2 3 o THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



century was in the eleventh century valued at the highest 

 figure. Nay, more, different portions of the same vill were 

 sometimes valued on different bases. Cutslow, adjoining 

 Watereaton, was divided between two owners. Saward held 

 of the Canons of St. Frideswide 2 hides, on which two teams 

 were employed, and his estate was valued at 40^. ; l Alfred 

 held of Roger of Ivry 3 hides, on which was land for three 

 teams, and on which two teams were employed on the 

 demesne in 1066, but his estate was valued at 4.? And 

 examples could be multiplied. 



It is, therefore, clear that the Commissioners took no little 

 trouble in arriving at the values assigned to the various pro- 

 perties. It would have been easy for them to put a value of 

 i a hide or i a team on all the estates in a hundred. Pro- 

 fessor Maitland has pointed out that "T. R. E. some force, 

 conscious or unconscious, has made for 'one hide, one 

 pound ; '" 3 and this force appears clearly in the Little Domes- 

 day, where the small holdings of the eastern counties are 

 almost universally valued at the rate of 2d. an acre, or ,1 a 

 hide. But out of the 360 Oxfordshire properties separately 

 assessed, there were only fifty-eight estates of which the 

 values T. R. E. work out at 1 a hide, and most of these 

 were small properties of I or 2 hides each ; and there were 

 only seventy estates of which the value in 1086 works out at 

 i a. team. So that the Oxfordshire Commissioners cannot 

 have adopted any rough-and-ready method of valuation, but 

 must have made a separate valuation of every property ; 

 although it must be noticed that the values are always ex- 

 pressed in terms of pounds, or in round sums of shillings, 

 which in many cases are easily reducible to pounds. 



A more careful examination of the figures shows a differ- 

 ence between the standard of value of land wholly in demesne 

 and land partly in demesne and partly occupied by tenants. 



1 D. B., I. 159 a i. - Id., I. 159 a I. 



3 D. B. and B., 465. 



