20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE [v. 



If any confirmation of the fact be wanting, it may 

 be found in the circumstance, that the only probable 

 derivation of Lammas is Late-Math, late mowing. 

 Hence " Latter Lammas," a later math than Lammas, 

 became proverbial, as an equivalent to the Greek 

 Calends. 



Then the hypothesis that the cultivators of inter- 

 mixed patches of land were free proprietors to whom, 

 as a community, the land belonged, seems to rest 

 upon two circumstances first, that they all culti- 

 vated the land according to the same course of 

 husbandry ; and secondly, that they were entitled 

 in common to depasture their cattle upon the land, 

 after the crop had been removed. 



Now, where land is held in small portions, and 

 cultivated by the plough, the course of husbandry 

 cannot, it is obvious, conveniently vary from one plot 

 to another. The Anglo-Saxon plough was a cum- 

 brous and costly instrument. It was drawn by eight 

 oxen. The ancient measures of land owe their 

 origin to this plough. It is mentioned in Co. Lit. 5a, 

 that a bovate or oxgang is as much land as an ox 

 can cultivate, and a plough-land as much as one 

 plough can cultivate ; and it was said that eight 

 oxgangs make a plough-land (see Co. Lit. 69a). 



Now a gebur, according to the Bectitudines, was to 

 have his yard-land ; and a yard, or virgata terra;, 

 varied, according to Lord Coke (Co. Lit. 5 a) from 

 ten to twenty, twenty-five or thirty acres, on an 



