Hist. [ad. med.L. virgāta (sc. terræ), f. L. virga rod, used as a rendering of OE. ʓięrd-land YARD-LAND.]
1. An early English land-measure, varying greatly in extent, but in many cases averaging thirty acres.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., VI. 337. Indeed, it is beneath a Prince … to stoop to each Virgate and rod of ground.
1661. Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 2), Virgate of Land, See Yard-land.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 137/2. Virge, or Virgate of land is 20, in some places 24 Acres, or in some 30 Acres.
1710. Hearne, P. Langtoft’s Chron. (1810), II. 600. The town, according to Domesday Book, consisted of VIII. virgats of Land. Ibid. Each virgat comprehending fourty acres.
1747. Carte, Hist. Eng., I. 436. The survey was made by … carucates, virgates and acres.
1781. Warton, Hist. Kiddington (1783), 45. I have discovered that lady Elisabeth Montacute … possessed one virgate, about the year 1330.
1840. Penny Cycl., XVI. 173/2. Reckoning four virgates in each hide and thirty acres to make a virgate.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq., II. App. 548. In Sussex we find a virgate of land at Apredoc which Harold [etc.].
1895. Pollock & Maitland, Eng. Law, I. 347. The hide is generally regarded as made up of four, but it may well be of six virgates.
2. As a linear measure: A rod or pole.
1772. Shrubsole & Denne, Rochester, 42. The first land pier … shall be built … by the bishop of Rochester; to plank three virgates or Yards, and to lay three sullivas or large beams on the bridge.
1809. Bawdwen, Domesday Bk., 152. Wood pasture three quarentens long, and one quarenten and one virgate broad.
