THE DOMESDAY SURVEY the other county where the avera prevailed. There is abundant evidence that its value was there reckoned at Sd. In the Hundred of Staplehoe 2 sokemen who held 2 hides at Chippenham ' found, each of them, Sd. or i horse in the king's service ' (fo. 1 97) ; on another manor each soke- man ' found i horse for avera or 8d. yearly ' ; l on another 2 sokemen ' used to find avera or Sd. yearly ' ; 2 and on a fourth a sokeman who had only a virgate 'found avera or Bo 1 . ' (fo. 196^). This last entry may serve to illustrate another difference between the two counties ; for, while in Hertfordshire the hide was the unit from which an avera was due, in Cambridgeshire we cannot detect any such uniform unit. But let us turn to the ' inward.' At Wratting, in another Cambridgeshire Hundred, we find a valuable entry ; 3 hides in that vill were held by i o sokemen, ' of whom 6 used to find avera and 4 inguard, if the king came into the shire ; if (he did) not, they used to render So 1 . for (an) avera and ^d. for an inguard' (fo. 190^). There is sufficient evidence in Cambridgeshire to prove that an inward or inguard was reckoned at 4^., but a noteworthy entry under Fulbourne tells us that there 4 hides were held by 26 sokemen who ' render . . . yearly 12 horses and 12 " inguards " if the king should come into the county, (and) if he should not come 1 2s. So 1 . They used to render to the sheriff T.R.E. only averse and "inguards" or izs. So 1 .' (fo. 190). Here the commutation seems Sd. too much, but as the sokemen were 26 in number, not 24, I believe that there was a slight error both in Domesday and in the original returns, 3 and that 1 2 of the sokemen rendered averts and 14 of them 'inguards,' which would make the sum exactly right. It has been necessary to illustrate by this Cambridge evidence the Hertford- shire averce and ' inwards,' but in the latter county the ' inwards ' are far more rarely mentioned and are indeed restricted to Hitchin and its sub- manors (fo. 1 3 zb] . The avera, which was so common in Hertfordshire, was, as we learn from the Cambridgeshire entries, essentially service with a horse ; and so I believe was the ' inward.' A useful parallel is found in the services due to the abbot of Ely from his sokemen in East Anglia, as recorded even before Domesday ; they had to carry to the abbey the food for the monks' support, and to place their horses at the abbot's disposal as often as he would.* The avera was a duty of much conse- quence in mediaeval times. 8 There is a close connection between avera and * inward ' and the second of the subjects I mentioned at the outset, namely the peculiar 1 Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigieniii, p. 4. 8 Ibid. pp. 89.
- For instances of such errors as this (' xii.' for ' xiiii.') see my Feudal England.
4 ' Portabunt victum monachorum ad monasterium,' etc., etc. (Feudal England, pp. 313). 5 See VinogradofPs Villainage in England, pp. 2856: 'A very important item in the work necessary for mediaeval husbandry was the business of carrying produce from one part of the country to the other. . . . The obligation to provide horses and carts gains in importance accordingly," etc., etc. An idea of the character of avera is given by an entry in the Bleadon Custumal, cited in Seebohm's English Village Community (p. 57) : 'Et idem facit averagium apud Bristoll' et apud Wellias . . . cum affro suo ducente bladum domini, caseum et lanam, et cetera omnia quae sibi serviens precipere voluerit.' The commutation of this service for the payment of a certain number of pence, which is so frequent in the Hertfordshire Domesday, gave rise to the term ' averpenny,' which is often met with in mediaeval documents. 2 7 I
