Note 96 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 3)

And now for my theory. No one can have even glanced at the lists I have compiled without being instantly struck by the fact that the 'service' is reckoned in round numbers, and is almost invariably a multiple of 5, if not of 10.96 This discovery, of course, is absolutely destructive of the view that it always represented the number of five-hide (or £20) units contained in the fief. Further, the number of differing fiefs assessed at precisely the same figure proves that the assessment was wholly arbitrary and cannot have been even the round sum which approximated most nearly the number of such units.97 What then was the true determinant in the light of these conclusions? I reply—the unit of the feudal host.