THE SAYYID AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES 71 
constituted an act of rebellion. The method of assessment 
had to be decided by authority, and on this matter finality 
had not yet been attained. In the fourteenth century 
there had been two schools of opinion, one preferring to 
assess on the produce gathered, the other on the area sown. 
In the sixteenth century the terminology had changed, but 
the conflict between the two methods remained; and even 
in one small region the peasants took different views, while 
Farid himself was clearly open to conviction, and allowed 
the two methods to continue side by side. He recognised, 
however, that assessment on the area sown could not be 
carried out entirely without reference to the yield. Ghiyas- 
uddin Tughlaq had, as we have seen, regarded this defect 
as fatal to the method; Farid, concerned with a smaller 
area, and in a position to give personal supervision to the 
process, was prepared to make the necessary allowances. 
The only apparent novelty in his arrangements is the execu- 
tion of written documents. I have not read of these in the 
fourteenth century, but it is quite possible that they were 
executed then, and in earlier times; all that can be said here 
is that the documents now familiar, the patia given by 
authority, and the gabaliyat, or acknowledgment of the 
peasant’s liability, are at least as old as the sixteenth 
century, and may be much older. 
The position of the Chiefs remained unchanged. In 
the sixteenth century, as in the fourteenth, they were 
Intermediaries between the peasants and the central 
authority; and, where they existed, the assignee had to 
look to them, and not to the peasants, for his Income. 
The action taken by Farid Khan shows that an assignee 
could in practice exercise the full powers of the executive 
administration; he had not to apply to a Governor or other 
official to coerce his recalcitrant debtors, but coerced them 
himself, with forces raised at his own cost; and, in cases 
where he judged it desirable, he finally abolished their 
claims by what, in the circumstances of the time, was 
probably the only effective method, killing the claimants 
and reducing their families to slavery. The assignee in 
fact could exercise the powers delegated to him by the King 
practically as if he were King himself.