42 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



We shall later see many instances of the privileged position 

 of Kent. One of its chief advantages was the possession of 

 a large unit of assessment in the sulung, which in one charter 

 is stated to be equal to 2 hides. 1 One passage in Domesday 

 Book equates four and a half hundred acres with 2j sulungs, 2 

 making a sulung equal to 1 80 acres. A sulung was divisible 

 into four jugera, or yokes, and again we see the connection 

 between the unit of assessment and the plough-team of eight 

 oxen. 



Yet another unit of measurement appears in the valuation 

 of South Wales at the beginning of the Gloucester Domesday 

 the carucate of land as in Normandy. 3 Gloucestershire 

 had been settled by the English, and was hidated ; but the 

 districts west of the Wye, the fee of Strigoil, were conquered 

 by the Normans, who accordingly introduced the land measure 

 with which they were best acquainted. Of those portions of 

 North Wales which were valued as part of Cheshire, two 

 hundreds were hidated and two were carucated, and the 

 explanation of the carucated districts is given that they 

 never paid geld. 



Hitherto we have been dealing with the circumlocutions 

 used to express areal measures ; but Domesday Book in many 

 cases gives lineal measures, and expresses areas of pasture 

 and wood by giving their length and breadth. Four units 

 of lineal measurement are used by the Domesday scribes 

 the " foot," the " perch," the " quarantine " (or furlong), and the 

 " leuca " (or league) ; as the word suggests, 40 perches made 

 the quarantine, while 12 furlongs made the league. But the 

 relation of the foot to the perch is very obscure ; the English 

 customary perch seems to have varied between 15 and 20 

 feet, according to localities, and thus was sometimes more and 

 sometimes less than the statute perch. In passing, let us 

 remind ourselves that the typical acre is 40 perches long by 



1 Vinogradoff, 19 . H. R., 282. 2 D. B., I. 2 a 2. 



3 Id., 162 a i. 



