We have to go, therefore, to Bavaria in the seventh century for the earliest instance of the form of the English acre. And in this earliest instance it had a distinctly _servile_ connexion, as it had also in the French cases quoted. In all it fixed the day's task-work of semi-servile tenants. Further, the Bavarian 'andecena,' if the spelling of the word may be trusted, may have another curious and interesting connexion with the Saxon acre, to which attention must be once more turned. «The form in which the 'agrarium' or tithe-rent was taken.» We have seen that the tithes were to be paid in Saxon times in the produce of 'every tenth acre as it [p386] is traversed by the plough.' The Roman land-tribute in Rhætia and the 'Agri Decumates' also consisted of tithes. If these latter tithes were paid as the Saxon ecclesiastical tithes were, by every tenth strip being set aside for them in the ploughing, the words of the Bavarian law have an important significance. The _judex_ or _villicus_ is required by the laws to see that the _colonus_ or _servus_ shall render by way of _agrarium_ or land tribute according to what he has, from every thirty modii three modii (_i.e._ the tenth)--'lawful _andecenæ_ (_andecenas legitimas_), that is (the rod having ten feet) four rods in width and forty in length, to plough, to sow, to hedge, to gather, to lead, and to store.'[596] Now why is the peculiar phraseology used 'from 30 modii 3 modii'? Surely either because three modii, according to the 'Agrimensores,' went to the juger, or because the actual acre of the locality was sown with three modii of seed,[597] so that in either case it was a way of saying 'from every ten acres one acre.' Further, the form and measure of the acre is described, and it is called the '_lawful andecena_.' The word itself in its peculiar etymology possibly contains a reference to the _one strip set apart in ten for the tithe_. Be this as it may, here again, in another point connected with the 'acre,' we find the nearest and earliest analogies in South Germany within the old Roman province. [p387] Lastly, we have still to explain the reason of the difference between the form of the Roman 'actus' and 'jugerum' and that of the early Bavarian and English acre. The Egyptian arura was 100 cubits square.[598] The Greek πλέθρον was 10 rods or 100 feet square.[599] The Roman actus was 12 rods or 120 feet square. The Roman 'jugerum' was made up of two 'actus' placed side by side, and was the area to be ploughed in a day. «Form of the acre or day's-work connected with the number of oxen in the team.» In all these cases the yoke of two oxen is assumed, and the length of the acre, or 'day-work,' is the length of the furrow which _two_ oxen could properly plough at a stretch.[600] The reason of the increased length of the Bavarian and the English acre was, no doubt, connected with the fact of the larger team.[601]