Measurements, Weights and Services.

It is difficult to give some idea of the amount of land involved as the actual measurements varied.

According to The Local Historians Encyclopaedia.

Demesne:

Land retained by the lord of the manor for his own use and upon which tenants gave free service according to the customs of the manor.

Knights Fee:

A Knight's Fee depended upon the quality of the land and was the amount required to support the knight and his family for one year. Usually between 4 and 48 Carucates (or Hides).

Acc/to Owen a knights fee is 640 acres and 5 knights fees held of the Earl of Pembroke were a barony.

Carucate:

A Carucate again depended upon the quality of the land, it could vary between 60 and 180 acres and was the amount of land that would support a family and could be ploughed in a year using one plough.

A Memorandum in the Black book of St David's - (was it added in 16c? - the introduction to the Black book would suggest that in the manuscript a " memorandum is given," so whether or not it was in the original manuscript could be questioned.) States that a carucate or hide of land contains 80 acres.

Acc/to Owen it was 64 acres.

Bovate:

An 1/8th of a carucate (also given as 20 acres)

A Bovate consisted of between 7 and 32 acres

The memorandum in the Black book of St David's - states that:- A bovate of land contains 7 acres.

Acc/to Owen 8 acres equals a bovate.

Margaret F. Davies [[1]] suggests, from evidence in the survey of Lands of the Bishop of St David's (1326), that a bovate was equal to 7 acres, a carucate equalled 80 acres and that this was the approximate size of the normal farm, 8 carucates was the equivalent of a knight's fee approximately one square mile of land.

Acre:

The acre had been standardised by Edward I as being equal to 4840 square yards although previously it had been the size of the strip that could be ploughed by a yoke of oxen in a day.

Virgate:

The English virgate was a quarter of a carucate = 2 bovates.

But it would seem very doubtful if the virgate mentioned in the Black Book was that size as on one occasion a person is listed as holding 3 acres and 7 virgates which would indicated that an acre was somewhat over 7 virgates.

Stang:

Welsh measure - Customary acre - here again there appears to be a discrepancy as the Black Book of St David's says that a person held an acre and a stang,  so a stang would appear to be certainly less than an acre and from other entries it would appear that it is about a quarter of an acre.

There is also a suggestion that the easements actually relate to the different plots that a person held.

Each tenement contains a stang, (Black Book of St David's - see Llamphey).

Burgage:

Acc/to the Black Book of St David's p.xii

The nature and size of a burgage tenement varied in size from Town to Town. It ought strictly to have included a house with a certain quantity of land but from the Black Book it would seem that in Wales, where a garden is mentioned as a burgage tenement in St Davids, a house was not always an essential part. The strict English rule was that a burgage tenement included a hearth therefore a house. The rent was a fixed sum irrespective of the size of the tenement although very often there was a variation as one burgage holder acquired part of another tenement. The map of the burgages of Pembroke town in medieval times, which illustrates Brian Paul Hindle's article on Medieval Pembroke, [[2]] shows plots of various sizes.

pe—

Would appear from mathematical calculations to be equivalent to a stone.

Li:

 Would appear to be equivalent of lb.

Chenser:

 "payers of quit rents" [[3]]

Mark:

The mark originally was valued at 128 silver pennies (10s 8d) but was valued during this period at 13s 4d.

Florin:

First issued in England by Edward III worth about 6s 8d.