INTRODUCTION. 11 



admitted to possession by favour of the lord. This rod being 

 called in Latin virga, the land to which possession was so given 

 was styled virgata terra, literally land by the rod, or a rod, and 

 thence a rood of land. It is in this sense that Goldsmith in his 

 Deserted Village makes use of the word when he writes, 



And every rood of land maintained a man; 



for a rood in its common acceptation is only a quarter of an acre, 

 which would never maintain a man ; but a rood as explained 

 above, meaning a yard or yard land, which, as we have seen in 

 North Hampshire contained from about 20 to 60 acres, was a very 

 adequate quantity for maintaining well, especially in former times, 

 a man and his family. According to the Monasticon a virgate of 

 land was one eighth of a hide, which usually contained 120 acres, 

 but Spelman and Somner both say a virgate consisted of 15, 20, 

 24, or 30 acres ; so that, as we have said, it contained different 

 quantities in different places. 



The common sheep down was open for the common flocks during 

 the summer and autumn, and the unsown or summer-field was also 

 open until it was ploughed for wheat : after that, the sheep had 

 only the down till the harvest was over. When the corn fields 

 were clear, the flock had the run of these fields and the downs till 

 the winter obliged the owners to give them hay, up to this period 

 they were folded in the arable fields in a common fold, but when 

 they began to eat hay, every commoner found his own fold and his 

 own food, a common shepherd feeding and folding the whole. 



Early in May the common herd of cows began to feed the cow- 

 downs, usually on Holyrood Day, and finished when the fields 

 were clear of com. At the beginning and end of the season they 

 were driven to the common in the morning, and brought back in 

 the evening ; but in the heat of summer they were only kept on 

 the down during the night. When the stubble fields were open 

 the cows had a right to feed them jointly with the sheep, and if 

 they were common meadows, whether watered-meadows or not, 

 they had an exclusive right to feed them till the end of the 

 commoning season usually St. Martin's day, llth November, 

 O.S., when the owners took them home to the strawyards. The 

 cow down when the cows left it to go to the stubble fields became 

 common for the sheep flock during all or a certain part of the 

 winter, when it was again laid up for the cows. Over the un- 



