CARUCATE (or carucate terrae,
plough-land) means a quantity of land, but conveys to us no certainty of
measurement; yet the people in olden
times were often taxed by the carucate or carve of land, which might contain
houses, mills, woods, pastures, &c.
Skene says it contains as great a portion of land as may be laboured and
tilled in a year and a day by one plough, and is the same in quantity as the
hide of land. The hide of land and the
carucate of land are estimated to contain one hundred and twenty acres each. Carucates only are the measurements mentioned
in Lincolnshire. Carucate is the word I have taken to
represent the the plough-team, as well as the plough-land.
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