Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/462

 382 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. vi. NOV. 17, ina to the table these messuages should consist of a rood, and not half a rood each. But this can be explained by the fact that the prac- tice had arisen of taking land without mes- suages_ and messuages without land, so that by this time the messuage had virtually ceased to be the measure of the arable land. There is evidence of this in the 'Hundred Rolls' themselves.* And at the very date of these rolls, viz., 1279, we hear of a" man in Yorkshire who was seised of five bovates of land without a messuage.* Next above the four virgaters just mentioned are, as we have just seen, four bovaters, holding respectively 14 acres and 3 roods, plus a rood of messuage. Accordingly, the four bovaters have got too ranch messuage and the four virgaters too little. But if we assume that the 14 acres 3 roods really mean a bovate of 15 acres, and if we add the quantities of these eight mes- suages and eight arable holdings together, we shall find that we have 6 roods of messuage to 180 acres, or the normal quantity. And there are plenty of old Northumbrian records which speak of a man as holding, for instance, the fourth part of a messuage together with the fourth part of 24 acres in the open fields. The 'Feodarium ' of Durham Priory (Surtees Soc.) will furnish examples in many places. I cannot explain why in some of the cases just mentioned the messuage was treated as an intrinsic part of the holding, instead of an appurtenance. Several conjectures could be offered, but I will not go outside the evidence. The word "messuage" when used in the 'Hundred Rolls' never means "house," and a man is often said to hold so many acres of arable land with a rood, or as the case ma5' be, "in messuage."} The house belonging to a virgate of land could not have covered a rood of ground, and consequently "house" is a secondary meaning of the word. During a visit to Crowland. in Lincolnshire, during the present summer, T noticed that the houses in North Street had long narrow gardens or plots, and .that some of their occupants were possessed of a few acres— usually two or four—in the township, but at a considerable distance from the street. The owners of two of these plots said to me, with- ine mesiiasrio " {ibid., ii. (507 b). t ' Yorkshire Inq.,' i. 189, Yorkshire Arch. 8ocietv (Record Series). J "In mesuaeio i rodam et xiiij acras terre" (' Rot. Hundr.,' ii. 572 a). A cotayium may also con- tain so much "in messuage," i.e., "in measure." "Rioardtts King tenet unum citatum in mesua- gio dimidiam rodam " (ibid,, ii. 582 a). " Mesuaeium sedifieatnm " ia a "measure" that has been built on, and is]not void. out being questioned on the subject, that they contained a rood of ground each. These are ancient tenements, with old thatched cot- tages, and they are near the ruins of a great abbey. When an English estate is laid out for building purposes the plots usually con- sist of roods and half-roods. Although the messuages described in the Hundred Rolls' consist for the most part of roods and half-roods, yet aliquot parts of roods, such as thirds, fourths, sixths, eighths, and tenths, sometimes occur ; but such aliquot parts are infrequent. Much less frequent are those cases in which the length and breadth of the messuage are given in feet. When we read of two messuages* of 12 feet square, or 144 square feet, it is impossible to believe that 16 square yards would be an adequate build- ing-plot. Yet 16 square yards are the seventy- fifth part of a rood of 1,200 square yards, and this small area was evidently intended to be an aliquot part of that rood. And so, when we get a messuage* of 30 feet square (assuming the perch to be 15 feet), or 100 square yards, it is evident that this quantity was intended to be a twelfth of such a rood. In the same way a messuagej of 150 square yards was in- tended to be an eighth of a rood, which would correspond to a quarter of a bovate, or 3 acres and 3 roods. Such small or abnormal mes- suages point to division amongst heirs. Thus as late as 1568 we find an heir coming into court and paying a fee for leave to inherit the sixth part of half a bovate of arable land and the sixth part of a messuage.§ In prac- tu* u i j® must have been a readjustment of the holdings when the shares became too small. As soon as the relationship which the messuage bore to the arable land was broken surveyors could not ignore the area of the messuage. For example, the half-rood which formed the proper messuage of a bovate might have been separated from that bovate, and the new holder of that messuage might have held even less than an acre of arable land,|| .t "Unum mepnagium continens in longitudine etin latitudine ij rjerticatas" (ibid., ii. 417a) In these passages perticata seems to be equivalent to pertica. 1 "Unum mesuaginm de iij perticatis in longi- tudme et ij perticatis in latitudine" (ibid 41Pa) A messuage 5 perches (portico;) in length and 3 in ards "' } W°Uld give 3}S square § "Et dat domino iiiis. pro licentia hereditandi sextam partem dimidise bovate terras ac sextam terra"io Ecoles-
 * "Hugo de Monasteriis tenet xvj acras terre
 * |(Rot. Hnndr.,'ii. 546b.