Domesday Book. i6i 



signified, the area of land plonghable by one team in one 

 year, and varied according to the stiffness of the soil, confor- 

 mation of the ground, and strength of the plough beasts. Here 

 then is evidence drawn from totally different sources, corrobo- 

 rative of what has been already concluded from a study of the 

 Henley author's facts.^ 



But before we dismiss this subject of the Mediaeval Land 

 Measurements, we must briefly examine Vinogradoff's views. 

 He connects the terms carucate, virgate, and bovate not only 

 with an area of land, but with the numbers of plough-oxen 

 necessary for its cultivation. According to a very common 

 mode of reckoning, the hide or carucate contained four virgates, 

 the virgate two bovates or ox-gangs, and the area of land im- 

 plied by these last terms fifteen acres. When, later on, we 

 shall come to examine the manorial process of agriculture, we 

 shall find at its very core a system of coaration, which not only 

 existed on the servile lands, but extended to those of the lord's 

 demesne. Thus Vinogradofif, fixing the carucate as an area of 

 land ploughable in one year by eight oxen, assigns to the vir- 

 gate and bovate the respective factors of eight ; viz. two and 

 one. Owners therefore of a single ox possessed one bovate in 

 the arable field, and performed their agricultural operations on 

 both demesne and servile land under a process of coaration, 

 which necessitated the yoking of other oxen belonging to 

 their neighbours. Four holders of a virgate or eight holders 

 of a bovate would be thus expected to plough one carucate of 

 demesne land yearly. Now the main objection to this proposi- 

 tion of Vinogradoff's is the significant omission of the Henley 

 writer to thus associate the number of plough beasts with the 

 various land measurements. He does, it is true, include in 

 his computation of the time taken to plough the hide, the num- 

 ber and species of beasts, the system of husbandry and the 

 days in the working year ; but he does not touch on the sub- 

 ject of the eight oxen with which we generally associate the 

 plough work of the heavy demesne implement, nor the rela- 

 tionship of the virgate and bovate to any particular number 

 of oxen. 



' Seebolim's English Village Community, chap. ii. 



M 



