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Norton Hammer near Sheffield


RichardB

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Domesday is written in a form of Latin and includes latinised terms from elsewhere.  The different scribes used different terms in different places.  From the glossary at the back of Williams & Martin there are the entries:

CARUCATE (from the Latin caruca, a plough).  A ploughland: notionally the area which could be ploughed with an eight-ox team, used in the north and east as a unit of assessment to tax instead of the hide.

PLOUGHLAND (Old English plog, plough).  The number of ploughlands may: (1) estimate the arable capacity of an estate in terms of the number of eight-ox plough-teams needed to work it; or (2) record an assessment of the dues required from the estate.

So both terms may be the same.  Note that this was the total land that a team could plough in a season, so was about 120 acres where the acre was originally the area that one man with one ox could plough in a day.  Getting back to Sheffield, your 3½ ploughs simply meant that it was arable land 3½ times the amount that one team could plough in a year.

In the preface to the Alecto version Martin says: "The resolution to exploit in that way the apparatus of English government which the Normans had acquired, and which was probably the most valuable of their acquisitions, was the mark of one thoroughly familiar with its workings".  The suggestion therefore is that Domesday was an English survey, done by English bureaucrats for the benefit of their new Normal Norman masters.

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Using figures like that is wrong, simply because the area isn't a defined space. That's why I said "variable". Many historians try to use sizes such as "120 acres" simply to make things more understandable to readers of books. But it is a bad practice. The land could have been an odd shape, hilly or very hard to work soil. Sick animals would have taken longer to plough a field and the people in charge of them depending on experience could cut the time down, or take longer. 

To the people of the time it wouldn't matter to them if the land was 90 acres or 200, it was just something to show how wealthy the lord of the area was. Each part of England was dived up among the followers of the King in gratitude for service in conquering England. Knowing how much each bit was worth helped in financing the Royal income. In case the monarchy needed extra cash to do something which it couldn't do on the normal income it had. Each Norman lord was a bit like a bank to the monarch. Getting cash when the King needed it. This system developed over the years and some monarchs paid them back, but most either took a long time, or never did.  

To some extant the system is still in place and the Prime Minster of today still has the title First Lord of The Treasury. In other words he/she is in charge of spending the King/Queen's income. Though these days most of the income is from tax that is collected. This was much rarer in the past, because it took to long to collect.      

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Hence the word "about", it gives a rough idea to the reader.  I doubt that the commissioners would be bothered about the health of either ox or serf though.  Quite right about the cash value though, most entries end with a an assessment of the value (ie taxable value) both TRE and TRW.  As for Parliament (latterly through the PM and Commons) controlling the money supply, you need look no father than Magna Carta: "No `scutage' or `aid' may be levied in our kingdom without its general consent, unless it is for the ransom of our person, to make our eldest son a knight, and (once) to marry our eldest daughter. For these purposes ouly a reasonable `aid' may be levied. `Aids' from the city of London are to be treated similarly."

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