Norman Conquest Encyclopedia

The unit of measurement relating to military service, the fyrd and to land taxation, the geld, was the hide. In the military context the Anglo-Saxon custom was to raise one armed man from every five hides. Twenty men were thus made available by every hundred hides, and the hundred thus became a sub-unit of the shire. The men of a given hundred probably served together. Those areas under the rule of the Danes, that is those within the Danelaw, had similar arrangements, with the carucate in place of the hide and the wapentake in place of the hundred.

See also: Anglo-Saxon; carucate; Danes; fyrd; geld; hide

Related Reading:

• Anglo Saxon Thegn (Warrior 5)