Talk:Hide (unit)

I have replaced the former text which was unreferenced and seemed outdated. The definition quoted was not a definition of a hide. Waysider1925 (talk) 16:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I like the new edit. I've dived in and done some tidying, but I'm sure there's more work to do. For example, 3,200 hides for Northants. rings a bell, but also I seem to remember that the Northants. hidage changed drastically over time, as hidages often did of course - by which I simply mean, yes, that's already suggested in the new edit - but consequently a citation and date is needed for that, and for the Staffs. assessment. Once those are found, I think there'd be room for some explanation. Cyril Hart wrote a paper on the 'Hidation of Northamptonshire', published in 1970, and the 'Northamptonshire Survey' (post-Norman Conquest, but pre-Domesday Book) is published and discussed in vol.2 of the Northants. VCH. But, while Hart can be a bit flaky at times, that VCH piece on Northants. was published in 1906. Also, though the previous "definition" was indeed nothing of the sort, it, and some of the subsequent information, could usefully be restored. The quotation from King Athelstan's laws is illustrative of broader use of the hide, and of the so-called "5 hide unit"; and some of the subsequent details which have now been lost from the article are of similar interest. For example tithings are relevant, though probably the simplest of mentions, plus a wikilink, would be sufficient here. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 10:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have restored 'Northern' before Danelaw because Darby p.10 makes it clear that only the Northern part used carucates; hides were used in the Southern Danelaw. I have restored 'County' in the 3rd para because Stenton pp.644-6 spoke of Counties. The examples of Northants and Staffs came from the same source. Actually he gave 4 examples but I thought 2 were sufficient for the present purpose. I have also restored 'not calculated from below' because I think it makes an important point; many people including the author of the original article think that a hide was a certain area of land, in which case the total of hides in a county would have to be calculated from below. Darby p.10 wrote 'not built up from below'. I thought that 'calculated' made my point as well and I did not want to just copy the source. I have restored my sentence in the last para about Domesday Book. The information was collected in 1086 but the book was not completed until some time later. I do not think the exact date is known. I have a couple of other points but will have to come back to them later.Waysider1925 (talk) 17:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

All good stuff. But, specifically regarding your above concerns, firstly I think what I didn't like about "Northern Danelaw" was really the capitalisation of "northern", as it's a geographical descriptive here, not the name of an area, like for example the "East Midlands" (see e.g. Stenton's use of "northern Danelaw", "southern Danelaw", p. 645). Then, having mentioned that a different system was used in the Danelaw, I supposed that it's the business of the Danelaw article (or indeed the carucate article) to go into that sort of detail, as the present article is about the hide, not the Danelaw carucate. But, I can see that it could be pointed out here that the carucate wasn't used in all of the Danelaw - just, use the lower case "n" instead of the capital "N".

Next in order, though you don't mention it, is my removal of initial capitals in the quotations from Stenton and Bailey: this is normal practice when fitting a quotation into the sense of a sentence, I suppose simply because it makes the sentence easier to read; though equally I suppose it simply depends on the style which is being followed, so I don't have a problem with you reverting that.

About "county", that certainly shouldn't be capitalised; but the central point here is that hidation did not begin with, and wasn't limited to, counties, which is why I added a reference to the Tribal Hidage and the Burghal Hidage: a number of the hidated counties as we know them - counties of the type to which Stenton refers - did not yet exist as such at the time of the Tribal Hidage in particular, which, as its name indicates, treats with tribal hidages, not "county" hidages. So it's not a good idea to tie hides exclusively to counties, and I don't think it's even what Stenton had in mind, though he's not very clear about it, for example when he writes of counties in "English Mercia" (p. 646): such a description had no meaning before the late 9th century, and the creation of the Danelaw; and the Hwinca, the Ciltern, the North and South Gyrwe, and a number of other groupings listed in the Tribal Hidage never existed as "counties", so far as we know. For example, the Hwinca (or "Hwicce") had their own kings, though later they had ealdormen, but in any case they did not form a county that we would recognise; and, judging by Bede, the South Gyrwe had their own royalty too. So, "given area" really is more appropriate: the Tribal Hidage isn't interested in counties as such, and that document long pre-dates the formation of counties as we know them, let alone Domesday Book.

The point about "not calculated from below" is that the sentence already rules it out, so really it's redundant; but, rather than delete it entirely, I moved it to the ref, with an illustrative example - which is about all the attention that the idea requires here, I think, unless you want the main text to start discussing the evidence for "top down" vs. "bottom up".

Regarding the last sentence, about Domesday Book, it wasn't the date that concerned me, or that I changed. Rather, it was the statement that 'hides (or a similar measure)' were used 'throughout England': I think that, by this point in the article, the reader needs either to be reminded what is meant by '(or a similar measure)', or, better still, should only be reminded of where hides were used. Maybe a better description than "southern England" can be found, but I think it's an important point of clarification - "throughout England" won't do.

Lastly, about the ref to 3,200 hides for Northants., and 500 hides for Staffs., I've found the source for that now, via Stenton, as he cites its ultimate source, in the 'early 11th century list generally called the "County Hidage"'. That's all the information that needs to be supplied to remove the Fact tag, I think - the point being, the 'early 11th century' is a snapshot of hidage assessment, and the figures weren't static throughout the use of the hide system, as is indicated in the article.

Hopefully you'll see what I mean about all of that, and you'll let me know what you think. Obviously, from what I've said, I think my alterations were all pretty valid, though I'm not insisting on all of them, and equally I'm open to correction, as anyone should be. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 20:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)