The Feudal system of the Dark and Middle Ages evolved using a specific measurement system. Here is a short glossary of terms:
- Hundred, or Wapentake
- Perch - 20 feet
- Acre - area of land 40 Perches by 4 Perches
- Bovate (or Oxgang) - the amount of land one pair of ox can plough, about 15 acres
- Virgate (or Yard Land) - 40 acres
- Plough - 8 bovates or 100 acres, also called a Carncate or Carve
- Hide - 120 acres
- Knights Fee - 5 Hides
- Berewick - a Manor within a Manor
- Heroit - Tribute to the Lord to pay for his army
- Theagnland - a plot of land rented off the Lord. If you held Thegnland, you were technically free, a Sokeman, but still owed a duty to the Lord to pay tax, tribute and fines.
- Infangtheof - the fee to obtain a judgement regarding theft of property
- Bordars - tenants with a small amount of land. Effectively a slave.
- Villaines - a Villaine was important to the Lord of the Manor, because he held oxen and a larger amount of land, somewhere between a Hide and a Plough. A Villaine had more rights than a Bordar, but still could not leave the manor without permission.
- Rights of Sake and Soke - these were the 'free citizens', the Lords of the Manors who had no Lord above them save for the King. They had the right of jurisdiction over all those on their land, the right to take taxes and levy fines, the right to settle dispute and administer the law, all this is summarised in the phrase 'the right of sake and soke'. In 1086 there were probably less than 250 of these people in England, in a country of about two million persons. These people controlled the country absolutely between them.
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