2. That the length of the 5-1/2-yard rod was taken from that of the medieval lance. Certainly in France there is some evidence of the spear-length being used as a rough land-measure, ‘un hanst’ or ‘une hanstée’ de terre. ‘Hanste,’ in modern French hampe, a shaft, is from L. hasta. Doubtless very long lances have been used by infantry. The Macedonian phalanx had lances of 8 yards, so that five rows of spear points projected from its front. The Scots lance was 6 ells, the Scots rod, ‘That in all, Spears be six Elns in length, under the pain of etc.’ (James III); but this length, = 18-1/2 feet, was ordered two centuries later than Edward I, at a time when infantry were brought to resist the onslaught of cavalry. Two centuries later still, it was ordered by 13 Chas. II that a pikeman was to be armed with a pike not under 16 feet in length. It is improbable that in Edward I’s time foot soldiers were armed with pikes anything like that length, while the knights’ spears could not have been longer than 10 feet. Those shown in the Bayeux embroidery are about 7 feet.
It is possible that the length of the ox-goad may have been used as a rough land-measure, but English ox-goads appear to have usually been only about the length of the Cornish goad, not more than 3 yards long.
Inclined myself to this second hypothesis—for was not Hector’s spear of 11 cubits = 22 spans, and are not 22 spans = 16-1/2 feet?—I yet acknowledge that it is scarcely tenable.
3. The most probable hypothesis is that the Rod was originally a North German Ruthe of 16 Norse or Rhineland feet brought over by Saxons or Danes, and that, established as is seen by the Roll of Battel Abbey ‘pertica vero xvi pedes,’ it was afterwards adjusted to the standard of the King’s foot. Thus 16 Rhineland feet = 16 feet 5·7 inches; which would make the statute rod practically 16 feet 6 inches. In North Germany the Ruthe is usually of 16 local feet, originally, it may be presumed, Rhineland feet, displaced by the local foot = 11·23 to 11·5 inches. Sometimes this fall in the length of the foot is compensated by an increase in the number of ruthen to the ‘morgen’ or acre, sometimes, as in Holland, by making the roede 13 Amsterdam short feet (of 11 inches) instead of 12 Rhineland feet.
It seems likely that the North German acker of 160 square ruthen came to Northern France with the Franks and the Normans, that it became the Acre de Normandie of 160 square rods, the length of the rod becoming changed by the influence of the French standard of 6 aunes = 24 Roman feet. This length of 24 feet passed, under Norman influence, to Cheshire, becoming the local rod of 8 yards or 24 English feet.
The rod of 6 aunes, French ells, passed to Scotland as 6 ells, but 6 Scots ells = 18 Rhineland feet.
8. How the Acre came to be 160 Rods
The North German acker or morgen is 160 ruthen. Why? It may be presumed that, on the sexdecimal system dear to the bucolic mind throughout the world, it was 16 times an original unit of 10 square ruthen, of 16 feet square, analogous to the Greek plethron of 10 square kalamoi and to the Provençal cosso of 10 square fathom-rods. There is still extant, in North Holland, the snees, snick, or score, of land, = 20 square roede.
The Austrian joch is 1600 square ‘klafter’ of 6 feet = 1·42 acre.
There are 1600 square rods in our square furlong, the original square unit of which the acre is a one-tenth slice.