第102章

This conclusion coincides with the most important fact, that the reckoning of acres in regard to the plough-team is entirely different in the treatises on husbandry from what it is in the manorial records drawn up for the purpose of an assessment of duties and payments. Walter of Henley and Fleta reckon 180 acres to the plough in a three-field system, and 160 in a two-field system. Now these figures are quite exceptional in surveys, whereas 120 acres is most usual without any distinction as to the course of rotation of crops. The relation between the three-field ploughland of 180 acres and the hide of 120 suggests the inference that the official assessment started from the prevalence of the three-field rotation, and disregarded the fallow. But the inference is hardly sufficient to explain the facts of the case. The way towards a solution of the problem is indicated by the terminology of the Ely surveys in the British Museum. These documents very often mention virgates and full yardlands of twelve acres de ware; on the other hand, the Court Rolls from Edward I's time till Elizabeth's, and a survey of the reign of Edward III, show the virgate to consist of twenty-four acres.(36*) The virgate de ware corresponds usually to one-half of the real virgate; I say usually, because in one case it is reckoned to contain eighteen acres in the place of twenty-four mentioned in the rolls and the later survey.(37*) Such 'acre ware' are to be found, though rarely, in other manors besides those of Ely minster.(38*) The contradiction between the documents may be taken at first glance to originate in a difference between the number of acres under actual tillage and the number of acres comprised in the holding: perhaps the first reckoning leaves out the fallow. This explanation has been tried by Mr O. Pell, the present owner of one of the Ely manors he started it in connexion with an etymology which brought together 'ware' and 'warectum': on this assumption twelve acres appeared instead of twenty-four, because the fallow of the two-field system was left out of the reckoning. But this reading of the evidence does not seem satisfactory. It is one-sided at the least. Why should the holding from which the 'warectum' has been left out get its name from the 'warectum'? How is one to explain either from the two-field or from the three-field system the case when eighteen 'acre ware' correspond to twenty-four common acres, or the even more perplexing case when eighteen acres of 'ware' go to the full land and twelve to half-a-full land?(39*) In fact, this last instance does not admit of any explanation from natural conditions, because in the natural course of things twelve will never come to be one-half of eighteen. Thus we are driven to assume that the 'ware' reckoning is an artificial one: as such it could, of course, treat the half-holdings in a different way from the full holdings. Now the only possible basis for an artificial distribution seems to be the assessment of rents and labour.

Starting from this assumption we shall have to say that the virgate 'de wara' represents a unit of assessment in which twelve really existing acres have been left out of the reckoning. The assessment stretches only over half the area occupied by the real holding.

The conclusion we have come to is corroborated by the meaning of the word 'wara.' The etymological connexion with warectum is not sound; the meaning may be best brought out by a comparison with those instances where the word is used without a direct reference to the number of acres. We often find the expression 'ad inwaram' in Domesday, and it corresponds to the plain 'ad gildam Regis'. If a manor is said to contain seven hides ad inwaram, it is meant that it pays to the king for seven hides, although there may have been more than seven ploughteams and ploughlands. Another expression of like import is, 'pro sextem hidis se defendit erga Regem.' The Burton Cartulary, the earliest survey after Domesday, employed the word 'wara' in the same sense.(40*) It is not difficult to draw the inference from the above-mentioned facts: the etymological connexion for 'wara' is to be sought in the German word for defence -- 'wehre.' The manor defends itself or answers to the king for seven hides. The expression could get other special significations besides the one discussed: we find it for the poll-tax, by which a freeman defends himself in regard to the state,(41*) and for the weir, which prevents the fish from escaping into the river.(42*)This origin and use of the term is of considerable.

importance, because it shows the artificial character of the system and its close connexion with the taxation by the State.

This is a disturbing element which ought to be taken into account by the side of the agrarian influence. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the assessment started from actual facts, from existing agrarian conditions and divisions. The hide, the yardland, the oxgang existed not only in the geld-rolls, but in fact and on the ground. But in geld-rolls they appeared with a regularity they did not possess in real fact; the rolls express all modifications in the modes of farming and all exemptions, not in the shape of any qualification or lighter assessment of single plots, but by way of striking off from the number of these plots, or from the number of acres in them; the object which in modern times would be effected by the registration of a 'rateable value'