[1271] Delisle, Études sur la condition de la classe agricole en Normandie, 531–2.
[1272] We find from D. B. i. 166 that there was a royal sextarius; but (i. 162, 238) other sextarii were in use.
[1273] Meitzen, op. cit. ii. 564. Thus in Köln, the Morgen is 31·72 ares, the Waldmorgen 38·06 ares. In Brunswick the Feldmorgen is 25·02 ares, the Waldmorgen 33·35 ares. So in Sussex the common acres are small; the forest acre = 180 (instead of 160) perches. So in Herefordshire the common acre is put down at two-thirds of the statute acre, but an acre of wood is more than an acre and a half of statute measure.
[1274] Registr. Honor. Richemund., Ap., p. 11, Agard says: ‘In the Arrentation of Assarts of Forests made in Henry III.’s and Edward I.’s times, for forest ground the commissioners let the land per perticam xx. pedum,’ though by this time the 16·5 foot perch was the established royal measure for ordinary purposes. In a Buckinghamshire Fine levied in John’s reign (Hunter, i. 242) we find acres of land which are measured ‘by the lawful perch of the vill,’ while acres of wood are measured ‘by the perch of the king.’ Ibid. 13, 178: a perch of 20 feet was being used in the counties of Bedford and Buckingham, though Bedfordshire is notorious for small acres. The obscure processes that go on in the history of measures might be illustrated from the report cited above, p. 374, note 1261; the length of the ‘customary’ perch varies inversely with the difficulty of the work to be done. In Herefordshire a perch of fencing was 21 feet, a perch of walling 16·5. And so forth.
[1275] Morgan, op. cit. 27, suggests a double goad. The gād of modern Cambridgeshire has been a stick 9 feet long; but the surveyor put eight into the acre-breadth, reckoning two of these gāds to the customary pole of 18 feet. See Pell, in Domesday Studies, i. 276, 296. A rod that is 18 feet long is a clumsy thing and perhaps for practical purposes it has been cut in half. Meitzen, op. cit., i. 90: Two hunting-spears would make a measuring rod. See also Hanssen, Abhandlungen, ii. 210.
[1276] Seebohm, op. cit. 119. Welsh evidence seems to point this way.
[1277] K. 529 (iii. 4): ‘12 æceras mædwa.’—K. 549 (iii. 33).—K. 683 (iii. 263).
[1278] When Walter of Henley, p. 8, is making his calculations as to the amount of land that can be ploughed in a day, he assumes that the work will be over a noune. The ‘by three o’clock’ of his translator is too precise and too late. At whatever hour nones should have been said, the word noon became our name for twelve o’clock. See also Seebohm, op. cit. 124.
[1279] Meitzen, op. cit., ii. 565. The rods known in Germany range upwards from very short South German rods which descend from the Roman pertica to much longer rods which lie between 4 meters and 5. Our statute perch just exceeds 5 meters. Then the ordinary (not forest) Morgen rarely approaches 40 ares, while our statute acre is equivalent to 40·46 ares. However, the Scandinavian Tonne is yet larger and recalls the big acres of northern England. In France perches of 18 feet were common, and in Normandy yet longer perches were used, but we do not know that the French acre or journal contained 160 square perches.
[1280] Seebohm, op. cit. 166.