Silverley 6-1/2} 4} 8} Ashley 3-1/2} 10 2} 6 4} 12 Saxon Street 5 3 7[93] Ditton 5 3[92] (or 4) 10 Ditton 10 1 16 Kirtling 10 6 21 Cheveley 10[91] -- 50
As a preliminary point, attention may be called to the fact that the grouping of Ashley and Silverley, although they are surveyed separately in the _Inq. Com. Cant._, is justified by their forming, as 'Ashley-cum-Silverley' a single parish. So too, Saxon Street may be safely combined with Ditton, in which it is actually situate. We thus have a Hundred of fifty hides divided into five blocks of ten hides each, and thus presenting a precise parallel to the Hundred of Staines, the first that we examined.
And now for the reductions. As the Vill of Cheveley, unluckily, is nowhere surveyed as a whole, we have in its case no evidence. But of the five remaining Vills above (counting Ashley-cum-Silverley as one), four we see had had their assessments reduced on a _uniform_ scale, just as in the Hundred of Long Stow. Now this is a singular circumstance, and it leads me to this conclusion. I believe that, precisely as in the latter case, the assessment of the Hundred _as a whole_ was reduced by twenty hides. This was equivalent to 40 per cent, which was accordingly knocked off from the assessment of each of its constituent Vills. One of the Dittons is clearly an exception, having nine hides, not four, thus knocked off. I would suggest, as the reason for this exception, that Ditton having now become a 'dominica villa regis' (_Inq. Com. Cant._, p. 10), was specially favoured by having a five-hide unit further knocked off its assessment, just as in the case of Chippenham (_Ibid._, p. 2).[94]
It has been my object in the above argument to recall attention to the corporate character, the _solidarité_ of the Hundred. This character, of which the traces are preserved in its collective responsibility, even now, for damages caused by riot, strongly favours the view which I am here bringing forward, that it was the Hundred itself which was assessed for geld, and which was held responsible for its payment. Although this view is absolutely novel, and indeed destructive of the accepted belief, it is in complete harmony with the general principle enunciated by Dr Stubbs, and is a further proof of the confirmation which his views often obtain from research and discovery. Treating of 'the Hundred as an area for rating', he writes thus: