Domesday Book. 155 



come to examine a few of the earliest specimens, we shall be 

 less trammelled by difficult terms if we clear the way once for 

 all by a thorough examination of their meaning now. 



The carucate is evidently derived from the Latin caruca, a 

 four-wheeled carriage, but its abbreviation " carr," is an old 

 Gallic term (hence karle and ceorle, Saxon for rustic). It 

 was understood by the Normans to mean " plough," and the 

 carucate was a Norman innovation which finally superseded 

 the old Saxon term " hide." Thus in Domesday Book, when 

 referring to the distribution of land in the half-hundred of 

 Witham, the surveyors (very likely unconsciously) retain the 

 old term " hide " when noting particulars in King Edward's 

 reign, but substitute the term carucate when tabulating the 

 extent of the Conqueror's demesnes in the same district. 

 There is sufficient evidence to lead us to conclude that all 

 the terms mentioned above were synonymous, and denoted an 

 indefinite area of land understood to contain as much as could 

 be ploughed in one year. Applied geometry, Gunter's chain, 

 the theodolite and protractor, as well as the enhanced value of 

 land now, have all helped to educate the modern eye to a pitch 

 of accuracy which expects too much from a Saxon or Norman 

 land surveyor. It was of no practical use to a landowner of 

 the eleventh century to ascertain how many thousand acres of 

 waste land he might possess in excess of the live stock required 

 to stock it, or husbandmen to cultivate it. The land-capitalist's 

 fortune consisted, not as now of broad acres, but of flocks and 

 herds ; and though perhaps he could scarcely tell the Domesday 

 commissioners the extent of the former, he could count the 

 latter without the omission of either a hoof or a horn. What 

 we have said of the plough-land applies with equal force to 

 the virgate, or yard-land, the knight's fee, and other land 

 measurements. The rough and ready calculations of the 

 Domesday surveyor were analogous to the process whereby a 

 modern valuer computes the probable area of a clay-bed to be 

 sold for puddling purposes ; but when the chemical analyst of 

 the future discovers some cheap method for extracting its 

 aluminium, the vendor will be no longer content with hasty 

 foot-rule measurements of its depth and the careless pacing of 



