Feudal Syst. [ad. med.L. car(r)ūcāta plow-gate plow-land, f. car(r)ūca plow (see CARUE). The ONF. regular repr. of carrūcāta was car(r)uée, central F. char(r)ule: see -ATE1.
L. carrūca (f. carr-us CAR) was originally ‘a sort of state coach or chariot’; this sense is still found anno 700 ‘carruca in qua sedere consuevi’ (see Diez); but in Gaul it was early applied to the wheel-plough, in which sense carruca, carruga, carrua appear in the Salic and Allemannic Laws. Cf. the s.w. Eng. plough = ‘wagon.’]
A measure of land, varying with the nature of the soil, etc., being as much as could be tilled with one plow (with its team of 8 oxen) in a year; a plow-land.
The acreage of the carucate varied according to the system of tillage. If the land lay in three arable common fields the carucate, according to Fleta, contained 180 acres; 60 for fallow, 60 for winter corn, and 60 for spring corn. If the land lay in 2 fields the carucate consisted of 160 acres, 80 for fallow, and 80 for tillage. Commonly only the land under plow in any one year was reckoned, the fallow being thrown into common pasturage. Hence in ancient deeds the normal carucate is either 120 acres or 80 acres by the Norman number (5 score to the hundred) and 144 acres or 96 acres by the English number (6 score to the hundred).—Rev. I. Taylor.
[1086. Domesday Bk. Hampsh. (Du Cange), In dominio sunt 2 carucatæ.
c. 1190. Chart. Rich. I. (Du Cange), Viginti carrucatas terræ scilicet unicuique carrucatæ sexaginta acras terræ.]
1432–50. trans. Higden, I. xlix. (Rolls), II. 91. Which alle William Conquerour kynge of Englonde causede to be describede, and the hides and carucates of londe to be measurede [et per hydas seu carucatas dimetiri].
1577. Harrison, England, II. xix. (1877), I. 309. So manie hundred acres or families (or as they haue been alwaies called in some places of the realme, carrucats or cartwares).
1615. Stow, Annales Will. I., an. 1080. 118. How many carucates of lande, how many ploughlandse.
c. 1630. Risdon, Surv. Devon, § 295 (1811), 305. Some hold a hide and a carucate to be all one, but not of any certain content, commonly said to be so much land as a plough can … plough in a year.
1788. Kelham, Domesday Bk., 169 (T.). Twelve carucates of land make one hide.
1841. Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1879), I. 284. A bovate … contained eighteen acres; a carucate contained eight bovates; and eight carucates made a knight’s fee.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. x. 302. The old English hide was cut down to the acreage of the Norman carucate.
