IV.{ Hengrave 10 { Fornham 10 ------ 20 0 1 8
{ Ickworth 7-1/2 V.{ Chevington 6-1/2 { Hargrave 7 ------ 21 0 1 9
{ Brockley 7 VI.{ Rede 7 { Manston 6 ------ 20 0 1 8
VIII.{ Hawstead 13-1/2 { Newton 6-1/2 ------ 20 0 1 8
X., XI., XII. Sudbury 60 0 5 0 ---------- £1 0 0-1/2
The two records--Domesday and the Inquest--thus confirm one another, and their concurrent testimony establishes the fact not only that the Suffolk Hundred was divided into blocks of equal assessment, but that these blocks were known by the name of 'leets'.
Now Professor Maitland, in his Dissertation on the 'History of the Word Leet',[185] pronounces this 'the earliest occurrence of the word' that he has seen. But I can carry it back to Domesday itself. Though not entered in the _Index Rerum_, we find it in such instances as these:
'H[undredum] de Grenehou de xiv. letis' (ii. 119_b_).
'Hund[redum] et dim[idium] de Clakelosa de x. leitis' (ii. 212_b_).
I think it probable that in these cases the entry happened to stand first on the original return for the Hundred, and so--as in the I.E., where it is derived from the original returns--the general heading crept in. Though Professor Maitland has to leave the origin of the word unexplained, it seems to me impossible to overlook the analogy between the Danish _lægd_, described by Dr Skeat as a division of the country (in Denmark) for military conscription,[186] and the East Anglian _leet_, a division of the country (as we have seen) for purposes of taxation.
Sudbury, it will be observed, was _a quarter_ of the Hundred of Thingoe,[187] just as Huntingdon was a quarter of a Hundred,[188] and Wisbech a quarter of a Hundred.[189]
Having thus obtained from the Hundred of Thingoe the clue to this peculiar system, we can advance to more difficult types. The Hundred of Thedwastre, for instance, was divided not into twelve blocks, each paying twenty pence in the pound, but into nine blocks, each paying twenty-seven. This assessment allowed a margin of 3d for every pound (i.e. £1 0s 3d); but in the case of Thedwastre the total excess was only 1-1/2d on the pound (i.e. £1 0s 1-1/2d). I group the Vills _tentatively_, thus:
{ Peckenham 13-1/2} III. { Bradfield 5 } 26-1/2 { Fornham St Genevieve 8 }
