The North German acker or morgen is 160 ruthen. Why? It may be presumed
that, on the sexdecimal system dear to the bucolic mind throughout the
world, it was 16 times an original unit of 10 square ruthen, of 16 feet
square, analogous to the Greek plethron of 10 square kalamoi and to the
Provençal _cosso_ of 10 square fathom-rods. There is still extant, in
North Holland, the _snees_, snick, or score, of land, = 20 square roede.
The Austrian joch is 1600 square ‘klafter’ of 6 feet = 1·42 acre.
There are 1600 square rods in our square furlong, the original square
unit of which the acre is a one-tenth slice.
In Provence, the people, long under Roman influence, are yet much more
Greek than Roman, and there is not a trace of any Roman standard among
their weights and measures. There the greater land-unit is the saumado
of 1600 square cano of 6 feet. It is divided in two ways: (1) on the
sexdecimal system,[20] (2) into 160 cosso, each of 10 square cano.
Footnote 20:
Concordantly with the sexdecimal system of corn-measures into 4
sesteirado, or 8 eiminado. See Seed-measures in Section 10.
It seems as if the 1600 small units in our square furlong, in the
Austrian joch, in the Provençal saumado, come from an extension of the
sexdecimal multiple 16 to 160 and 1600.
9. CUSTOMS OF LANCASTER
‘Customs of places doe differ; for in the Dutchy of Lancaster a knightes
fee containeth foure hides of land, every hide foure ploughlands called
in latine carucata terræ, and that is quantum aratrum arare potest in
æstivo tempore, and that is (as I take it) which is in the North parts
called an Oxegange. And every ploughland or carue is foure yard land
which in latine is called quatrona terræ; every yardland thirty acres,
halfe a yard land in some places in the West is called a Cosset, half a
Cosset is a Mese which containeth about 7-1/2 acres. But commonly a
carue or plow-land containeth a hundreth and twenty acres; a hide of
land 480 acres and every knightes fee 1920 acres. But after some
computations, a knights fee containeth five hydes of land, every hyde
foure yard land, and every yard land twenty foure acres.’ (‘The
Surveior’s Dialogue,’ by J. Norden, ‘at my poore house at Hendon, 27
Martis 1610.’)
So in Domesday Book it will be found that ‘inter Ripe et Mersham,’
between the Ribble and the Mersey, the hide was not synonymous with the
carucate. The series of feudal measures appears to have been there:
Acre, of Lancashire standard = 1·62 statute acres.
Bovate or Virgate of about 15 acres, paying about 4 pence
‘relief’ to the king.
Carucate or Ploughland, of 8 bovates, paying about 32 pence.
Hide of 6 carucates, paying about one pound.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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