14 SEPTEMBER 1895, Page 16

" FEUDAL ENGLAND."

[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—Would you kindly allow me to correct a somewhat serious misconception in your review of my work (Spectator, September 7th). The reviewer writes :—" The Hundred MOt may have afterwards reapportioned the incidence of this taxation among the Vills whereof it was composed with greater regard to the wealth of each than was shown by the Domesday Commissioners." This implies, in the first place, that the Domesday Commissioners actually assessed the Vills, whereas they merely recorded an assessment, in the main, as I have shown, essentially archaic ; and in the second, that the assessment recorded could afterwards be altered by local bodies, whereas the Domesday entries could not even be dis- puted. According to the famous passage in "The Dialogus de Scaccario : "—" Cum orta fuerit in regno contentio de his rebnsqum illic annotantur, cum ventum fuerit ad librum, sententia ejns infatuari non potest," &c. As to what you describe as " the most interesting controversy that recent years have witnessed" for the student, I may perhaps be per- mitted to refer to the letter you were good enough to insert in the Spectator of October 6th, 1894.—I am, Sir, &c., J. H. ROUND.