it is said to be '5 roods, particularly for copyhold land'; but small
acres were known there also[1264]. In Staffordshire, 'nearly 2-1/4
acres.' In Cheshire, 'formerly and still in some places 10,240 square
yards' (pointing to a rod of 24 feet). In Westmoreland, '6760 square
yards' (pointing to a rod of 19-1/2 feet), also the so-called 'Irish
acre' of 7840 square yards (pointing to a rod of 21 feet). There is much
evidence that rods of 20 and 21 feet were often used in Yorkshire and
Derbyshire. Rods of 18, 19-1/2, 21, 22-1/2 and 24 feet were known in
Lancashire. A writer of the thirteenth century speaks as if rods of 16,
18, 20, 22 and 24 feet were in common use, and mentions none
shorter[1265]. As just said, the Irish plantation acre was founded on a
rod of 21 feet. The Scotch acre also is larger than the English; it
would contain about 6150·4 instead of 4840 of our square yards; it is
formed from a rod of 6 Scotch ells. On the other hand, the acres which
have prevailed in Wales seem to be small; one type had 4320 of our
square yards, another 3240.
[Anglo-Saxon rods and acres.]
There has been variety enough. Even if the limits of variation are given
by rods of 12 and 24 feet, this will enable one acre to be four times as
large as another. Whether before the twelfth century there was anything
that we ought to call a standard rod, a royal rod for all England, must
be very doubtful. In royal and other land-books references are made to
furlongs, to acre-breadths, to yards or rods or perches, and to feet as
to known measures of length[1266], but whether a kingly gift is always
measured by a kingly rod we do not know. The Carolingian emperors
endeavoured to impose a rod upon their dominions; it seems to have been
considerably shorter than our statute perch[1267]. In this province we
need not expect many Norman novelties. We see from Domesday Book that
the Frenchmen introduced the ancient Gallic _arpentum_[1268] as a
measure for vineyards[1269]; but most of the vines were of their own
planting, and the mere fact that they used this measure only for the
vineyards seems to tell us that they were content with English rods and
English acres[1270]. In Normandy the perches seem to have ranged upwards
from 16 to 25 feet[1271]; so that 16·5 would not have hit the average.
On the whole, our perch seems to speak of a king whose interests and
estates lay in southern England and who struck a mean between 15 and 18.
Whoever he was, we owe him no thanks for the 'undecimal' element that
taints our system[1272].
[Customary acres and forest acres.]
But we must be cautious in drawing inferences from loose reports about
'customary' measures. Village maps and village fields have yet to be
seriously studied. We may in the meanwhile doubt whether in some
districts to which the largest acres are ascribed, such acres are normal
or are drawn in the oldest villages. We may suspect them of being
'forest acres.' If once a good many of these abnormal units are
distributed in a district, they will by their very peculiarity attract
more than their fair share of attention and will be spoken of as
characteristic of that district. In Germany, as well as in England, we
find forest acres which are much larger than common acres and are meted
by a rod which is longer than the common rod[1273]. Possibly men have
found a long rod convenient when they have large spaces to measure, but
we fancy that the true explanation would illustrate the influence
exercised by taxation on systems of measurement. Some scheme of
allotment or colonization is being framed; an equal tribute is to be
reserved from the allotted acres. If, however, there is uncleared
woodland to be distributed, rude equity, instead of changing the tribute
on the acre, changes the acre's size and uses a long rod for land that
can not at once be tilled[1274]. Also fields that were plotted out by
Normans were likely to have large acres, and as the perches of Normandy
seem to have been longer than most of the perches that were used in
France, we may perhaps infer that the Scandinavian rods were long and
find in them an explanation of the big acres of northern England. But at
present such inferences would be precarious.
[The acre and the day's work.]
Whether in its origin the land-measuring rod is a mere representative of
a certain number of feet or is some instrument useful for other purposes
seems to be dubious. One of the names that it has borne in English is
_goad_; but most of our rods would be extravagantly long goads[1275].
