IX. CARTULARIES OF NEWMINSTER AND KELSO (XIII. CENTURY)—THE CONNEXION OF THE HOLDINGS WITH THE COMMON PLOUGH TEAM OF EIGHT OXEN.

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 place[73]—Selkirk—there were 15 husband-lands, each containing a bovate. In another[74]—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.