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14. Division deletion & /deletion addition and /addition measures of Land, with the Value of Bullion deletion & /deletion addition and /addition Species of Coin in this Country.

There does not appear to have been any Certain measure For Land in England before the Danish Ara, Walter Whitlesey the Monk of Peterborough tells us, that King Ethelred offered a Tribute to the Danes for the levying which the Realm was measured, deletion & /deletion addition and /addition the money raised by Hides; We find in some Antient Writers, that the Kingdom had been divided into 33. Shires.

By Dunstable Book, Westsex Law contain’d 9. Shires & 80,800 Hides.

Danelaw contain’d 18 Shires & 32.00. Hides Merchelaw contain’d 8 Shires & 11,800 Hides, all these are said by Doomesday to have paid Danegeld according to their Hides.

N.B. Here seems an immence disproportion, as the first Division of 9. Shires contains above 26. times more Hides than the second, that had double number of Shires, besides the number of Counties are at first mentioned to be 32 yet these altogether make 35.

In a Book belonging to St Edmundsbury quoted by Hearn in His Antiquities, England is divided into 32. Shires, of these Westex lege contains 9.