92
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
mansio, manens and terra tributarii. The words
Hid and Hiwisc are similar, if not identical, in
meaning : they stand in close etymological relation
to Higan, Hiwan, the family, the man and wife,
and thus perfectly justify the Latin terms familia
and Cassatus ɪ, by which they are translated. The
Hid then, or Hide of land, is the estate of one
household, the amount of land sufficient for the
support of one family 2. It is clear however that
this could not be an invariable quantity, if the
households were to be subsisted on an equal scale :
it must depend upon the original quality and con-
dition of the soil, as well as upon manifold contin-
gencies of situation—climate, aspect, accessibility
of water and roads, abundance of natural manures,
proximity of marshes and forests, in short an end-
less catalogue of varying details. If therefore the
Hide contained a fixed number of acres all over
England, and all the freemen were to be placed in a
position of equal prosperity, we must assume that
in the less favoured districts one Hide, would not
suffice for the establishment of one man, but that
his allotment must have comprised more than that
quantity. The first of these hypotheses may be
very easily disposed of : there is not the slightest
ground for supposing that any attempt was, or
1 Cassatus or casatus, a married man, Span, casado. Othello speaks
of his unhoused free condition, that is, his bachelor state. It is by
marriage that a man founds a house or family.
a Henry of Huntingdon thus defines its extent : “ Hida autem An-
glice vocatur terra unius aratri cultura sufficiens per annum.” lib. vi.
an. 1008. But this is a variable amount on land of various qualities,
as every ploughman well knows.
СИ. IV. J
THE EDEL, HI'D OR ΛLOD.
93
could be, made to regulate the amount of individual
possession beyond the limit of each community ; or
that there ever was, or could be, any concert be-
tween different communities for such a purpose.
The second supposition however presents greater
difficulties.
There is no doubt a strong antecedent improba-
bility of the Hide having been alike all over Eng-
land : isolated as were the various conquests which
gradually established the Saxon rule in the several
districts, it can hardly be supposed that any agree-
ment was at first found among bands, engaged in
continual struggles for safety, rather than for ex-
tension of territory. It may indeed be objected
that later, when the work of conquest had been
consolidated, when, under the rule of powerful chief-
tains, the resistance of the Britons had ceased to
appear dangerous,, some steps may have been taken
towards a general arrangement ; those historians
who please themselves with the phantom of a Saxon
confederation under one imperial head,—a Bretwal-
dadðm—may find therein an êasy solution of this,
and many other difficulties1 : but still it seems
little likely that the important step of dividing the
country should have been postponed, or that a suc-
cessful body of invaders should have thought it
necessary to wait for the consent or co-operation of
others, whose ultimate triumph was yet uncertain.
It does not seem very clear why the idea of one measure of land
should suggest itself to either many such chieftains or one such Bret-
walda, while other arrangements of a much more striking and neces-
sary character remained totally different.