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Passing to the north of England, substantially the same system is found, along with customs and details which still further connect the gradations of the holdings in villenage with the plough team and the yokes of oxen of which it was composed.

Bovates or oxgangs.

North of the Tees, in the district of the old Northumbria, virgates and half-virgates were still the [p061] usual holdings, but they were called 'husband-lands.' The full husband-land, or virgate, was composed of two bovates, or oxgangs, the bovate or oxgang being thus the eighth of the hide or carucate.

In the cartulary of Newminster,69 under date 1250, amongst charters giving evidence of the division of the fields into 'seliones,' or strips,70 the holdings of which were scattered over the fields,71 as everywhere else, is a grant of land to the abbey containing 8 bovates in all, made up of 4 equal holdings of two bovates each.

Husband lands of two bovates.

Stuht, or outfit of two oxen.

In the 'Rotulus Redituum' of the Abbey of Kelso, dated 1290,72 the holdings were 'husband-lands.' In one place73—Selkirk—there were 15 husband-lands, each containing a bovate. In another74—Bolden—the record of which, with the services of the husband-lands, is referred to several times in the document as typical of the rest, there were 28 husband-lands, owing equal payments and services. The contents are not given, but as the services evidently are doubles of those of Selkirk, it may be inferred that the husband-lands each contained 2 bovates (i.e. a virgate), and that so did the usual husband-lands of the Kelso estates. This inference is confirmed by the record for the manor of Reveden, which states that the monks had there 8 husband-lands,75 from each of which were due the services set out at length at the end of this section; and then goes on to say that formerly each 'husband' took with his 'land' his stuht, viz. 2 oxen, 1 horse, 3 chalders of oats, 6 bolls [p062] of barley, and 3 of wheat. 'But when Abbot Richard commuted that service into money, then they returned their stuht, and paid each for his husband-land 18s. per annum.' The allotment of 2 oxen as stuht, or outfit, to the husband-land evidently corresponds with its contents as two bovates.

If the holding of 2 bovates was equivalent to the virgate, and the bovate to the half-virgate or one-eighth of the hide, then the hide should contain 8 bovates or oxgangs; and as the single oxgang had relation to the single ox, and the virgate or 'two bovates' to the pair of oxen allotted to it by way of 'stuht,' or outfit, so the hide ought to have a similar relation to a team of 8 oxen. Thus, if the full team of 8 oxen can be shown to be the normal plough team, a very natural relation would be suggested between the gradations of holdings in villenage, and the number of oxen contributed by the holders of them to the full plough team of the manorial plough. And, in fact, there is ample evidence that it was so.

Full caruca or plough team of eight oxen.

In the Kelso records there is mention of a 'carucate,' or 'plough-land' 76 ('plough' being in these records rendered by 'caruca'); and this plough-land turns out, upon examination, to contain 4 husband-lands, i.e. presumably 8 bovates.

Further, among the 'Ancient Acts of the Scotch Parliament' there is an early statute77 headed 'Of Landmen telande with Pluche,' which ordains that 'ilk man teland with a pluche of viii. oxin' shall sow at the least so much wheat, &c.: showing that the team of 8 oxen was the normal plough team in Scotland. [p063] Again, among the fragments printed under the heading of 'Ancient Scotch Laws and Customs,' without date, occurs the following record:78—

'In the first time that the law was made and ordained they began at the freedom of "halikirk," and since, at the measuring of lands, the "plew-land" they ordained to contain viii. oxingang, &c.'

Even so late as the beginning of the present century, we learn from the old 'Statistical Account of Scotland' that in many districts the old-fashioned ploughs were of such great weight that they required 8, 10, and sometimes 12 oxen to draw them.79

Four oxen yoked abreast.

Information from the same source also explains the use of the word 'caruca' for plough. For the construction of the word involves not 4 yoke of oxen, but 4 oxen yoked abreast, as are the horses in the caruca so often seen upon Roman coins. And the 'Statistical Account' informs us that in some districts of Scotland in former times 'the ploughs were drawn by 4 oxen or horses yoked abreast: one trod constantly upon the tilled surface, another went in the furrow, and two upon the stubble or white land. The driver walked backwards holding his cattle by halters, and taking care that each beast had its equal share in the draught. This, though it looked awkward, was contended to be the only mode of yoking by which 4 animals could best be compelled to exert all their strength.' 80

So also in Wales.

