Page:VCH Leicestershire 1.djvu/348

A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE of the ninth century. Place-names, for instance, which end in the ' Danish * termination * by ' are very common in the county, especially in the neighbour- hood of the Wreak Valley ; the map of Leicestershire thus bears good testimony to the Scandinavian phase in the history of the shire. But the evidence of local nomenclature is immensely reinforced by a study of the fiscal organization of the county, which at once places Leicestershire, together with the whole district of which we are speaking, in a class quite apart from the shires of the south midlands and the west of England. In the northern Danelaw, of which Leicestershire thus forms a part, the unit of taxation was the ' carucate,' consisting of 8 bovates, and (probably) of 120 acres ; in the south of England these carucates are replaced by ' hides,' composed of 4 virgates, each virgate being probably reckoned to contain 30 acres. But in addition to this difference in terminology there lies a still more important distinction between the Danelaw and the rest of England in the manner in which these fiscal units were distributed among the several vills in the respective counties. It was shown by Mr. Round in Feudal ILngland that, whereas a Cambridgeshire or Oxfordshire vill will probably be assessed at some fraction or multiple of 5 hides, a Lincolnshire vill will commonly answer for some fraction or multiple of 6 carucates. 5 In other words the assessment of the hidated counties was decimal in character, that of the Danelaw was duodecimal, and in no part of the latter district is the duodecimal system of reckoning more clearly shown than in Leicestershire. In the following table some of the simplest instances in point are collected : Assessment 24 carucates 18 18 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 Vill Croxton Kerrial Harby . . Thrussington Billesdon . Harston . Great Easton Noseley . Carlton Curlieu Peatling Magna Cold Overton Nether Broughton 12 Cotesbach . 9 Sibson . . -9 Bagworth . 9 Hallaton . . 6 Tugby . . 6 Twycross . . 6 Holwell . . 6 Ragdale . . 6 Cossington . 6 The above set of figures affords good evidence of the existence of the 6-carucate unit in Leicestershire, but in those counties in regard to which we are dependent for our information upon Domesday alone it often becomes difficult to reconstitute the fiscal groups owing to the fact that the basis of assessment was the vill as a whole and not the manor, and that the survey ' Feud. Engl. 69. 278 vm Assessment Kirby Bellars . 24 carucates Stathern . . . 18 Luddington . 12 Knipton . . . 12 SkefEngton . . 12 Scraptoft . . . 12 Burton Overy . 12 Ingarsby . . . 12 Peatling Parva . 12 Goadby Marwood 12 Great Bowden . 12 Syston . . . 9 V Shawell . 9 Coston 9 Wartnaby . . 6 Ibstock 6 Medbourne . 6 Ab Kettleby 6 Orton-on-the-Hill 6 Tilton . . 6