170 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



Two measures are used commonly for iron, which however 

 appear to be relative 5 the piece and the hundred twenty-five 

 pieces being reckoned as equal to the hundred; The bloom, or 

 bloma, seems to have been a hundredweight. If the hundred 

 of iron were, therefore, 108 Ibs., the piece would have been 

 about four and a third pounds. Steel is generally measured 

 by the garb, a quantity which must not be confounded with 

 the later sheaf or fagot. 



The quintal of iron is probably the same as the hundred- 

 weight j and the quarter, which is only found once, namely, 

 at Balisax in 1287, may be also taken as identical with the 

 hundred. There are solitary quotations of the daker and the 

 pilect. The former is probably a weight of ten pounds, the 

 latter may be of the same amount, for there is a foreign weight 

 mentioned by Ducange, under the name of pilata, implying 

 such a quantity. 



Superficial measures were, as now, 'the acre, the rood, and 

 the pole, perch or rod. The last of these is frequently used as 

 an estimate of labour in hedging, ditching, and walling. None 

 of them appear to differ from the quantity implied in the pre- 

 sent use of the names. The same amount of seed is sown 

 broadcast over the acre in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 

 turies as is found needful in modern times. 



More difficult however of interpretation is the carucate, or 

 ploughland. According to Fleta it is 180 acres. But other 

 estimates make it 100, and even 60 acres 6 . According to a 

 passage quoted by Ducange from Coke, twelve such carucates 

 made a military fee. The virgate also is variously computed, 

 as containing 28 or 40 acres. It is possible that these measures 



e If the carucate was a uniform quantity, it must have exceeded 60 acres. Thus 

 Merton College held two carucates in Cuxham and two in Ibstone. But the acreage 

 on which seed was sown at Cuxham is generally more than I So acres, and on Ibstone 

 upwards of 2cn. It will be remembered, besides, that much 19nd lay in fallow. 

 According to Walter de Henley, MSS. Bodley, Douce 98, p. 188, when the land was 

 divided into three parts, one for winter, another for Lent corn, and a third in fallow, the 

 carucate was 1 80 acres ; when one-half was laid down in winter and Lent corn, the 

 other in fallow, 160 acres. The difference seems to arise from the fact that fallows were 

 ploughed thrice. The bovate, or oxgang, is a measure of the same character. 



