The name is absent

112         THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.

same train of reasoning : as the ensuing table will
show.

Thus of the whole productive surface of the
Austrian empire, the arable bears only the propor-
tion of 4:11. But to this must clearly be added
an immense extent of land totally unfitted for the
plough ; by which the ratio of arable to the whole
territorial surface will be materially diminished.
Strange then as the conclusion may appear, we are
compelled to admit that England at the close of the
tenth century had advanced to a high pitch of cul-
tivation: while the impossiblity of reckoning the
hide at much above thirty Saxon acres is demon-
strated. It is clear, however the property of the
land may have been distributed, that the elements
of wealth existed in no common degree¹.

ɪ It is well known that great quantities of land were thrown out of
cultivation to produce chases and forests. And the constant wars of
the baronial ages must have had the same effect. However singular we
may think it, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that, in some districts
of England, the Saxons may have had more land in cultivation than we

The number of forty acres has of course been
taken solely for the purpose of getting a common
measure with the present acre assumed in the parlia-
mentary survey. Whether it corresponded exactly
with thirty, thirty-two or thirty-three Saxon acres,
it is impossible to say, but I have shown that the
difference could not be very great. Something may
be alleged in favour of each of these numbers ; but
on the whole the larger one of thirty-three acres
seems to me the most probable. A valuable entry
of the year 967 may help us to some clearer con-
clusion¹. In this document Bishop Oswald states
himself to have made a grant of seo J>ridde hind
at Dydinccotan, ‰t is, se Jiridde æeer,—the third
hind at Didcot, that is, the third acre. It is cer-
tain that at some very early period the word Iiund
denoted ten, whence we explain its occurrence in
such numerals as hundseofontig, hundeahtatig, etc.
The word hind then, I derive from this hund, and
render by tenth, and the grant seems to have con-
veyed the third tenth, which can only be said of a
quantity containing three times ten units of some
description or other. But this third tenth is fur-
ther described as being every third acre, that is, a
third of the whole land ; and ten units make up
this third : it seems therefore not unreasonable to
suppose that the acre was the unit in question, that

ourselves had at the beginning of George the Third’s reign ; Mr. Por-
ter calculates that from 1760 to 1844, no less than 7,076,610 acres
have been brought into cultivation under Inclosure Bills. Pr. of the
Nation, 164.

‘ Cod. Dipl. No. 638.

VOL. I.                                       I

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