In Provence, the people, long under Roman influence, are yet much more Greek than Roman, and there is not a trace of any Roman standard among their weights and measures. There the greater land-unit is the saumado of 1600 square cano of 6 feet. It is divided in two ways: (1) on the sexdecimal system,[[20]] (2) into 160 cosso, each of 10 square cano.
It seems as if the 1600 small units in our square furlong, in the Austrian joch, in the Provençal saumado, come from an extension of the sexdecimal multiple 16 to 160 and 1600.
9. Customs of Lancaster
‘Customs of places doe differ; for in the Dutchy of Lancaster a knightes fee containeth foure hides of land, every hide foure ploughlands called in latine carucata terræ, and that is quantum aratrum arare potest in æstivo tempore, and that is (as I take it) which is in the North parts called an Oxegange. And every ploughland or carue is foure yard land which in latine is called quatrona terræ; every yardland thirty acres, halfe a yard land in some places in the West is called a Cosset, half a Cosset is a Mese which containeth about 7-1/2 acres. But commonly a carue or plow-land containeth a hundreth and twenty acres; a hide of land 480 acres and every knightes fee 1920 acres. But after some computations, a knights fee containeth five hydes of land, every hyde foure yard land, and every yard land twenty foure acres.’ (‘The Surveior’s Dialogue,’ by J. Norden, ‘at my poore house at Hendon, 27 Martis 1610.’)
So in Domesday Book it will be found that ‘inter Ripe et Mersham,’ between the Ribble and the Mersey, the hide was not synonymous with the carucate. The series of feudal measures appears to have been there:
Acre, of Lancashire standard = 1·62 statute acres.
Bovate or Virgate of about 15 acres, paying about 4 pence ‘relief’ to the king.
Carucate or Ploughland, of 8 bovates, paying about 32 pence.
Hide of 6 carucates, paying about one pound.
These feudal measures were evidently vague and variable. The King’s assessment was very much the same as it was in Upper Burma fifty years ago. There no survey was required; the land-tax (very light, as the king’s revenue was derived, as in medieval England, from forest and other monopolies and from fines) was one rupee a plough, that is for a plough and a yoke of cattle. The Norman kings’ assessment was for the common plough of the whole carucate, 4 oxgangs.