The ancient Welsh laws, as we shall see by-and-by, also speak of the normal plough team as consisting from time immemorial, throughout Wales, of 8 [p064] oxen yoked 4 to a yoke. The team of 8 oxen seems further to have been the normal manorial plough team throughout England, though in some districts still larger teams were needful when the land was heavy clay.

In the 'Inquisition of the Manors of St. Paul's' 81 it is stated of the demesne land of a manor in Hertfordshire, that the ploughing could be done with two plough teams (carucæ), of 8 head each. And in another case in the same county 'with 2 plough teams of 8 heads, "cum consuetudinibus villatæ"—with the customary services of the villein tenants.' 82 In another, 'with 5 ploughs, of which 3 have 4 oxen and 4 horses, and 2 each 6 horses.' In another, 'with 3 ploughs of 8 heads.'

In manors in Essex, on the other hand, where the land is heavier, there are the following instances:83—

 4 plough teams, 10 in each.

 2 plough teams, 8 in each.

 1 plough team, 10.

 3 plough teams, 8 oxen and 2 horses.

 2 plough teams, 10 oxen and 10 horses for the two.

 2 plough teams, 12 oxen and 8 horses the two.

 2 plough teams, 4 horses and 4 oxen in each.

 2 plough teams, 10 each.

 1 plough team, 6 horses and 4 oxen.

In two manors in Middlesex the teams were as under:84—

 1 of 8 heads.

 2 of 8 oxen and 2 horses. [p065]

In the Gloucester cartulary85 there are the following instances:—

 To each plough team 8 oxen and 4 over.

 To each plough team 12 oxen and 1 over.

 To each plough team 12 oxen and 1 over.

Normal English plough team of eight oxen.

All these instances are from documents of the thirteenth century, and they conspire in confirming the point that the normal plough team was, by general consent, of 8 oxen; though some heavier lands required 10 or 12, and sometimes horses in aid of the oxen.

Nor do these exceptions at all clash with the hypothesis of the connexion of the grades of holdings with the number of oxen contributed by the holders to the manorial plough team of their village; for as the number of oxen in the team sometimes varied from the normal standard, so also did the number of virgates in the hide or carucate.

Connexion between the oxen and the holdings.

So that, summing up the evidence of this chapter, daylight seems to have dawned upon the meaning of the interesting gradation of holdings in villenage in the open fields. The hide or carucate seems to be the holding corresponding with the possession of a full plough team of 8 oxen. The half-hide corresponds with the possession of one of the 2 yokes of 4 abreast; the virgate with the possession of a pair of oxen, and the half-virgate or bovate with the possession of a single ox; all having their fixed relations to the full manorial plough team of 8 oxen. And this conclusion receives graphic illustration when the Scotch chronicler Winton thus quaintly describes [p066] the efforts of King Alexander III. to increase the growth of corn in his kingdom:—

Yhwmen, pewere karl, or knawe

That wes of mycht an ox til have

He gert that man hawe part in pluche:

Swa wes corn in his land enwche:

Swa than begouth, and efter lang

Of land wes mesure, ane oxgang.

Mychty men that had mâ

Oxyn, he gert in pluchys ga.

Be that vertu all his land

Of corn he gert be abowndand.86

Not that Alexander III. was really the originator of the terms 'plow-land' and 'oxgate,' but that he attained his object of increasing the growth of corn by extending into new districts of Scotland, before given up chiefly to grazing, the same methods of husbandry as elsewhere had been at work from time immemorial, just as the monks of Kelso probably had done, by giving each of their villein tenants a 'stuht' of 2 oxen with which to plough their husband-lands.

One point more, however, still remains to be explained before the principle of the open field system can be said to be fully grasped, viz. why the strips of which the hides, virgates, and bovates were composed were scattered in so strange a confusion all over the open fields.

Services on Kelso manors.

In the meantime the following examples of the services of the villein tenants of Kelso husband-lands and bovates are appended for the purpose of comparison with those of other districts:—[p067]