Note 154 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES

Just as the 'Hundred' of Lincolnshire was a sum of twelve carucates, so the 'Hide' of Leicestershire was a sum of eighteen carucates.154 Working in the light of this discovery (for as such I claim it), we find that the other 'hides', thus interpreted, give us an aggregate of 'carucates' obviously suitable to the recorded ploughlands.155 It may, however, be fairly asked why Domesday should speak in one place of half a 'hide', and in another of nine 'carucates'; in one place of a hide and a third, and in another of twenty-four carucates. The answer is that the singular love of variety which distinguishes Domesday in Cambridgeshire (as we saw) is at work here also. For instance, two equal estates are thus described: 'Willelmus iiii. car' terræ et dimidiam et iii. bovatas, et Rogerus iiii. car' terræ et vii. bovatas' (fo. 234a). The same instinct which led the scribe to enter these seven bovates as half a carucate plus three bovates, led him also to enter ten and a half carucates as half a hide plus a carucate and a half (fo. 237a).