Agricultural Statistics 



142 



relative lightness or heaviness of the soil ; this I 

 believe has little to do with the matter, as fewer 

 or more oxen and horses would be used, instances 

 of which can be seen generally in the fields nowa- 

 days, and occur so numerously in custumals, etc., 

 as to need no specification. In a certain sense the 

 ploughland was 120 acres, that is examples are 

 taken from the demesne not from the land in 

 villeinage, and as the Bedford table shows the 

 greatest no. of acres hit that amount (660 acres in 

 1 20 acre lots), but this is nothing to the point, for 

 the variability of the carucate alone should indi- 

 cate its meaning (missed by at least every modern 

 writer), i.e., that these demesne ploughlands were 

 such varying amount of land as one plough of the 

 lord tilled with the assistance of his tenants ; for 

 proof of which the following may be taken, all Proof that 

 from the Ramsey Cartulary (Rolls Series), 1251 

 contrasted with Rot. Hund. 1279, and other 

 records, being the only* returns which I have been One Team, 

 able to discover, where the aid of the villein teams 

 is estimated in ploughs per annum, and all here 

 set down : 



* Rot. Norm. 6 John ; the precations alone worth I plough 

 (that is per an.) in Ashby dc la Zouche, co. Leic. 



