Virgate

Farm-derived units of measurement:

1. The rod is a historical unit of length equal to 5+1⁄2 yards. It may have originated from the typical length of a mediaeval ox-goad. There are 4 rods in one chain.
2. The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains.
3. An acre was the amount of land tillable by one man behind one team of eight oxen in one day. Traditional acres were long and narrow due to the difficulty in turning the plough and the value of river front access.
4. An oxgang was the amount of land tillable by one ox in a ploughing season. This could vary from village to village, but was typically around 15 acres.
5. A virgate was the amount of land tillable by two oxen in a ploughing season.
6. A carucate was the amount of land tillable by a team of eight oxen in a ploughing season. This was equal to 8 oxgangs or 4 virgates.

The virgate was a unit of land area measurement used in medieval England, typically outside the Danelaw, and was held to be 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. A ‘virgater’ would thus be a peasant who occupied or worked this area of land, and a ‘half virgater’ would be a person who occupied or worked about 15 acres (61,000 m²).

The Danelaw equivalent of a virgate was two oxgangs, or ‘bovates’: as these names imply, the oxgang or bovate was 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. Accordingly, a 'bovater' is the Danelaw equivalent of a half virgater.

‘Virgate’ is an anglicisation of the Medieval Latin virgatus. The historic English translation was yardland. In some parts of England it was divided into four nooks (or nocates). Nooks were occasionally further divided into "farundell" (possibly translated as farthingales).