Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/96

SB THE FIRM A UN I US NOGTIS January in giving away their pastus or victus, the food-ferm, as we believe, and other chiefs in troubled times of war and invasion, by usurpa- tion of this royal due and the land from which it was due, must have materially reduced the area from which it could be collected. It seems likely, moreover, that the imposition of Danegeld had released some land from the render, as in the case of the boroughs of Dorset noted above. Some such general restriction in the ferm, due to temporary hardship or to generous exemption by the king, may underlie the law of Cnut : ^ * I command my reeves that they take care of my own and supply me from it and force no one to contribute unless he wishes to.' Through such royal dis- pensation or from necessity the customs of the ferm may have fallen largely into abeyance. It is possible, therefore, that by the time of the Confessor or the Conqueror the ferm was drawn mainly from estates in the royal demesne, a fact which by itself would account for its general appearance as a rent-charge upon royal estates in Domesday. This, however, has not obliterated those few surviving instances in Domesday of its being drawn now and again as consuetudines firmae from lands outside the demesne, the remnant of a tax which it would seem was once levied on the whole hundred. Nor if the ferm had only been rendered by the demesne, would it account for the not infrequent survival of hundred-pennies through the time of Edward I, a render connected with the imposition of the ferm upon the hundred. We may grant that the ferm of a night was paid more consistently by royal demesne than by the hundred in the eleventh century, though at the same time making allowance for the silence of Domesday. The payment of hundred-pennies or ferm customs by lands in the hundred may have continued more regularly than the few specifically recorded instances or the general silence of Domesday allows us to construe. In any case there is sufficient evidence, I believe, to deter- mine the nature of the ferm and the mode of its collection. It seems to have been a render designed for the king's support, and to have been drawn from all land in the demesne as a demesne ferm. The demesne ferm was complemented by additional renders called customs of the ferm, due from land outside the demesne; indeed, at one time, from all land in the hundred. The unit render was the ferm of a night or the ferm of day which in multiples or divided into regular quotas was distributed among the hundreds contributing. All told, the hundreds gave a certain number of nights' ferms for which the shire was respon- sible. Each himdred having been assigned its quota, each hide took up its share. Such a regular rate on the hide may go as far back as the time of Ine, when ten hides must give what • Cnut, ii. 69. 1.