Carucate
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The carucate was a unit of assessment for tax used in most Danelaw counties of England, and is found for example in Domesday Book. The word derives from the Medieval Latin caruca, meaning plough.
The carucate was based on the area a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was sub-divided into oxgangs, or "bovates", based on the area a single ox might till in the same period, which thus represented one eighth of a carucate; and it was analogous to the hide, a unit of tax assessment used outside the Danelaw counties.[1]
The tax levied on each carucate came to be known as "carucage".
[edit] References
- ^ Though a carucate might nominally be regarded as an area of 120 acres (490,000 m²), and can usefully be compared to the hide, the true picture is 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.
