Light and heavy ploughs.
That light as well as heavy ploughs were in use we have not denied. At a little later time we see teams of six beasts and teams of ten engaged in ploughing. But the compilers of Domesday Book are not concerned with the methods of husbandry; they are registering the number of oxen. If a man has one ox which is employed as a beast of the plough, they say of him: Arat cum uno bove[1385]. If he and another man have such an ox between them, they say: Ibi est semibos. If he has four oxen, they set this down as dimidia caruca. Instead of telling us that there are thirty-eight oxen, they speak of five teams less two oxen[1386]. Twelve pence make a shilling; and, at all events at the Exchequer, eight oxen make a team.
The team of Domesday and other documents.
Very lately an argument has been advanced in favour of a caruca, the strength of which varies from place to place. In many instances the Black Book of Peterborough in its description of the abbatial estates will give to the demesne of a particular manor exactly the same number of teams that are ascribed to it by Domesday Book, and, while in some cases the later of these documents will tell us that there are eight oxen to the team, in others it will speak of teams of six[1387]. That there is force in this argument we must admit; but many changes will take place in forty years, and we can not think that the correspondence between the two documents is sufficiently close to warrant the inference that the caruca of Domesday can have fewer beasts than eight. An exactly parallel argument would serve to prove that the hide of Domesday contains a variable number of fiscal ‘acres.’ Were it possible (but we shall see that it is not) for us to regard the teamland of Domesday as a fixed area, then we might afford to allow the strength of the team to vary; but if the teamland is no fixed area and the team has no fixed strength, then King William’s inquest ends in a collection of unknown quantities.
The teamland.
We turn from the team (C) to the teamland (B), and must face some perplexing questions. Reluctantly we have come to the opinion that this term ‘the land of (or for) one team’ does not in the first instance denote a fixed areal quantity of arable land. We have adopted this opinion reluctantly because we are differing from some of the best expositors of our record, and because it compels us to say that many of the statistical data with which that record provides us are not so useful as we hoped that they would be.
Fractional parts of the teamland.
In the first place, we must notice that if this term stands for a fixed quantity, a very rude use is being made of it. We see indeed that fractional parts of a teamland can be conceived. We often meet the land of (or for) half a team; we may come upon the land of or for two oxen, one ox, half an ox. But, except in a few counties, any mention of fractions smaller than the half of a team is rare, and even halves seldom occur. Now certainly the teamland was a large unit for such treatment as this. If, for instance, we suppose that it contained 120 acres, then we must infer that in some shires the jurors who had to describe a mass of 420 acres would have called it land for 3 or else land for 4 teams, and that in most shires an odd 80 acres would have been neglected or would have done duty as half a teamland. The hides or the carucates (A) have often been split into small fractions where the jurors distribute integral teamlands. One example of this common phenomenon shall be given. In Grantchester lie six estates[1388]:
the first rated at 3 v. has land for 1 team,
the first rated at 3 v. has land for 1 team,