If we now inquire what was the extent of the land thus strangely divided which was generally owned in the seventh century by the Anglo-Saxon ceorl, we shall find that the determining factor is his ability to grapple with the necessary cultivation of the soil; or, in other words, the size of his estate is expressed in terms of his ploughing power. The normal English plough-team consisted of eight oxen yoked two and two together; and the land which it was possible to plough by such an ox-team was called in English a _hide_, in the Latin of the later lawyers a _carucate_.[94] The extent of a hide was not always precisely the same even in the earliest times,[95] and in later times there are puzzling differences in its dimensions, but as a rule it seems safe to estimate it at 120 acres. If a husbandman had only two oxen (in which case he would generally have to rely on co-operation with his neighbours to get his land tilled) he could only hope to cultivate the fourth part of a hide. This was called a _yard-land_ in Old English, or a _virgate_[96] in legal Latin. An even smaller division was the _ox-gang_ or _bovate_ (the eighth of a hide), which belonged to the husbandman who had but one ox to contribute to the common ploughing.[97] The question now arises, “What was the ordinary holding of the Anglo-Saxon ceorl during the first ages after his settlement in the land, and what was his social position?” The answer, of course, must be mainly conjectural, but especially when we consider the language of Bede, and his Anglo-Saxon translators, who use “family” as the equivalent of “hide,” it seems probable that the hide, whatever its dimensions may have been, was the normal holding of the ceorl in his day, and all the indications derived from the history of the seventh century seem to point to the conclusion that the ceorl was a free man, proprietor of the land which he cultivated, liable to service in the _fyrd_ or national army, and to certain ecclesiastical payments, but in every other relation independent. Metaphors are dangerous things, but we may probably with safety characterise the numerous and sturdy class of ceorls as the backbone of the Anglo-Saxon community.