454 
Wight 86,800 acres, or about 136 square miles. But it 
is very probable that the district of Elmet contained much 
more. 
Bishop Kennet, in his Parochial Antiquities, observes 
that the word " hide" was originally taken for a house, and 
what Bede calls familias — that is, as much land as would 
maintain a family ; for his Saxon interpreter, King Alfred, 
calls the owner a Hydelander. The quantity of a hide was 
never expressly determined — sometimes it contained 100 
acres, sometimes eight virgates (192 acres). The truth seems 
to be, hide, knights' fee, and yardland differed in different 
places. 
Now it is quite certain that in the Saxon times the hide 
contained more land in the sterile or uncultivated lands of 
the north of England than in the more fruitful districts of 
the south. For instance, it appears from Domesday Survey 
for some parts of Lancashire, six carucates or 600 acres 
made a hide of land, but in other counties the hide and 
carucate were mostly the same. The district of Elmet, it is 
supposed, took its name from abounding in elm trees. As will 
hereafter appear, it is conjectured that it included within its 
bounds at least the valleys of the Wharfe and Aire, and 
probably also that of the Calder. Every one traversing 
these valleys cannot but be struck with the large remnants 
of the forests which completely covered their slopes in the 
days of our Saxon forefathers. In Otley manor, there were 
at the time of the Domesday Survey — Coppice Wood, nine 
miles in length and nine miles in breadth ; the Great Wood 
of Farnley, near Leeds; the Bishop's Wood, near Sherburn, 
and numerous others, are vestiges of the immense forests 
which spread over the face of Elmet, and gave security and 
independence to its inhabitants. It is evident, therefore, 
from the existence of these immense forests, and the vast 
tracts of moorland between the valleys, that a very extensive 