Possibly the width of four oxen yoked abreast has exercised some
influence upon its length[1276]. When a rod had once found acceptance,
it must speedily have begun to convert that 'time-labour-unit,' the
acre, into a measured space. Already in the land-books we read of acres
of meadow[1277]; this is no longer a contradiction in terms. Still there
can be no doubt that our acre, like the _jurnale_, _Tagwerk_, _Morgen_
of the Continent, has at its root the tract that can be ploughed in a
day, or in a forenoon:--in the afternoon the oxen must go to the
pasture[1278]. Now, when compared with their foreign cousins, our
statute perch is a long rod and our statute acre is a decidedly large
'day-work-unit[1279].' It seems to tell of plentiful land, sparse
population and poor husbandry. This is of some importance. There is a
good deal of evidence pointing to the conclusion that, whereas in the
oldest days men really ploughed an acre in a forenoon, the current of
agricultural progress made for a while towards the diminution of the
space that was covered by a day's labour. In Ælfric's dialogue the
ploughman complains that each day he must till 'a full acre or
more[1280].' His successor, the poetic Piers, had only a half-acre to
plough[1281]. In monastic cartularies which come from southern counties,
where we have no reason to suspect exceptionally large acres, the
villein seems often to plough less than an acre[1282]. Then that
enlightened agriculturist, Walter of Henley, enters upon a long argument
to prove to his readers that you really can plough seven-eighths of an
acre in a forenoon, and even a whole acre if you are but engaged in that
light kind of ploughing which does for a second fallowing[1283]. Five
centuries later another enlightened agriculturist, Arthur Young,
discovered that 'from North Leach, through Gloucestershire,
Monmouthshire, and Glamorganshire, light and middling turnip-land etc.'
was being ploughed at the rate of half an acre to one acre a day by
teams of 'eight oxen; never less than six; or four and two horses.'
This, he says, was being done 'merely in compliance with the obstinacy
of the low people,' for 'the labourers will not touch a plough without
the usual number of beasts in it[1284]'. Mr Young could not tell us of
'these vile remnants of barbarity without a great degree of
disgust[1285]'. But we are grateful. We see that an acre of light land
was the maximum that these 'low people' with their eight oxen would
plough in a day, and we take it that at one time the voice of reforming
science had urged men to diminish the area ploughed in a given time, to
plough deeper and to draw their furrows closer. The old tradition was
probably well content with a furrow for every foot. Walter of Henley
proposed to put six additional furrows into the acre[1286]. Hereafter we
shall see that some of the statistics given by Domesday Book fall in
with the suggestion that we are here making. Also we may see on our maps
that the strip which a man has in one place is very often not an acre
but a half-acre. Now, in days when men really ploughed an acre at a
stretch, such an arrangement would have involved a waste of time, since,
when the morning's work was half done, the plough would be removed from
one 'shot' to another[1287].
[The real acres in the fields.]
At length we reach the fields, and at once we learn that there is
something unreal in all our talk of acre and half-acre strips. In
passing we may observe that some of our English meadows which show by
their 'beds' that they were not always meadows, seem to show also that
the boundaries of the strips were not drawn by straight rods, but were
drawn by the plough. The beds are not straight, but slightly sinuous,
and such, it is said, is the natural course of the old plough; it
swerves to the left, and this tendency is then corrected by those who
guide it[1288]. But, apart from this, land refuses to be cut into
parallelograms each of which is 40 rods long and 4 wide. In other words,
the 'real acres' in an open field diverge widely from the ideal acre
that was in the minds of those who made them.
[The 'shots.']
Let us recall a few features of the common field, though they will be
familiar to all who have read Mr Seebohm's book[1289]. A natural limit
to the length of the furrow is set by the endurance of oxen. From this
it follows that even if the surface that lies open is perfectly level
and practically limitless, it will none the less be broken up into what
our Latin documents call _culturae_[1290]. The _cultura_ is a set of
contiguous and parallel acre-strips; it tends to be a rude
parallelogram; two of its sides will be each a furlong ('furrowlong') in
length, while the length of the other sides will vary from case to case.
We commonly find that every great field (_campus_) is divided into
divers _culturae_, each of which has its own name. The commonest English
equivalent for the word _cultura_ seems to have been _furlong_, and this
use of _furlong_ was very natural; but, as we require that term for
another purpose, we will call the _cultura_ a _shot_. So large were the
fields, that the annual value of an acre in one shot would sometimes be
eight times greater than that of an acre in another shot[1291]. To such
differences our ancestors were keenly alive. Hence the dispersion of the
strips which constitute a single tenement.
