296 An English Manor in the time of Elizabeth. 



corn, one for etch grain or spring corn, usually oats or beans, and 

 the third lay fallow. It was the duty of the manor bailiff to 

 regulate the co-operative working of this farm, to say what each 

 was to do, and when he was to do it, and to see that it was properly 

 done. He inspected the ploughs and walked with them all day. 

 For every month in the year he had a verse reminding him what 

 had to be done. The three fields had each a name, such as Eastfield, 

 Westfield, and Homefield, and they were each divided into blocks 

 called shots or furlongs, which were also named Crouch's furlong, 

 Berefurlong, Gallant's furlong, and so on. These blocks were a 

 furlong, or forty rods, in length, and they were cut into strips four 

 rods wide. The words rod, perch, pole, and lugg all mean in 

 different tongues the long, pliable wand, 16ft. long, that was used 

 as a measure. Each strip was therefore exactly an acre, and was 

 divided from the next strip by a green unploughed balk. Some of 

 the strips were only two rods wide, and these were half-aci'e strips 

 or rudges. Along the top of the acre strips was a headland in 

 which the plough turned, for a furlong, or furrow long, means the 

 length of a furrow before the plough turns. The acre strip is what 

 a plough team can plough in a day. The headland strips were 

 always the last to be ploughed, and were not favourite strips. 

 Little triangular corners of fields that could not be worked into 

 proper furlongs were called gored acres ; and little odds and ends 

 were called no-man's-land. Wlien a field was steep the furrow was 

 carried along the side of the hill and the sod turned always down- 

 liill. In this way the ploughing became one furrow wider every 

 year, and in time a linchet was created. But as the plough coidd 

 only work one way, and liad to return idle, linches were not 

 favourite strips. In early times the balks between the half-acre 

 strips were called rigs or rudges, and then the strips themselves 

 came to be called rudges ; and from the survey we may infer that a 

 rudge was aljout half-an-acre. At North Ugford William Hibberd 

 had 20 rudges containing 20 half -acres " of courtdeale," and John 

 Hayter had "40 rudges of Courtlaud containing 20 acres." Eye 

 and oats were the grains first grown, and in this roll wheat and 

 barley are ploughed by the acre, Ijut oats are still ploughed by 



