THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
199 
into one view the differing conditions of ownership and occupation, 
and the various characteristics and values. 1 
We all know that the ancient name of Plymouth was Sutton ; 
but when we turn for it to Domesday we are met by one great 
difficulty in the fact that two Devonshire Suttons are there recorded 
— Sudtone, held by the Conqueror in succession to the Confessor ; 
and Svtone, held by the king's servant, William Hostiarius, and 
rented of him by one Richard. The former undoubtedly was a 
1 I do not attempt to assign any definite value to the hide and its divisions. 
Originally, no doubt, it meant as much land as would maintain a household ; 
thence as much as would take a plough team to manage, and afford the team 
maintenance. It thus became the Saxon term for " plough land," as carucate 
was the Norman, and part of the work of the Survey was to reduce the old 
standard to the new. Arable land only was taxed to the hidage or Danegeld, 
and as the breadth of arable extended, while the tax on each estate remained 
in effect a fixed quantity, the disproportion between the hide, which had 
become a nominal unit of taxation, and the carucate, an actual agricultural 
factor, is easily explained. The virgate was a fourth of the hide, and the 
ferding or ferling a fourth of the virgate. Estimates of the area of the hide 
vary from 120 acres and even more down to 40 acres ; and I do not desire 
to offer an opinion. All that appears certain is that it was originally a 
"plough land;" and that by the Norman Conquest it had ceased in the 
present relation to have more than a fiscal bearing — a fact which seems 
strangely to have been overlooked. The local entries clearly show this ; for 
while in one case a ferling contains lj carucates, or equivalent to 24 to the 
hide, and in another a virgate has 10, equivalent to 40, there are cases in 
which the hide is only stated as equal to two. Where the discrepancy is the 
greatest, there, as a rule, since the imposition of the hidage geld, the greatest 
improvements had been made. The acre, mile, and furlong may be regarded 
as decidedly greater than our measures ; and they seem to have been used 
somewhat roughly, as their only purpose was to estimate non-taxable pro- 
perties. The total figures given for the various manors fall, as a rule, very far 
short of the full extent ; for nothing was noted that did not have an actual 
appropriated value, either as arable, pasture (natural pasture, as of any moor- 
land), meadow (and there are indications that this applied chiefly to strath 
land, by the streams), and wood or coppice. Commonly about a fourth only 
of the actual area is thus accounted for ; but in this locality some of the 
smaller manors are much more closely estimated. Of the occupiers under 
the lords or their tenants, the serfs were the lowest, absolute slaves at the 
will of the lord ; the villeins appertained rather to the land, but had certain 
privileges and rights in return for their service ; and the bordars were 
cottagers — opinions differ as to whether they were more free than the villeins, 
or intermediate between them and the serfs. Probably they, in part at least, 
cultivated small patches of ground, and paid a rent in kind, and they may 
also have been, as Mr. Round suggests, labourers on the lord's demesne. 
N 2 