[Delimitation of shots.]
But to make 'shots' which should be rectangular and just 40 feet long
was often impossible. Even if the surface of the field were flat, its
boundaries were the irregular curves drawn by streams and mounds. In
order to economize space, shots running at right angles to other shots
were introduced, and of necessity some furlongs were longer than others.
If, however, as was often the case, men were laying out their fields
among the folds of the hills, their acres would be yet more irregular
both in size and in shape. They would be compelled to make very small
shots, and the various furrows if 'produced' (in the geometer's sense of
that word) would cut each other at all imaginable angles. On the maps we
may still see them struggling with these difficulties, drawing as many
rectilinear shots as may be and then compelled to parcel out as best
they can the irregularly shaped patches that remain. And then we see
that even these patches have been allotted either as acres or as
half-acres.
[The real and the ideal acre.]
Therefore, when we are dealing with medieval documents, we have always
to remember that besides ideal acres there were real acres which were
mapped out on the surface of the earth, and that a plot will be, and
rightly may be, called an acre though its size is not that of any ideal
acre. To tell a man that one of these acre-strips was not an acre
because it was too small would at one time have been like telling him
that his foot was no foot because it fell short of twelve inches. This
point is made very plain by some of the beautiful estate maps edited by
Mr Mowat[1292]. We have a map of 'the village of Whitehill in the
parishe of Tackley in the countye Oxon., the moitye or one halfe whereof
belongeth to the presidente and schollers of Corpus christi colledge in
the universitye of Oxon., the other moitye unto Edwarde Standerd yeoman
the particulars whereof soe far as knowne doe plainelye appeare in the
platte and those which are unknowne, as wastes comons and lotte meadowes
are equallye divided betweene them, drawne in November anno domini 1605,
regni regis Iacobi iijº.' We see four great fields divided first into
shots and then into strips. Each strip on the map bears an inscription
assigning it either to the college or to Mr Standerd, and with great
regularity the strips are assigned to the college and to Standerd
alternately. Then on each strip is set its 'estimated' content, and on
each strip of the college land is also set its true content. Thus
looking at one particular shot in the South Field we read:
ij. ac. coll. 1. 1. 36
Edw. Stand. ij. ac.
ij. ac. coll. 1. 2. 2
Edw. Stand. ij. ac.
ij. ac. coll. 1. 2. 2
Edw. Stand. ij. ac.
ij. ac. coll. 1. 0. 39.
This means that, going along this shot, we first come to a
two-acre-strip of college land containing by admeasurement 1 A. 1 R. 36
P.; next to a two-acre strip of Standerd's land, which the surveyor, who
was making the map for the college, was not at pains to measure; then to
a two-acre strip of college land containing 1 A. 2 R. 2 P.:--and so
forth. Then in the margin of the map has been set 'A note of the
contentes of the landes in Whitehille belonginge to the colledge.' It
tells us how 'theire groundes in the West Fielde by estimation 80 acres
doe conteine by statute measure 48 A. 2 R. 24 P.' The other fields we
may deal with in a table
A. A. R. P.
East Field estimation 75 measure 51 1 25
Middle Field 58 39 3 36
South Field 103 59 2 13
It will be seen at once that the discrepancy between the two sets of
figures is not to be fully explained by the supposition that at
Whitehill men had measured land by measures differing from our statutory
standards[1293]. The size of a 'two-acres' (and the land in this
instance had been divided chiefly into 'two-acres') varied not only from
field to field and shot to shot, but within one and the same shot. Each
two-acre strip has an equal breadth, but the curving boundaries of the
fields make some strips longer than others[1294].
[Varying size of the acres.]
We turn to the admirable maps of Heyford in Oxfordshire designed in
1606. Here the land is divided among many occupiers and cut up into a
vast number of strips, to each of which is assigned its 'estimated' and
its measured content. Thus we read:--
dim. ac. Jo. Sheres 1. 18
dim. ac. Ric. Elkins 1. 18
dim. ac. Jo. Merry 1. 18.
