Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/130

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NOTES AND QUERIES. po* s. L FBB. e, 100*:

land containing half an acre, or as much land as two oxen could plough in a day.* It was also regarded as so much land as a team of oxen could plough in a day.t If we look at the word oxgang closely we shall find that gang translates the Latin actiis, and that the oxgang (ox-path) was the path which a pair of oxen traversed as they walked from one end of a piece of land to the other. It is a mistake to associate the oxgang with a single ox, for the ox never ploughed singly, and Hexham in his 'Nether-Dutch Dictionary' was right in associating it with a pair of oxen, but wrong in associating it with half an acre. He ought to have said "half a rood." Sir Henry Spelman (1562-1643) defines the oxgang as "so much land as

suffices for the path or actus of an ox But

we understand it to refer to yoked oxen."| These authorities, late and imperfect as their statements are, are very useful in showing us that the bovate or oxgang was primarily not a piece of land containing fifteen acres, but a small fraction of that quantity. Hence a strong presumption is raised that originally it was half a rood.

2. The carucate was originally a piece of land which contained two roods, being the double of the virgate. Its English name was ploughland, plough gang, or ploivlode (plough journey), and it was also known simply as "plough" (A.-S. pldg\ or a " plough of land.'' It appears in an ' Inquisitio ' from which a portion of Domes- day Book was compiled that the carucate was originally a piece of land containing two roods. In at least four places we read in this ' Inquisitio ' of churches which held so

Ossen aen't jock gebonden, op eenen dagh konnen ploegen, ofte een bunder landts." " Bunder landts, half an acre of land, so much as two oxen can plough in a day" (Hexham's Nether-Dutch Dic- tionary,' 1675). In 1275 we have " pro relevio uniua bovate duarum acrarum" (' Wakefield Court Rolls,' i. 62).
 * " An Oxgang of land, Soo veel landts ah twee

t Note in Best's ' Farming Book,' 1641 (Surtees Soc., p. 128).

' Glossarium,' 1687, p. 440. Cf. "Actus, anes wsenes gangweg. Uia, twegra wsena gangweg" (Wright- Wiilcker ' Vocab.'). In Lancashire the oxgang was known as oxegan(g)dale, i.e. oxgang portion. By an undated charter John de Croynton granted to Richard de Edesford " totam meam oxegandale in Sydalith cum suis pertinenciis, et totam terram meam ad sepeni piscium, et totam meam oxegandale in Swayncroft cum suis perti- nentiis, et totam meam oxegandale in le Westwong cum pertinentiis suis." The rent reserved was one obolus, payable at Christmas ('Coucher Book of Whalley,' Chetham Soc., p. 1128).

"A ploghe of land, carucata" ('Catholicon Anglicum ').

many acres, and a carucate, or so many acres and half a carucate.* Here the carucate is a measure which contains less than an acre, and, seeing that the rood is described in Domesday Book as mrgata,^ the carucate must have contained two roods. The author of the 'Promptorium Parvulorum,' dated 1440, is careful to show us the two meanings which the equivalent word ploughland had in his time. It means, he says, (a) a carucate, and (b) a juger, or as much land as a plough may till in a day.J Instead of juger he might have said two roods, but jugerum was the best Latin word he could think of. Obviously the lesser ploughland was a mea- sure of the greater.

These three units of measurement, the carucate, the virgate, and the bovate, exhaust the plough team. The caruca was the plough, and these units obtained their names from the space or breadth which groups of oxen, when yoked to a plough, occupied in the field. To get the breadth of the several strips or portions of the acre forming the bovate, virgate, and carucate respectively, we have to ascertain the space in which a pair of oxen can stand abreast. Roughly, it is 7 or 8 feet. Doubling the lesser number, we get a rod of fifteen feet as the length of the yoke to which two pairs of oxen, stand- ing abreast, could be attached. This rod or v irga is the breadth of the virgate or rood. Half the rod is the " gangway " or aclus in which a pair of oxen, standing abreast, could plough. The carucate takes its name from the full team of eight oxen.|| If the eight oxen ploughed abreast they would, taking the rod as fifteen feet in length, occupy a breadth of thirty feet, and this would be the theo- retical breadth of the carucate. In practice they ploughed four abreast, but the breadth

terras et j carucata et lij acris prati." " Ecclesia, de Dereham, de xxx acris liberse [terra?] et j carucata." " Ecclesia de Torp, de xij acris libene terras et dimidia carucata." " Ecclesia de Warinc- gesete, de xyj acris et dimidia carucata" (Hamil- ton's 'Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrig.,' p. 256, index). Domesday Book (ii. 284b) has, under Weringheseta, "Ecclesia xvj acrarum et dimidise car[ucatse'."
 * "Ecclesia de Berkinges, de Ixxxiij acris libera>

t " In Staintone habuit Jalf 5 bovatas terras et 14 acras terras et unam virgatam ad geldum" (Domesday Book, i. 364, cited by Maitland, ut supra, p. 384).

J "Plowlond, carrucata" "Plowlond, J>ataplow may tylle on a day, juQerum."

In the Wright- Wiilcker 'Vocab.,' 737,21, we have " virgata, a rodlande."

II Mr. Round ('Feudal England,' p. 35) has proved by a comparison between the ' Inquisitio ' and Domesday Book that the carucate was related to- eight oxen.