There is, lastly, another point in which the Welsh laws of co-aration suggest a clue to the reason and origin of a widely spread trait of the open field system. Why were the strips in the open field system uniformly so small? The acre or _erw_ was obviously a furrow-long for the convenience of the ploughing. But what fixed its breadth and its area? This, too, is explained. According to the Welsh laws it was the measure of a _day's co-ploughing_. This is clear from two passages in the laws where it is called a '_cyvar_,' or a 'co-ploughing.'[150] And it would seem that a day's ploughing ended at midday, because in the legal description of a complete ox it is required to plough only to midday.[151] The Gallic word for the acre or strip, '_journel_,' in the Latin of the monks '_jurnalis_,' and [p125] sometimes _diurnalis_,[152] also points to a day's ploughing; while the German word 'morgen' for the same strips in the German open fields still more clearly points to a day's work which ended, like the Welsh 'cyvar,' at noon. FOOTNOTES: [130] The boundaries of the charters contained in first two volumes of the Codex Div. are collected in the Appendix to vol. iii. After this they are given with the charters. [131] _Hist. Monasterii de Abingdon_, vol. i. p. 57. [132] _Codex Dip._ cclxxii. '_grenan hlinc_,' cccliii. '_hlinces_,' ccclxxvii. 'ealde gare quod indigenæ _nane monnes land_ vocant.' (See also dlxx. '_nane mannes land_'), cccxcix. '_furlang_,' ccccvii. '_forlang_,' '_heued lande_,' ccccxiii. '_furlang_,' '_hlinces_,' ccccxiv. '_mær hlinces_,' ccccxvii. '_forerth akere_,' ccccxviii. '_furlanges_,' ccccxix. and xx. '_foryrthe_,' '_greatan hlinces_,' and so on. Instances are equally numerous in the Abingdon charters and those of the _Liber de Hyda_. For linces, see _Hist. Abingdon_, i. pp. 111, 147, 158, 188, 259, 284, 315, 341, 404. _Liber de Hyda_, pp. 86, 103, 107, 176, 235, 239. [133] Laws of King Ine. _Ancient Laws, &c., of England_, Thorpe, p. 55. [134] It will be remembered that Lammas land is divided into strips for the hay crop. In the Winslow Rolls, in the list of strips included in the virgate of John Moldeson were some strips or _doles_ of meadow--hence _dǽl_ and _gedál-land_. That gedal-land = open fields divided into strips, see _Hist. Abingdon_ (p. 304), where there is a charter, A.D. 961, making a grant of '9 mansas' and 'thas nigon hida lieggead on gemang othran _gedal-lande_, feldes gemane and mæda gemane and yrthland gemane.' [135] Vol. i. pp. 349–352. [136] So also see _Codex Diplomaticus_, dii. and dxvi., and cccclxvii. and cccxxxv. [137] Vol. i. p. 384. Compare also the boundaries of Draitune, '_æcer under æcer_,' p. 248. Also the same expression, pp. 350 and 353. [138] See, with regard to this donation, Kemble's _Saxons in England_, c. x.; and Stubbs' _Const. Hist._ i. pp. 262–71.