Talk:Virgate

Virgater, bovater

I've never seen these words before, are they actually to be found outside Wikipedia? If so, please give citations! Nortonius (talk) 16:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In my part of the country, we do not have bovates, so that I do notg know about that, but I think I have come across "virgater", but I regard this as a sort of historians' slang. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I would agree: I've been thinking of deleting them as obscure, historiographical jargon, of limited use and no solid pedigree; and I've yet to think of a context in which they would be anything other than lazy, inelegant, extemporising shortcuts. If that's a fair description, then I think their presence in Wikipedia would be misleading to the student and general reader alike. Unless anyone knows any better, that is! I'll cross-post this question to Talk:Oxgang. Nortonius (talk) 17:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

No thanks, both of these (well, bovate at least) are well documented. Virgates continue, in a slightly different form in the Channel Islands, I gather. --MacRusgail (talk) 17:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, just to be clear, do you mean virgate/bovate are well attested, or virgater/bovater? Virgate/bovate are indeed well attested, but if you mean virgater/bovater, then that's very interesting, and I think it needs a cited mention in the article. Mention of usage in the Channel Islands, too. Nortonius (talk) 17:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about virgater, or bovater, but it is possible they are used. Vergee is the term currently used in the Channel Islands.--MacRusgail (talk) 19:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! So, my position remains unchanged. Nortonius (talk) 08:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Vergées have only a very limited relationship to the english virgate; the french (and norman) vergée is far far smaller than a virgate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.139.116 (talk) 10:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Two meanings

A virgate is an ancient English measure of land area, which is used in two slightly different ways, as a fiscal measure in Domeday Book and as something closer to a spatial measure in later usage. It contained 20 customary acres.

Domesday Book

Every manor is described as containing a certain number of hides or carucates. This was a fiscal assessment. In the Danelaw, it is carucates; elsewhere hides. Each were divisible, carucates into 8 bovates and hides into 4 virgates. occasionally division into 120 acres is apparent.

Hides were identical to manses, cassati, and similar terms, by which the sizes of estates were described in Saxon charters. They were also used to determine the amount of Danegeld, and military service for which the manor was responsible. However this system was obsolescent by the 12th cnetury, when military service was measured in knights fees. The number of hides (and thus virgates) have a general relationship to the extent of the area under cultivation, but there is no precise arithmetic relationship.

Later usage

Domesday Book also specified the number of ploughs in each manor, usually dividing them between those in demesne and those of (numbered) manorial tenants. In this context, a plough should not be regarded merely as an agricultural implement, but as including a team of eight oxen to pull it. The land that could be cultivated by suich a team was known as a carucate (or ploughland). It was also divided into four virgates, or in some areas into 8 bovates (oxgangs). This was a practical land measure, as a peasant often had one virgate (English yardland) or just half a virgate of land. A virgate could be divided into four nocati (nooks in English) and these occasionally each into 4 farundels (possibly English farthingales).

These measures varied in size, but a carucate usually contained 120 customary acres. That begs the question of how much a customary acres. The customary acres was similar in size to a statute acre, but its precise size varied from place to place. It could be larger or possibly smaller than a statute acre.

References

• Vinogradoff, The Customary Acre
• F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897, repr. Cambridge University Press, 1987), 362-99.

Comment

The above is my view of the system. However, it is possible that some of this constitutes WP:OR, I leave it for others to judge this and copy this into the article, if considered appropriate. I am very aware that my studies in local hisotry have largely been in the West Midlands, where what I have described fits what I observe in documents. It might be better to have a single article, such as Ancient English land measure and to redirect articles on hide (unit), carucate, virgate, bovate, etc. to that article. I agree with the comments about what a team could plough in a year being misleading, as land was only ploughed in winter, but it might be better to refer to the amount that one team could keep in cultivation. Since usally one of the three open fields was fallow, this means that 80 ploughing days were needed each year works, which works out at six days per week for nearly 13 weeks. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

None of that rang any alarm bells with me, I think it's mostly spot on: I'm sure good citations could be found for just about all of it, and I think it could certainly be incorporated into the article without too much adjustment - for example to maintain clearly the systematic distinctions between hides and carucates, and their subdivisions.

You rightly emphasise the ‘two meanings’ inherent in the hide/carucate systems. And your mention of further subdivisions reminds me of the ‘yoke’, a quarter of a carucate. I wonder about the wisdom of uniting these various articles on one page though - memories of reading around these subjects suggest that such a page might prove to be one of Wikipedia’s longest and most complex! That is, I imagine it could be done, but - and this is meant as an honest question - I wonder if such a page wouldn’t be beyond the scope of Wikipedia? Nortonius (talk) 19:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it would be nearly as long as some that I know. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok! But I can't say I'm hopping up and down to do it myself, hopefully some brave soul will step up to the mark. Nortonius (talk) 21:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

nook, etc

The sources that I have added to the article, while supporting the text as far as they go, do not justify everthing currently in the text. I entirely agree with the tag that a citation is needed, but have moved it to the next sentence, which also needs a citation. What I have put is correct, but I cannot find a good authority among my books. I think I had this from Vingradoff, The customary acre, but am not sure. I am in even more difficulty with farundell. I have come across the latter in two contexts:

• For the land attached to farms at Heightington, in Rock, Worcestershire. Copyhold land there was held of the manor of Astley, and the measure is referred to in manor rolls.
• For land held with the Darrell Arms and Framilode Passage, Gloucestershire. If I remember correctly this was a detached part of another parish, possibly Eastington, whose history is given in VCH Gloucestershire X ([1] Date accessed: 31 January 2010), but the matter is not in its text. I must thus have had it from their sources.

I have found nooks in manorial surveys and other records in Worcestershire, for example in Wolverley. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Two meanings

of virgate the land measure are fine. Two meanings—one about medieval English tax assessments and another about modern botanical jargon—have no business being on the same page. FORK. — LlywelynII 00:56, 15 April 2015 (UTC)