Hide (unit) - After The Norman Conquest

After The Norman Conquest

Domesday Book, recording the results of the survey made on the orders of King William I in 1086, states in hides (or carucates or sulungs as the case might be) the assessed values of estates throughout the area covered by the survey. Usually it gives this information for 1086 and also for the time of Edward the Confessor (i.e. shortly before the Conquest), but some counties were different and only showed this information for one of those dates. By that time the assessments showed many anomalies.

Sometimes the assessment in hides is given both for the whole manor and for the demesne land (i.e.the lord's own demesne) included in it.

The Norman kings continued after the Conquest to use the system which they found in place. Geld was levied at intervals on the existing hidage assessments. Dr Sally Harvey has suggested that the ploughland data in Domesday Book was intended to be used for a complete re-assessment but, if so, it was never actually made. The Pipe Rolls, where they are available, show that levies were based largely on the old assessments, though with some amendments and exemptions.

The last recorded levy was for 1162-3 during the reign of Henry II, but the tax was not formally abolished and Henry II thought of using it again between 1173 and 1175. The old assessments were used for a tax on land in 1193-4 to raise money for King Richard's ransom.