93
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
Iieve that a measure not widely different from the
result of my own calculations as to the Hide, pre
vailed in Germany ; and hence to conclude that
it was the usual basis of measurement among all
the tribes that issued from the storehouse of na-
tions 1.
What was the amount then of the Hide among
the Anglosaxons 1 Perhaps the easiest way of
arriving at a trustworthy conclusion will be to
commence with the Anglosaxon acre, and other
subdivisions of the Hide and the acre itself.
There is reason to believe that the latter measure
implied ordinarily a quantity of land not very dif-
ferent in amount from our own statute acre2. I
argue this from a passage in the dialogue attributed
to Ælfric, where the ploughman is made to say :
“ ac geiucodan oxan and gefæstnodan sceare and
cultre mid ¾a⅛re syl ælee dæg ic sceal erian fulne
æeer o⅞>⅞5e mare that is, “ having yoked my oxen,
and fastened my share and coulter, I am bound to
plough every day a full acre or more.” Now expe-
1 I do not know the present average amount of a Frisian or West-
phalian Hof, but the peasant-farms a little below Cologne, on the left
bank of the Rhine, average from 30 to 60 acres. See Banfield, Agri-
cult. Rhine, p. 10. The Bavarian Hof of two Huben contains from
60 to GOjiickert (each juckert equal to 40,000 square Bavarian feet, or
nearly ajugerum). This brings the Hof from about 36 to 40 acres.
See Schmeller, Baierisch. Wdrterbuch, ii. 142, voc. Hueb. Schmel-
ler’s remarks on Hof are worth consulting, and especially his opinion
that it may mean a necessary measure or portion. See also Grimm,
Rechtsalt. p. 535.
2 That it was a fixed and not a variable quantity, both as to form
and extent, seems to follow from the expressions, three acres wide
(Cod. Dipl. No. 781), iii acera bræde, i. e. three acres breadth (Leg.
√E<5elst. iv. 5), ix aeræ Iatitudine (Leg. Hen. I. cap. xvi.).
CH. IV.]
THE EDEL, HTD OR ALOD.
97
rience proves1 that a plough drawn by oxen will
hardly exceed this measure upon average land at
the present day; an acre and a quarter would be
a very hard day’s work for any ploughman under
such circumstances. Hence for all practical pur-
poses we may assume our actual acre not to differ
very materially from the Anglosaxon. And now,
how is an acre constituted 1
It has many divisors, all multiplying into the re-
quired sum of 4840 square yards. Thus, it is clear
that a length of 4840 yards, with a breadth of
one yard, is quite as much an acre as a length of
220 yards with a breadth of 22 (in other words,
ten chains by one, or 22 × 10 × 22,) the usual
and legal computation : that is to say, twenty-two
strips of land each 220 yards long and one wide,
if placed together in any position will make up an
acre. Placed side by side they will make an ob-
long acre whose length and breadth are as 10:1.
A space rather more than sixty-nine and less than
seventy yards in each side would be a square acre ;
it is however not probable that the land generally
allowed of square divisions, but rather that the
portions were oblong, a circumstance in favour of
the ploughman, whose labour varies very much with
the length of the furrow.
The present divisors of the acre are 5,5 and 40 ;
combinations of these numbers make up the parts
not only of the acre or square measure, but also
ɪ These calculations rest not only upon the authority of several large,
practical farmers, and the opinions of intelligent ploughmen who have
been consulted, but also upon experiments made under the author’s
own eye, on land of different qualities.
VOL. I. H