HIDALGO (spelled, also, Hijodalgo). In Spanish Law. He who, by blood and lineage, belongs to a distinguished family, or is noble by descent. Las Partidas 2. 12. 3.
HIDE (from Sax. &Oen, to cover ; so, Lat. teetum, from tegere). In Old English Law. Originally a building with a roof; a house; a tenement.
As much land as might be ploughed with one plough. The amount was probably de termined by usage of the locality ; some make it sixty, others eighty, others ninety six, others one hundred or one hundred and twenty, acres. Co. Litt. 5 ; 1 Plowd. 167; Shepp. Touchst. 93 ; Du Cange.
A hide was anciently employed as a unit of taxation. 1 Poll. & Maitl. 347, such tax being called hidegild.
As much land as was necessary to. sup port a hide, or mausion-house. Co. Litt. 69 a; Spelman, Gloss. ; Du Cange, Hides; 1 Introd. to Domesday 145.
The unit of superficial measure, at the time of the Domesday survey, usually found in the southern counties, while earueate or ploughland prevailed in the northern coun ties. Although these words had various cus
tomary values in different parts of the coun try, there is a good deal of evidence that, at the Conquest, there was a tendency to a mean or normal value of 120 acres for hide divided into four virgates or yardlands. The carucate was normally of the same acreage as hide, but divided into eight bovates or ox gangs, implying the land which eight oxen (caruca) could till in a year. Pollock, Eng lish Manor 144.
There is much doubt as to what It was ; it may have been 30 acres or thereabouts or 120 acres or thereabouts ; Maitland, Domes day and Beyond 357, where the opinion is expressed that in Anglo-Saxon times it was 120 acres.