Virgate
- The rod is a historical unit of length equal to 5+1⁄2 yards. It may have originated from the typical length of a mediaeval ox-goad. There are 4 rods in one chain.
- The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains.
- An acre was the amount of land tillable by one man behind a yoke of oxen in one day. Traditional acres were long and narrow due to the difficulty in turning the plough and the value of river front access.
- An oxgang was the amount of land tillable by one ox in a ploughing season. This could vary from village to village, but was typically around 15 acres.
- A virgate was the amount of land tillable by two oxen in a ploughing season.
- A carucate was the amount of land tillable by a team of eight oxen in a ploughing season. This was equal to 8 oxgangs or 4 virgates.
The virgate, yardland, or yard of land (Latin: virgāta [terrae]) was an English unit of land. Primarily a measure of tax assessment rather than area, the virgate was usually (but not always) reckoned as 1⁄4 hide and notionally (but seldom exactly) equal to 30 acres. It was equivalent to two of the Danelaw's oxgangs.
Name
[edit]
The name derives from the Old English gyrd landes ("yard of land"),[1] from “yard's” former meaning as a measuring stick employed in reckoning acres (cf. rod). The word is etymologically unrelated to the yard of land around a dwelling.[2] "Virgate" is a much later retronym, anglicizing the yardland's latinized form virgāta after the advent of the yard rendered the original name ambiguous.[3]
History
[edit]The virgate was reckoned as the amount of land that a team of two oxen could plough in a single annual season. It was equivalent to a quarter of a hide, so was nominally thirty acres.[4] In some parts of England, it was divided into four nooks (Middle English: noke; Medieval Latin: noca).[5] Nooks were occasionally further divided into a farundel (Middle English: ferthendel; Old English: fēorþan dǣl, "fourth deal, fourth share").[6]
The Danelaw equivalent of a virgate was two oxgangs or ‘bovates’.[7] These were considered to represent the amount of land that could be worked in a single annual season by a single ox and therefore equated to half a virgate. As such, the oxgang represented a parallel division of the carucate.
References
[edit]- ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "yardland, n.". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1921.
- ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "yard, n.2". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1921.
- ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "virgate, n.". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1917.
- ↑ D. Hey ed., Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996), 476.
- ↑ "Noca - nook (measure of land)" R. W. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-list (Oxford University Press, London: for British Academy 1965), 312.
- ↑ Bosworth, Joseph; T. Northcote Toller (1882). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford University Press. p. 281.
- ↑ Stephen Friar, Batsford Companion to Local History (Batsford, London 1991), 270.
