the theory that the figures of 1 166-8 (say total 

 renders] represent the number of Knights due in 

 exercitu t. Wm. L, seems fully as improbable as the 

 unwarranted emergence of the Fee from the Hide. 

 The editor of the Red Book (Rolls Series) appears 

 to think otherwise, as the following citations from 

 his preface to Vol. II. indicate : 



p. clxi. " the ancient system of assessment for imperial taxa- 

 tion, which in the shape of a common assize 



(1) continued to be apportioned according to the old 

 plan of hidation for scutage and aid . . . 

 down to a far later period." 



p. clxi. "the normal Knight's fee contained 4 hides a 

 scale which seems to have been recognised as 



(2) late as the i6th century," with note, citing 

 H. R., II. 830. 



p. clxii. "unless the actual extent of the holding should 

 prove (upon inquisition taken) to contain an 



