APPROXIMATE CHARGE OF A DANEGELD OF TWO SHILLINGS ON THE HIDE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.
£ £ Wiltshire 389 | Cambridge 114 Norfolk 330 | Derby and Nottingham 110 Somerset 278 | Hertford 110 Lincoln 266 | Bedford 110 Dorset 248 | Kent 105 Oxford 242 | Devon 104 Essex 236 | Worcester 101 Suffolk 235 | Leicester 100 Sussex 210 | Hereford 94 Bucks 205 | Middlesex 85 Berks 202 | Huntingdon 71 Gloucester 190 | Stafford 44 S. Hants 180 | Cornwall 23 Surrey 177 | Rutland 12 York 160 | Northumberland 100 Warwick 129 | Cheshire[21] 0 N. Hants 120 | ---- Salop 118 | Total 5198
Now be it understood that these figures do not show the amount of money that Henry I. and Henry II. could obtain by a danegeld. They had to take much less. When it was last levied, the tax was not bringing in £3500, so many were the churches and great folk who had obtained temporary or permanent exemptions from it. We will cite Leicestershire for example. The total of the geld charged upon it was almost exactly or quite exactly £100. On the second roll of Henry II.'s reign we find that £25. 7_s._ 6_d._ have been paid into the treasury, that £22. 8_s._ 3_d._ have been 'pardoned' to magnates and templars, that £51. 8_s._ 2_d._ are written off in respect of waste, and that 16_s._ 0_d._ are still due. On the eighth roll the account shows that £62. 12_s._ 7_d._ have been paid and that £37. 6_s._ 9_d._ have been 'pardoned.' No, what our table displays is the amount that would be raised if all exemptions were disregarded and no penny forborne. And now let us turn back to the chronicle and (not to take an extreme example) read of £30,000 being raised. Unless we are prepared to bring against the fathers of English history a charge of repeated, wanton and circumstantial lying, we shall think of the danegeld of Æthelred's reign and of Cnut's as of an impost so heavy that it was fully capable of transmuting a whole nation. Therefore the lines that are drawn by the incidence of this tribute will be deep and permanent; but still we must remember that primarily they will be fiscal lines.
Then again, we ought not to look to Domesday Book for a settled and stable scheme of technical terms. Such a scheme could not be established in a brief twenty years. About one half of the technical terms that meet us, about one half of the terms which, as we think, ought to be precisely defined, are, we may say, English terms. They are ancient English words, or they are words brought hither by the Danes, or they are Latin words which have long been in use in England and have acquired special meanings in relation to English affairs. On the other hand, about half the technical terms are French. Some of them are old Latin words which have acquired special meanings in France, some are Romance words newly coined in France, some are Teutonic words which tell of the Frankish conquest of Gaul. In the one great class we place _scira_, _hundredum_, _wapentac_, _hida_, _berewica_, _inland_, _haga_, _soka_, _saka_, _geldum_, _gablum_, _scotum_, _heregeat_, _gersuma_, _thegnus_, _sochemannus_, _burus_, _coscet_; in the other _comitatus_, _carucata_, _virgata_, _bovata_, _arpentum_, _manerium_, _feudum_, _alodium_, _homagium_, _relevium_, _baro_, _vicecomes_, _vavassor_, _villanus_, _bordarius_, _colibertus_, _hospes_. It is not in twenty years that a settled and stable scheme can be formed out of such elements as these. And often enough it is very difficult for us to give just the right meaning to some simple Latin word. If we translate _miles_ by _soldier_ or _warrior_, this may be too indefinite; if we translate it by _knight_, this may be too definite, and yet leave open the question whether we are comparing the _miles_ of 1086 with the _cniht_ of unconquered England or with the knight of the thirteenth century. If we render _vicecomes_ by _sheriff_ we are making our sheriff too little of a _vicomte_. When _comes_ is before us we have to choose between giving Britanny an _earl_, giving Chester a _count_, or offending some of our _comites_ by invidious distinctions. Time will show what these words shall mean. Some will perish in the struggle for existence; others have long and adventurous careers before them. At present two sets of terms are rudely intermixed; the time when they will grow into an organic whole is but beginning.