RURAL ECONOMY IN YORKSHIRE IN 1641. 127 



to Lynsley farme ; one lande and one sweath to Laborne farme ; 

 one lande and an halfe to Skelton farme ; one lande and a 

 sweath to Finders East howse ; three landes and an halfe to the 

 demaines, next the west balke. Exchainged with William 

 Whitehead one of the Fower oxegange landes in the pasture, 

 for his wandill on the north side of the West-beckes ; this ex- 

 chainge was made the 19th of May, 1634. Exchainged with 

 Alse Edwards, att the same time, the other of the Fower oxe- 

 gange landes which lyeth next her landes in the pasture, for her 

 wandill on the north side of the West-beckes. There hayth 

 formerly belonged two oxegange'' of lande to a little liowse 



* The oxgang at Driffield appears to me, from calculations which will be found in 

 the Appendix, to have consisted of twelve and a half acres. I am happy to be 

 able to insert here some learned and interesting remarks with which my friend Mr. 

 LongstafFe has favoured me. 



. " The oxgang was exclusively a measure of lands in cultivation, and therefore 

 a praecipe ' quod reddat unam bovatam terrse et unam bovatam mariscV was in 13 

 Edw. III. held to be bad, because an oxgang is always of a thing which lies in 

 gainor. The measure is not applicable to the pratuni of records, which was confined 

 in extent ; and it is generally found in connection \sith arable land. The demesne 

 oxgangs at Lythum in Cleveland are described in 1341 as two-thirds sown and one- 

 third fallow and pastiire. (Inq. p. m. Will, de Twenge.) But the term is sometimea 

 used for pastiure, alluding, no doubt, to what such land would contain if in tillage. 

 At Mainsforth, Drn-ham, out of 17 oxgangs, nine lay with the moor in pasture. (Bol- 

 don Buke.) Tofts often accompanied oxgangs for the accommodation of the tenants, 

 but were not part of them. We find such expressions as ' ij bovatse terras et j 

 toftum,' and ' xxj bovatse terrae sine toftis,' in great profusion. (Inq. p. m. Petri de 

 Brus, 1279.) For the most part the oxgangs were iminclosed, and a tenement by 

 the name of an oxgang frequently lay in very various parts of a township, probably in 

 an equitable disposition of the different qualities and crops of the soil. But in some 

 cases the oxgangs were not thus adjusted, as appears by an instance of the common 

 practice of rating by oxgang, a custom which prevailed at Darlington and Blackwell, 

 and existed at Skelton in Cleveland till about 1848. It was abolished at Norton, 

 near Stockton, about 1735, for the verj' reason that the oxgang consisted of 30 acres 

 whether the land was good or bad. The landlords of the bad ' out land not worth 

 5s. an acre,' refused to pay the same rate as those who let land at 40s. an acre, and 

 procured a pound rate. In other places the acreage is found to vary in a township 

 or parish. At Boldon we have oxgangs of 15 and 18J acres. In Darlington (AUan 

 MSS.) and Cockerton (I^angley's Survey) we have the rate of 15 acres, in Black- 

 well in the same parish 20 acres, and it is not certain that the difference of soil will 

 altogether account for these variations, though Norton, with its 30 acres, is certainly 

 composed to a great extent of a light loam. An old accoxmt book, of Bondgate, in 

 Darlington (17th cent.) states that ' 30 acres is an oxgang at Sedgefield, 16*acres in 

 Hurworth, and 20 in Yorkshire," At Lanchester, Witton, and Fidford, the rate in 

 Boldon Buke sinks to 8 acres, but 15 acres, as George Allan remarked, are the general 

 computation in Durham ; and in Lythum the same measurement held. (Inq. Will, 

 de Twenge.) Yet in a neighbouring manor in Cleveland we have only 60 acres to a 

 carucate, and this, with other instances seems to justify a statement by Mr. Ralph 

 Gowland (J. J. Wilkinson's MSS., xi., 479) that 4 oxgangs formed a carucate, unless 

 a suggestion to be made presently is accepted. Certainly the ordinary computation 

 was 8 oxgangs. It occtu-s at Forcett, in Richmondshire (Arch ^1. ii. 10). It held 

 in Durham, for at Farnacres, near to the 15-acre oxgangs of Whickham, the carucate 

 held 120 acres. Henry I. granted to Godeland cell (Whitby Abbey) 'unamcaru- 

 catam terras arandam secimdum carucatas de Pikering,' 



"The Farnacres carucate was held by one-tenth of a knight's fee, and, in 1279, 



