CHAPTER XIV 

 THE INCIDENCE OF THE GELD 



THE function of a present-day valuation list is to enable 

 the rating authority to know from whom and in what 

 proportion the rates are to be levied. Similarly, the 

 function of Domesday Book was to enable the Royal Ex- 

 chequer and the sheriffs to know from whom and in what 

 proportions the geld was payable. 



We have already seen that the hide was the unit of assess- 

 ment. A property that was assessed at 50 hides paid five 

 times the amount of geld that was paid by a property that 

 was assessed at 10 hides ; and when once a vill had been 

 assessed at a certain number of hides, its assessment remained 

 unaltered as a general rule, except in cases where for some 

 reason or another its assessment had been reduced. Such 

 reduction is to-day called " beneficial hidation," and is most 

 frequently found in the south-eastern counties. In Sussex 

 the first term of the formula often runs, " T. R. E. it gelded 

 for A hides ; now for A 1 ." 



There were two methods of beneficial hidation. Some- 

 times the reduction was made as a personal favour to the 

 owner of a certain estate ; sometimes the hidation of a whole 

 district was reduced, and every vill in that district received 

 its proportion of the reduction. In the " Calendar of Docu- 

 ments preserved in France," edited by Mr. Round, is a grant 

 by William the Conqueror to the monks of St. Mary of 

 Moitain, of Hinctune in Piddle (Dorset), a manor of 10 hides, 



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