Note 155 — Chapter IV · LANDED POSSESSION. THE EÐEL, HÍD OR ALOD.

Beda almost invariably gives his numbers as “iuxta mensuram Anglorum.” But in his works Angli denotes all the Teutonic inhabitants of Britain. H. E. i. cap. 1. Again, in Bk. i. cap. 15, he identifies them, “Anglorum sive Saxonum gens.” He draws no distinction between Angle and Saxon tribes, except where special reasons lead him to particularize them. He does note discrepancies between them, which would have appeared far less important to a scientific and mathematical thinker, as he was, than differences in land-divisions. I conclude then that no limitation can be admitted in his assertion, and that the words “iuxta mensuram Anglorum” denote, “according to the admeasurement common to all the Germanic inhabitants of Britain.”