Note 204 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 3)

In the cartae of 1166 we have fees of 5 hides,204 of 4,205 of 6,206 of 10,207 of 2½,208 and even of 2;209 also of 5 carucates,210 of 11,211 and of 14.212 Cartularies, however, are richer in evidence of this discrepancy. Thus the six fees of St Albans contained 40 hides (an average of 6⅔ hides each), the figures being 5½, 7, 8½, 6, 5½, 7½.213 So too in the Abingdon Cartulary (ii. 3) we find four fees containing 19 hides, three containing 14, a half-fee 4, a fee and a half 13, one fee, 10, 5, 9. On the other hand, if we take 20 librates as the amount of the fee—which it was already, as Dr Stubbs observes, in the days of the Conqueror—the cartae confirm that conclusion.214 We must therefore conclude that the knight's fee, held by an under-tenant, consisted normally of an estate, worth £20 a year, and was not based on the 'five hides' of the Anglo-Saxon system.