In this part of this shot a 'half-acre' contains 1 R. 18 P. Some of the
shots in this village have fairly straight and rectangular boundaries,
so that we may, for example, find that many successive 'half-acres'
contain 1 R. 18 P. But then if we pass to the next shot we shall find 1
R. 28 P. in the 'half-acre,' while in a third shot we shall find but 1
R. 8 P. Yet every strip of land is a 'half-acre' or an 'acre' or a 'acre
and a half' or a 'two acres' or a 'three acres.' We see further that
when 'acres' occur among 'half-acres' the strips vary in breadth but not
in length.
On a map of Roxton made in 1768 we have the same thing written out in
English words. Thus:--
Eliz. Gardner a half 0. 1. 32
Carpenter a half 0. 1. 32
Harris an acre 0. 3. 24
Carpenter a half 0. 1. 32
Jam. Gardner an acre 0. 3. 24
Makepace a half 0. 1. 34
The result of all this is that anyone who lives in a village knows how
many 'acres' its fields contain. He has not to measure anything; he has
only to count strips, for he is not likely to confuse 'acres' with
'half-acres' and that is the only mistake that he could make.
[Irregular length of acres.]
If a shot had a curved boundary, little or no pains seem to have been
taken to equalize the strips that lay within it by making additional
width serve as a compensation for deficient length. The width of the
so-called acre remained approximately constant while its length varied.
Thus, to take an example from the map of Heyford, we see a shot which is
bounded on the one side by a straight line and on the other by a curving
road. At one end of it the acre contains 2 R. 8 P.; this increases to 2
R. 30 P.; then slowly decreases until it has fallen as low as 1 R. 36
P., and then again rises to 2 R. 2 P. When they were dividing the field,
men attempted to map out shots in which approximately equal areas could
be constructed; but, when a shot was once delimited, then all the acres
in it were made equally broad, while their length could not but vary,
except in the rare case in which the shot was a true rectangle[1295].
[The selions or beds.]
It is probable that the whole system was made yet more visible by the
practice of ploughing the land into 'beds' or ridges, which has but
recently fallen out of use. In our Latin documents these ridges appear
as selions (_seliones_). In English they were called 'lands,' for the
French _sillon_ struck no root in our language. Anyone who has walked
through English grass fields will know what they looked like, for they
triumph over time and change[1296]. Now it would seem that a fairly
common usage made four selions in each acre[1297]; in other words, each
acre-strip was divided longitudinally into four waves, so that the
distance from crest to crest or trough to trough was a perch in length.
Where this usage obtained, you could tell how many acres a shot or field
contained by merely observing the undulations of the surface. Even if,
as was often the case, the number of selions in the acre was not four,
still the number that went to an acre of a given shot would be known,
and a man might argue that a strip was an acre because in crossing it he
traversed three or six terrestrial waves[1298].
[Acres divided lengthwise.]
If we look at old maps, we soon see that when an acre was divided, it
was always divided by a line that was parallel, not to its short ends,
but to its long sides. No one would think of dividing it in any other
fashion. Suppose that you bisected it by bisecting its long sides, you
would force each owner of a half-acre to turn his plough as often as if
he had a whole acre. Besides, you would have uneconomical furrows; the
oxen would be stopped before they had traversed what was regarded as the
natural distance for beasts to go. Divide your acre into two long
strips, then your folk and beasts can plough in the good old way. Hence
it follows that when men think of dividing an acre they speak only of
its breadth. Hence it follows that the quarter of an acre is a 'rood' or
'yard[1299]' or _virga_ or _virgata_ of land. Its width is a rod or
land-yard, and its length--but there is no need to speak of its
length[1300].
[The virgate.]
How then does it happen that these terms 'virgate' and 'yard of land,'
though given to a quarter of an acre, are yet more commonly given to a
much larger quantity containing 30 acres or thereabouts? The explanation
is simple. The typical tenement is a hide. If you give a man a quarter
of a hide (an equitable quarter, equal in value as well as extent to
every remaining quarter) you do this by giving him a quarter of every
acre in the hide. You give him a rood, a yard, a _virga_[1301], a
_virgata_ in every acre, and therefore a rood, a yard, a _virga_, a
_virgata_ of a typical tenement[1302].
[The double meaning of a yard.]
