virgate

Latin, virgata.

The virgate was a unit in the assessment system in most of the counties of Wessex and western Mercia, one quarter of a hide or 30 fiscal acres. J.H. Round long ago provided illustrations of the relationship of hides, virgates and acres, mainly from circuit 3 and especially from Cambridgeshire, where the Cambridge Inquisition provides totals for the hidage of each vill as well as each manor, giving greater confidence in the arithmetic involved.

Orwell provides a particularly clear example. The Cambridge Inquisition records that 'Orwell answers for 4 hides', the details being:

Entry Hides Virgates Acres

11,5 0 1/4 0

13,8 1 1 1/3 0

14,41 0 3 1/4 5

17,6 0 1 0

21,6 0 1 0

22,10 0 1 1/3 0

26,34 0 3 1/3 0

31,5 0 1/3 0

Total 1 10 5/6 5

Exactly 4 hides if the equation 1 hide = 4 virgates = 120 acres holds true.

For more detail, see J.H. Round, Feudal England (1895).