[96] From virga = a yard.
[97] For convenience of reference the following table is appended, but it must be remembered that these are rather average results than scientifically exact formulæ. See Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, p. 239, for varying sizes of Hides, Virgates and Bovates.
1 Bovate or Ox-gang = 15 acres.
2 Bovates = 1 Virgate or Yard-land = 30 acres.
8 Bovates or 4 Virgates = 1 Carucate or Hide = 120 acres.
[98] As alleged by Mr. Seebohm.
[99] The laws of Ine which speak of the subjection of a free man to a lord are 3, 21, 27, 39, 67 and 74.
[100] Law 43.
[101] Law 16. Ceorles birele evidently means a ceorl’s female slave.
[102] Vinogradoff (Growth of the Manor, 202) minimises the element of personal slavery in the early Anglo-Saxon community: “Even in the earliest stage of English life it could not be said that English society was a slave-holding one.... Slavery turns out not to be a fit economic and social basis for a primitive, half-agricultural, half-pastural society: the slaves are difficult to keep and awkward to deal with.... They are mostly provided with small households of their own and used as coloni.”
[103] Ine, 70. The amber is said to have contained four bushels, but Maitland (Domesday Book, etc., p. 440, n. 6) doubts its having been so large.
[104] Ine, 11, 12.