The rod is a historical unit of length equal to 5.5 yards. It may have originated from the typical length of a mediaeval ox-goad.
The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plow without resting. This was standardized to be exactly 40 rods.
An acre was the amount of land tillable by one man behind one ox in one day. Traditional acres were long and narrow due to the difficulty in turning the plow.
An oxgang was the amount of land tillable by one ox in a plowing season. This could vary from village to village, but was typically around 15 acres.
A virgate was the amount of land tillable by two oxen in a plowing season.
A carucate was the amount of land tillable by a team of eight oxen in a plowing season. This was equal to 8 oxgangs or 4 virgates.
2 comments:
Just curious, what goes through your head that makes you look this stuff up?
hahaah
I was on www.letsrun.com reading up on this weekend's 1/2 marathon US championships in Houston and who's racing, and saw a lets run forum title called:
Why hasnt the US changed to the metric system?
on the top right of the homepage... of www.letsrun.com
it peaked my interest and in turned out to be a great thread with interesting info and good banter.... i think that unit of measurement was about 3 pages deep.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3374588&page=0
i'd never ever heard of several of those and thought it was quite interesting to know where an acre and a furlong came from!
don't you think they're interesting?!
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