Hi again Sorry not to have mentioned the region or locality for this enquiry. It's from an ancient settlement by a river estuary in hilly mid west Wales. Interestingly I have come across quite a few 18th century fields named according to a number of men's work eg seven mens work, six men's work, three men's work. I am guessing this might be connected with manorial obligations and would be very interested to hear any opinions at all on this. Many thanks Barbara

<<Sorry not to have mentioned the region or locality for this enquiry. It's from an ancient settlement by a river estuary in hilly mid west Wales. Interestingly I have come across quite a few 18th century fields named according to a number of men's work eg seven mens work, six men's work, three men's work. I am guessing this might be connected with manorial obligations and would be very interested to hear any opinions at all on this.>> I may have to eat my words, as to what a days mathe meant. First, it seems the amount of meadow which could be mown by one man in a day was only around 3/4 - 1 3/4 acres, and many 16C husbandmen's holdings would have included at least two or three acres of meadow, some substantially more. Plus I've found an explicit statement that (in the Isle of Man in about 1800 at least) a 'daymath' was as much as can be mown by one man in a day. So you were right all along, Barbara. A daywork, however, was definitely a much smaller area - it was one fortieth of an acre, an area 5.5 x 22 yards. I've always been a bit puzzled as to what its name derived from. It was often used to measure arable land, yet was definitely smaller than the area which could ploughed or harrowed by one man in one day, and also less than could be reaped in a day (about a third of an acre). Maybe it originated in the area which could be dug over with a spade in one day? I haven't ever heard of land measured in men's work, and west Wales is not an area I'm familiar with. I hesitate to suggest that a mans work might be the same as a daywork, because daywork is an English term and 'a river estuary in hilly mid west Wales' sounds like Merionethshire, one of the last parts of Wales to come under English rule, and presumably a region where obscure English terms would be least likely to have displaced traditional Welsh measurements. Could it be a translation of a Welsh term? If the sources state the area of those fields called 'X men's work' it might be possible to calculate how big a man's work was. Matt

Matt, beg to differ about dayworks. A couple of years ago I contacted the list about a survey that measured in acres, roods, dayworks and perches. The investigation I did then indicated that a daywork was definitely a measure used in Kent, if not elsewhere in England, and it was very definitely 4 perches. A perch is a fortieth of an acre, so a daywork was a tenth of an acre. The survey I was working on comes from Long Melford in Suffolk but was done by a surveyor from Kent, who also used dayworks in a survey from somewhere in Yorkshire, which is in print, can't remember where offhand. The survey by this Kentish man is the only occasion in Melford when dayworks are used, it's not a medieval hangover in this part of Suffolk, earlier surveys are all in acres roods and perches. Barbara, when I was researching dayworks I couldn't find any link between the term as a measure of land and anything to do with how much work you could do in a day, although you would think there ought to be a link deep back in the medieval period. I asked a couple of academics I know who work on medieval agriculture but they didn't come up with anything. I just tried to find the correspondence from then on the OEL list archives, but the Rootsweb site seems to be down. Lyn B ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tompkins, M.L.L." <mllt1@leicester.ac.uk> To: <old-english@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 4:53 PM Subject: Re: [OEL] two days mathe of meadow grounde > > <<Sorry not to have mentioned the region or locality for this enquiry. > It's from an ancient settlement by a river estuary in hilly mid west > Wales. Interestingly I have come across quite a few 18th century fields > named according to a number of men's work eg seven mens work, six men's > work, three men's work. I am guessing this might be connected with > manorial obligations and would be very interested to hear any opinions at > all on this.>> > > > I may have to eat my words, as to what a days mathe meant. First, it > seems the amount of meadow which could be mown by one man in a day was > only around 3/4 - 1 3/4 acres, and many 16C husbandmen's holdings would > have included at least two or three acres of meadow, some substantially > more. Plus I've found an explicit statement that (in the Isle of Man in > about 1800 at least) a 'daymath' was as much as can be mown by one man in > a day. So you were right all along, Barbara. > > A daywork, however, was definitely a much smaller area - it was one > fortieth of an acre, an area 5.5 x 22 yards. I've always been a bit > puzzled as to what its name derived from. It was often used to measure > arable land, yet was definitely smaller than the area which could ploughed > or harrowed by one man in one day, and also less than could be reaped in a > day (about a third of an acre). Maybe it originated in the area which > could be dug over with a spade in one day? > > I haven't ever heard of land measured in men's work, and west Wales is not > an area I'm familiar with. I hesitate to suggest that a mans work might > be the same as a daywork, because daywork is an English term and 'a river > estuary in hilly mid west Wales' sounds like Merionethshire, one of the > last parts of Wales to come under English rule, and presumably a region > where obscure English terms would be least likely to have displaced > traditional Welsh measurements. Could it be a translation of a Welsh > term? > > If the sources state the area of those fields called 'X men's work' it > might be possible to calculate how big a man's work was. > > Matt > > > > ==================================== > WEB PAGE: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ > ARCHIVES: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > OLD-ENGLISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >