Norman Conquest Encyclopedia

In Anglo-Saxon England the king had income from his private resources, from food-rents (payments made in the form of food and drink) and expenditure was avoided by him by the duties laid on certain citizens to maintain bridges and other public works. In addition to these there was the land tax, the geld. The measure of land used to determine liability was the hide, theoretically the area required to support a peasant family. It therefore varied with the fertility of the locality. This was the same measure used in connection with raising an army, the fyrd. One of the earliest forms of liability was the Tribal Hideage, a charge on a whole group of people, and later, in a more urban society, the Burghal Hideage was employed to assess the tax falling on a town, especially one to be fortified. In practice the system varied from one part of England to another, and there were numerous exceptions and special cases, but the system was retained under the Normans and the purpose of the Domesday Book was to pin down the obligations of every landholding in England.

See also: Anglo-Saxon; Domesday Book; fyrd; hide; Norman