No doubt it is clumsy to have only one term for two quantities, one of
which is perhaps a hundred-and-twenty times as great as the other; but
the context will tell us which is meant, and the difference between the
two is so large that blunders will be impossible. In course of time
there will be a differentiation and specification of terms. To our ears,
for example, _rōd_ (_rood_) will mean one thing, _rŏd_ another,
_yard_ a third; but even in the nineteenth century royal commissioners
will report that a 'yard of land' may mean a quarter of an acre or 'from
28 to 40 acres[1303].' When men have not apprehended 'superficial
measure' (the measurement of shapeless size), when their only units are
the human foot, a rod, an average day's work and the tenement of a
typical householder, their language will be poor, because their thought
is poor.
[The yard-land a fraction of a hide.]
We have now arrived at a not insignificant truth. The virgate or
yard-land of 30 acres or thereabouts is not a primary unit like the
hide, the rod, the acre. It is derivative; it is compound. In its origin
it is a rod's breadth in every acre of a hide. In course of time in this
case, as in other cases, size will triumph over shape. The acre need not
be ten times as long as it is broad; the virgate need not be composed,
perhaps is rarely composed, of scattered quarter-acres; quartering acres
is an uneconomical process; it leads to waste of time. But still the
term will carry on its face the traces of an ancient history and a
protest against some modern theories. The virgate in its inception can
not be a typical tenement; it is a fraction of a typical tenement.
[The yard-land in laws and charters.]
What we have here been saying seems to be borne out by the Anglo-Saxon
laws and charters. They barely recognize the existence of such entities
as yard-lands or virgates. The charters, it must be confessed, deal with
large tracts and seldom have need to notice less than a hide. When,
however, they descend below the hide, they at once come down to the
acre, and this although the quantity that they have to specify is 90, or
60 or 30 acres[1304]. On the other hand, any reference to such an unit
as the virgate or yard-land is exceedingly rare. To judge by the
charters, this is a unit which was but beginning to force itself upon
men's notice in the last century before the Conquest[1305]. From a
remote time there may have been many tenements that were like the
virgates or yard-lands of later days; but the old strain of language
that is preserved in the charters ignores them, has no name for them,
and, when they receive a name, it signifies that they are fractions of a
householder's tenement.
[The hide not at first a measure.]
As an unit larger than the acre men have known nothing but the hide, the
manse, the land of one family, the land of one householder. This is what
we find in England: also it is found in Germany and Scandinavia[1306].
The state bases its structure, its taxation, its military system, upon
the theory that such units exist and can be fairly treated as equal or
equivalent. This theory must have facts behind it, though in course of
time the state may thrust it upon lands that it will not fit, for
example, upon a land of ring-fenced property where there is no
approximate equality between the various tenements. In its origin a hide
will not be a measure of land. A measure is an idea; a hide is a
tenement. The 'foot' does not begin by being twelve inches; it begins by
being a part of the human body. The 'acre' does not begin by being 4840
square yards; it begins by being a strip in the fields that is ploughed
in a forenoon. But unless there were much equality between human feet,
the foot would not become a measure; nor would the acre become a measure
unless the method of ploughing land were fairly uniform. A great deal of
similarity between the 'real' hides or 'householder's lands' we must
needs suppose if the hide becomes a measure; not only must those in any
one village be much alike, there must be similarity between the
villages.
[The hide as a measure.]
After a certain sort the hide does become a measure. Bede does not
believe that if the families in the Isle of Wight were counted, the sum
would be just 1200. The Anglo-Saxon kings are giving away half-hides or
half-manses as well as manses or hides. They can speak of three hides
and thirty acres[1307] or of two hides less sixty acres[1308]. Men are
beginning to work sums in hides and acres as they work sums in pounds
and pence. Indubitably such sums are worked in Domesday Book. In the
thirteenth century the hide can even be treated as a pure superficial
measure. An instance is given by an 'extent' of the village of Sawston
in Cambridgeshire. The content of about two hundred small parcels of
land is given in terms of acres and roods. Then an addition sum is
worked and a total is stated in hides, virgates and acres, the equation
that is employed being 1 H. = 4 V. = 120 A. It is a remarkable case,
because the area, not only of arable land, but of meadows, pasture,
crofts, gardens and messuages is added up into hides. The hide is here a
pure measure, a mere multiple of acres[1309]. The men who made this
'extent' could have spoken of a hide of cloth. But this seems a rare and
it is a late instance. At an earlier time the hide is conceived as
consisting only of arable acres with appurtenances.
[The hide as a measure of arable.]