Domesday Statistics 



that is to say, if D. B. counts a plough of two or four 

 oxen as one whole plough on its system of record, 

 the authors of this theory are burdened with the 

 explanation of expressions as above. 



The ploughland leaves some room for estima- 

 tion, but Professor Maitland's figures show that it 

 usually varies not widely from the teams ; in 

 some cases, as in the wasted Yorkshire manors, 

 his surmise that the potential were the actual 

 ploughlands of King Edward's day seems natural, 

 but it does not meet an entry like the following 

 from that county (fo. 2990) : " land to 42 ploughs, 

 7^ there now, and formerly 46 teams." Again, he 

 quotes as an instance of inexplicable divergence 

 the Rutlandshire entries (fo. 293^ and 294*2, and 

 "Domesday Book and Beyond," p. 471) of 48 

 ploughlands and 127 teams ; but in the first place 

 he seems to have omitted to note the teamlands 

 were 14 plus 48, and in the second that the villen- 

 age teams were probably those of small burgesses 

 wealthy enough to have oxen in excess of the re- 

 quirements of co-operative agriculture (a similar 

 entry occurs on fo. 316^, Tateshalle), and rather 

 comparable to farmers of the present day with 

 arable from i to 30 acres and a pair of horses. 



Having just noted the fact of actual normal 

 hides of 1 20 acres, and roughly allowed a plough- one 

 team to a ploughland, the inference may seem to po 

 follow that a plough tilled 120 acres arable ; but 



approximately holds for the eleventh century, when the ox 

 is taken at zs. 6d., it seems inconceivable that the return of 

 teams should be made from the actual implements in use 

 rather than from the oxen. 



