Domesday Book. 157 



in three, one part for winter seed, the other part for spring 

 seed, and the third part fallow, then is a plough-land nine 

 score acres. And if your lands are divided in two, as in many 

 places, the one half sown with, winter seed and spring seed, 

 the other half fallow, then shall a plough-land be eight score 

 acres. . . . Some men will tell you that a plough cannot work 

 eight score or nine score acres yearly, but I will show you 

 that it can. You know well that a furlong ought to be forty 

 perches long and four wide, and the king's perch is sixteen 

 feet and a half ; then an acre is sixty-six feet in width. Now 

 in ploughing go thirty-six times round to make the ridge 

 narrower, and when the acre is ploughed, then you have made 

 seventy-two furlongs, which are six leagues, for be it known 

 that twelve furlongs are a league. And the horse or ox must 

 be very poor that cannot from the morning go easily in pace 

 three leagues in length from his starting place and return by 

 three o'clock. And I will show you by another reason that it 

 can do as much. You know that there are in the year fifty- 

 two weeks. Now take away eight weeks for holydays and 

 other hindrances, then are there forty-four working weeks 

 left. And in all that time the plough shall only have to 

 plough for fallow or spring or winter sowing three roods and 

 a half daily, and for second fallowing an acre. Now see if a 

 plough were properly kept and followed if it could not do as 

 much." An anonymous writer of the same century mentions 

 the vagaries of area in the perch, wkich varied in different 

 parts of the country from 18 to 20, 22 and 24 feet. Happily, 

 however, "Walter of Henley, as we have seen, defines the 

 statute or king's perch as being 16^ feet, and his acre, like 

 ours, works out to 4.840 square yards. If we dare not quite 

 apply the evidence of two centuries later to a solution of this 

 term as used in Domesday Book, we can draw certain general 

 conclusions, which, if they do not solve our difficulty, will at 

 least help us materially towards solution. 



In the first place, Walter of Henley defines the shape of an 

 acre of ploughland by describing it as 660 feet x 66 feet wide, 

 or in modern surveyor's language, ten chains by one chain. 

 This sets up an intimacy between the acre, the furlong, and the 



