Full caruca or plough team of eight oxen.
In the Kelso records there is mention of a 'carucate,' or 'plough-land' [76] ('plough' being in these records rendered by 'caruca'); and this plough-land turns out, upon examination, to contain 4 husband-lands, i.e. presumably 8 bovates.
Further, among the 'Ancient Acts of the Scotch Parliament' there is an early statute[77] headed 'Of Landmen telande with Pluche,' which ordains that 'ilk man teland with a pluche of viii. oxin' shall sow at the least so much wheat, &c.: showing that the team of 8 oxen was the normal plough team in Scotland. [p063] Again, among the fragments printed under the heading of 'Ancient Scotch Laws and Customs,' without date, occurs the following record:[78]—
'In the first time that the law was made and ordained they began at the freedom of "halikirk," and since, at the measuring of lands, the "plew-land" they ordained to contain viii. oxingang, &c.'
Even so late as the beginning of the present century, we learn from the old 'Statistical Account of Scotland' that in many districts the old-fashioned ploughs were of such great weight that they required 8, 10, and sometimes 12 oxen to draw them.[79]
Four oxen yoked abreast.
Information from the same source also explains the use of the word 'caruca' for plough. For the construction of the word involves not 4 yoke of oxen, but 4 oxen yoked abreast, as are the horses in the caruca so often seen upon Roman coins. And the 'Statistical Account' informs us that in some districts of Scotland in former times 'the ploughs were drawn by 4 oxen or horses yoked abreast: one trod constantly upon the tilled surface, another went in the furrow, and two upon the stubble or white land. The driver walked backwards holding his cattle by halters, and taking care that each beast had its equal share in the draught. This, though it looked awkward, was contended to be the only mode of yoking by which 4 animals could best be compelled to exert all their strength.' [80]
So also in Wales.
The ancient Welsh laws, as we shall see by-and-by, also speak of the normal plough team as consisting from time immemorial, throughout Wales, of 8 [p064] oxen yoked 4 to a yoke. The team of 8 oxen seems further to have been the normal manorial plough team throughout England, though in some districts still larger teams were needful when the land was heavy clay.
In the 'Inquisition of the Manors of St. Paul's' [81] it is stated of the demesne land of a manor in Hertfordshire, that the ploughing could be done with two plough teams (carucæ), of 8 head each. And in another case in the same county 'with 2 plough teams of 8 heads, "cum consuetudinibus villatæ"—with the customary services of the villein tenants.' [82] In another, 'with 5 ploughs, of which 3 have 4 oxen and 4 horses, and 2 each 6 horses.' In another, 'with 3 ploughs of 8 heads.'