'Yardland' redirects here. Not to be confused with
yard (land). For the use of 'virgate' in reference to rod-like stems and ribs, see
virgate (botany).
The virgate, yardland, or yard of land (
Latin: virgāta [terrae]) was an
English unit of land. Primarily a measure of
tax assessment rather than
area, the virgate was usually (but not always) reckoned as 1⁄4hide and notionally (but seldom exactly) equal to 30
acres. It was equivalent to two of the
Danelaw's
oxgangs.
Name
The name derives from the Old English gyrd landes ("yard of land"),[1] from “yard's” former meaning as a measuring stick employed in reckoning
acres (cf.
rod). The word is etymologically unrelated to the
yard of land around a dwelling.[2] "Virgate" is a much later
retronym,
anglicizing the yardland's
latinized form virgāta after the advent of the
yard rendered the original name ambiguous.[3]
History
The virgate was reckoned as the amount of land that a team of two
oxen could plough in a single annual season. It was equivalent to a quarter of a
hide, so was nominally thirty
acres.[4] In some parts of England, it was divided into four nooks (
Middle English: noke;
Medieval Latin: noca).[5] Nooks were occasionally further divided into a farundel (
Middle English: ferthendel;
Old English: fēorþan dǣl, "fourth deal, fourth share").[6]
The
Danelaw equivalent of a virgate was two
oxgangs or ‘bovates’.[7] These were considered to represent the amount of land that could be worked in a single annual season by a single ox and therefore equated to half a virgate. As such, the oxgang represented a parallel division of the
carucate.
References
^Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "yardland, n.". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1921.
^Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "yard, n.2". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1921.
^Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "virgate, n.". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1917.
^D. Hey ed., Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996), 476.
^"Noca - nook (measure of land)" R. W. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-list (Oxford University Press, London: for British Academy 1965), 312.