An oxgang or bovate ( ang, oxangang; da, oxgang; gd, damh-imir; lat-med, bovāta) is an old land measurement formerly used in Scotland and England as early as the 16th century sometimes referred to as an oxgait. It averaged around 20 English

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s, but was based on land fertility and cultivation, and so could be as low as 15. An oxgang is also known as a ''bovate'', from ''bovāta'', a Medieval Latinisation of the word, derived from the Latin '' bōs'', meaning "ox, bullock or cow". Oxen, through the Scottish Gaelic word ''damh'' or ''dabh'', also provided the root of the land measurement ' daugh'. Skene in ''Celtic Scotland'' says: : "in the eastern district there is a uniform system of land denomination consisting of ' dabhachs', '

ploughgates The carucate or carrucate ( lat-med, carrūcāta or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms ...

' and 'oxgangs', each 'dabhach' consisting of four 'ploughgates' and each 'ploughgate' containing eight 'oxgangs'. :"As soon as we cross the great chain of mountains Grampian Mountains">Grampian Mountains (Scotland)">Grampian Mountainsseparating the eastern from the western waters, we find a different system equally uniform. The 'ploughgates' and 'oxgangs' disappear, and in their place we find 'dabhachs' and ' pennylands'. The portion of land termed a 'dabhach' is here also called a 'tirung' or ' ounceland', and each 'dabhach' contains 20 pennylands." In Scotland, ''oxgang'' occurs in Oxgangs, a southern suburb of Edinburgh, and in Oxgang, an area of the town of

Kirkintilloch Kirkintilloch (; sco, Kirkintulloch; gd, Cair Cheann Tulaich) is a town and former barony burgh in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It lies on the Forth and Clyde Canal and on the south side of Strathkelvin, about northeast of central Glasgow. ...

Usage in England

In England, the oxgang was a unit typically used in the area conquered by the Vikings which became the Danelaw, for example in Domesday Book, where it is found as a , or 'bovate.' The oxgang represented the amount of land which could be ploughed using one ox, in a single annual season. As land was normally ploughed by a team of eight oxen, an oxgang was thus one eighth the size of a ploughland or carucate. Although these areas were not fixed in size and varied from one village to another, an oxgang averaged , and a ploughland or carucate . However, in the rest of England a parallel system was used, from which the Danelaw system of carucates and bovates seen in Domesday Book was derived. There, the virgate represented land which could be ploughed by a pair of oxen, and so amounted to two oxgangs or bovates, and was a quarter of a hide, the hide and the carucate being effectively synonymous.The true picture is however vastly more complex: see e.g. Stenton, F.M., 'Introduction', in Foster, C.W. & Longley, T. (eds.), ''The Lincolnshire Domesday and the Lindsey Survey'', Lincoln Record Society, XIX, 1924, especially pp. ix-xix. A peasant occupying or working an oxgang or bovate might be known as a "" or "".

References

((Dabhach) with corrections and additions)

External links

* Oxgang: Wiktionary * Carucate: Wiktionary * Wapentake: Wiktionary {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2020 Obsolete Scottish units of measurement Obsolete units of measurement Units of area Early Modern Scotland Early Modern England

Usage in England

See also

References

External links