Note 156 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES

Several years have elapsed since I wrote the above explanation, but I have decided to publish it exactly as it originally stood. In the meanwhile, however, Mr Stevenson has dealt with the subject in an article on 'The Hundreds of Domesday: the Hundred of Land' (1890).156 He has advanced the ingenious theory that the Leicestershire 'hida' was only a clerical error for H[undred], and that it was really that 'Hundred' of twelve carucates which we meet with in the Lindsey Survey. To prove this, he reads an entry on 236a, 1, as 'Ogerus Brito tenet in Cilebe de rege ii. partes unius hidæ, id est xii. car[ucatæ] terræ', and claims that this gloss defines the 'hida' as a 'hundred' of twelve carucates. I confess that to me such a rendering is in the highest degree non-natural. If we speak of 'two-thirds of a yard, that is twenty-four inches', we should clearly imply that the yard itself was thirty-six inches, not twenty-four. Similarly, I claim to render the 'gloss' as implying that the 'hida' itself contained eighteen carucatæ, not twelve.157 If I am right, Mr Stevenson's suggestion that this 'hida' was really a 'Hundred' also falls to the ground.