So the common ploughing was arranged. But how was the produce of the partnership to be divided? This, too, is settled by the law, representing no doubt immemorial custom. The first erw ploughed was to go to the ploughman, the second to the irons, the third to the outside sod ox, the fourth to the outside sward ox, the fifth to the driver, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh to the other six oxen in order of worth; and lastly, the twelfth was the plough erw, for ploughbote, i.e. for the maintenance of the woodwork of the plough; and so, it is stated, 'the tie of 12 erws was completed.' Further, [p122] if any dispute should arise between the co-tillers as to the fairness of the ploughing, the common-sense rule was to be followed that the erw which fell to the ploughman should be examined as to the depth, length, and breadth of the furrows and every one's erw must be ploughed equally well.

Here, then, in the Welsh laws is the clearest evidence not only of the division of the common fields by turf balks two furrows wide into the long narrow strips called erws, or acres, and roughly corresponding in shape, though not in area, with those on English fields, but also of the very rules and methods by which their size and shape, as well as the order of their ownership, were fixed in Wales.

It is the method of division of the results of co-tillage.

And this order in the allotment of the erws turns out to be an ingenious system for equitably dividing year by year the produce of the co-operative ploughing between the contributors to it.

Now, without entering at present into the question of its connexion with the tribal system in Wales, which will require careful consideration hereafter, several interesting and useful flashes of light may be drawn from this glimpse into the methods and rules of the ancient Welsh system of co-operative ploughing.

The size of the team necessitates co-operation,

In the first place, ancient Welsh ploughing was evidently not like the classical ploughing of the sunny south, a mere scratching of the ground with a light plough, which one or two horses or oxen could draw. In the Welsh laws a team of eight oxen, as already said, is assumed to be necessary. And hence the necessity of co-operative ploughing. The plough was evidently heavy and the ploughing deep, just as was the case in [p123] the twelfth century, and probably from still earlier to quite modern times in Scotland, where, as we have seen, the plough was of the same heavy kind, and the team of eight or of twelve oxen. And it is curious to observe that the Welsh, like the Scotch oxen in modern times, were driven four abreast, i.e. yoked four to a yoke. So that, as already suggested, the plough was aptly described by the monks in their mediæval Latin as a 'caruca,' and the ploughed land as a 'carucate.'

and the strips go with the oxen.

But the most interesting point about the ancient Welsh co-operative ploughing was the fact that the key to a share in the produce was the contribution of one or more oxen to the team. He who contributed one ox was entitled to one erw in the twelve. He who contributed two oxen was entitled to two erws. He who contributed a whole yoke of four oxen would receive four erws, while only the owner of the full team of eight oxen could possibly do without the co-operation of others in ploughing. Surely this Welsh evidence satisfactorily verifies the hypothesis already suggested by the term bovate, and by the allotment of two oxen as outfit to the yard-land or virgate, and by the taking of tithes in the shape of every tenth strip as it was traversed by the plough, and lastly by the order of rotation in the strips disclosed by the Winslow example.

It explains how the possession of the oxen came to be in Saxon, as probably in still earlier British or Roman times, the key to the position of the holder, and his rank in the hierarchy of the village community. And it points to the Saxon system of hides and yard-lands having possibly sprung naturally out [p124] of pre-existing British or Roman arrangements, rather than as having been a purely Saxon importation.