94
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book i.
Experience of human nature would rather incline
us to believe that, as each band wrung from the
old masters of the soil as much as sufficed for its
own support and safety, it hastened to realize its
position and marked its acquisition by the stamp
and impress of individual possession. It is more-
over probable that, had any solemn and general
agreement been brought about through the in-
fluence of any one predominant chief, we should
not have been left without some record of a fact,
so beneficial in itself, and so conclusive as to the
power and wisdom of its author: this we might
not unreasonably expect, even though we admit
that such an event could only have taken place at
the very commencement of our history, and that
such a division, or, what is more difficult still, re-
division of the soil, is totally inconsistent with the
state of society in England at any period subse-
quent to A.D. 600 : but these are precisely the
cases where the mythus replaces and is ancillary
to history.
Against all these arguments we have only one
fact to adduce, but it is no light one. It is certain
that, in all the cases where a calculation can be made
at all, we do find a most striking coincidence with
respect to the size of the Hide in various parts of
England ; that such calculation is applicable to very
numerous instances, and apparently satisfies the
condition of the problem in all; and lastly that
there appears no reason to suppose that any such
real change had taken place in the value of the Hide,
down to the period of the Norman conquest and the
CH. IV-J
THE EDEL, HI'D OR ALOD.
96
compilation of Domesday, according to the admea-
surement of at least the largest and the most influ-
ential of the English tribes 1. The latest of these
measurements are recorded in Domesday ; the ear-
liest by Beda : the same system of calculations, the
same results, apply to every case in which trial has
been made between these remote limits ; and we are
thus enabled to ascend to the seventh century, a
period at which any equality of possessions is en-
tirely out of the question, but at which the old unit
of measurement may still have retained and handed
down its original value : even as, with us, one farm
may comprise a thousand, another only two or
three hundred acres, and yet the extent of the acre
remain unaltered.
How then are we to account for this surprising
fact, in the face of the arguments thus arrayed
against it? I cannot positively assert, but still
think it highly probable, that there was some such
general measure common to the Germanic tribes
upon the continent, and especially in the north.
Whether originally sacerdotal, or how settled, it is
useless to guess ; but there does seem reason to be-
` Beda almost invariably gives his numbers as “ iuxta ɪnensuram
Anglorum.” Butin his works Anglidenotes all theTeutonic inhabitants
of Britain. H. E. i. cap. 1. Again, in Bk. i. cap. 16, he identifies them,
“ Anglorum sive Saxonum gens.” He draws no distinction between
Angle and Saxon tribes, except where special reasons lead him to par-
ticularize them. He does note discrepancies between them, which
would have appeared far Iessimportantto 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 menβuram Anglorum” denote, “ according to the admeasurement
common to all the Germanic inhabitants of Britain.”