Turning a team of oxen - any idea how?

Well - that’s the question I was asked by Jannie as she commented on my recent post on Books, books, Glorious books. The time is over - the moment is here no more waiting with bated breath for a posting on how a farmer turns his oxen! Extraordinary question .. but there we are – it’s a rum old world ..

J K Rowling in Harry Potter uses the spelling “baited breath” thus, while Shakespeare uses “with bated breath, and whispring humblenesse” in ‘A Merchant of Venice’ (1596).

Ploughing with oxen. A miniature from an early-sixteenth-century manuscript of the Middle English poem God Spede ye Plough, held at the British Museum

Do oxen get bated breath? The answer is ‘they must’ .. because it was established that a furlong (furrow length) (40 rods) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. (Plough or plow – you takes your pick .. !!)

In the picture above the medieval ploughman on the right appears to carry a goad, a traditional farming implement used to spur the oxen on from time immemorial.

Egyptian goddess Neith - bearing her war goddess symbols, the crossed arrows and shield on her head, the ankh and the Egyptian goad

The emergence of farming as confirmed by the Sumerian Farmer’s Almanac clay tablet (dated between 1500 – 1700 BC) confirms the emergence of urban societies in ancient Mesopotamia. This Ancient Near East civilisation existed for a long period of time from circa 5,300BC until circa 600BC.

Domestication of oxen in Mesopotamia and by its contemporary the Indus Valley Civilisation provided mankind with the pulling power to develop the plough and thus cultivation of more land.

Ancient Mesopotamia

The name furlong derives from the Old English words of furh (furrow) and lang (long). Dating back at least to the 9th century, it originally referred to the length of the furrow in one acre of ploughed open field (a medieval communal field which was divided into strips).

The system of long furrows arose because turning a team of oxen pulling a heavy plough was difficult. An acre (in old usage) is an area that is one furlong long and one chain (22 yards) wide.

The furlong (660 feet) has historically been viewed as equivalent to the ancient Roman unit of measurement “the stadium” (625 feet), which in turn derived from the Greek System. These ancient Roman units of measurement were built on the Hellenic (Greek) system, which had been based on the Egyptian system, and were comparatively consistent and well documented.

After the fall of Rome, Medieval Europe continued with the Roman system, which proceeded to “diversify” leading to serious complications in trade, taxation etc. At the turn of the 14th century (1300), England by decree standardized a long list of measures, including important units of distance and length, for example: foot, yard, rod, furlong and mile.

Ancient Egyptian plough, circa 1200 B.C. Mural in burial chamber of Sennedjem. Scene: Plowing farmer in Osiris’s House. Sennedjem was an ancient Egyptian artisan – one of his titles was “Servant in the Place of Truth” – meaning that he worked on the excavation and decoration of the nearby royal tombs.

The historical rod length is 16 ½ feet and may have originated from the typical length of a medieval ox-goad. 4 rod lengths would be the medieval field strip width of each furlong ploughed.

These farm-derived units of measurement remained in use and were used in the new worlds by the settling immigrants. They were all based around the amount of land an ox, or team of oxen could plough.

There would be differences as different soils in separate countries would make the base unit of medieval land area slightly different – but the principles of standardising measurement remained.

This is probably more clearly explained in Wikipedia’s article on Furrow – and there is an excellent depiction. The farm-derived units of measurement are explained thus:

1. The rod is a historical unit of length equal to 5½ yards. It may have originated from the typical length of a medieval ox-goad.
2. The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardized to be exactly 40 rods.

3. An acre was the amount of land tillable by one man behind one ox in one day. Traditional acres were long and narrow due to the difficulty in turning the plough.
4. An oxgang was the amount of land tillable by one ox in a ploughing season. This could vary from village to village, but was typically around 15 acres.

5. A virgate was the amount of land tillable by two oxen in a ploughing season.

6. A carucate was the amount of land tillable by a team of eight oxen in a ploughing season. This was equal to 8 oxgangs or 4 virgates.
Ploughs were pulled by oxen until the domestication of draft horses suitable for slow heavy work, but oxen continue to be used in subsistence arable farming, and were even used here in Sussex until the early twentieth century.

Ploughing in the Nivernais, France by Rosa Bonheur: Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

It appears that to turn the oxen, a decent space is required, hence strip farming – whereby the oxen team can go up one furlong length, turn at right angles for 4 rod lengths, enabling the turn to be made, before ploughing the reverse furlong length, and so on.

So as I mentioned in my post on Books, Books, Glorious Books ... written text originally copied the method of driving an ox when ploughing a field – so alternate lines of writing read in opposite directions!

It has been an interesting subject – and one that has taken me from writing texts, to standards of measurement through the ages, and that I certainly did not expect when I started researching ‘How a Team of Oxen turn when ploughing’.

Measurements are a quagmire subject to discuss – but I love the old names and their derivations .. Chain, Rod, Ell, Hands, Fathoms, Stones ..

Here are two short videos on Ox Ploughing – amazing what you find! The American one has hill-billy music included (if that’s right?), while the Ugandan reflects life as it is and was for thousands of years – except now there’s a camcorder around!

You Tube: (1 min 24 secs) Plowing (American spelling) a Field with Oxen – Old Sturbridge Village. Historian Emily Pawley tries her hand at ploughing a field 1830s style behind a team of Red Devon oxen at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts.

You Tube: (1 min 13 secs) In January 2004, on Mt. Elgon, eastern UGANDA. The Sabiny is a Southern-Nilotic people living on the north slope of the mountain and the population is about 110,000. Many of them said that their ethnicity is related Kalenjin who have many branches in Kenya. In the last decades of the 20th century, hybrid maize growing became more popular and nowadays fields of maize and bananas cover the landscape. In recent years, maize has become the main crop. They use usually four oxen, sometime when the soil of the field very hard they use six (not only two like other ethnic groups), for tilling their maize field. They call this system as "sbaidit ak yeeyik". This movie I (Slystonester) took near from Cheminy centre

An additional note 2 Oct 2011 - Historical measure of land area equal to a quarter of an acre of 40 square perches is a Rood.

Dear Mr Postman – thank you for visiting .. at least the snow has almost gone. My mother still hasn’t quite got over her throat chesty cold, but we had a chat for half an hour and had a look at some iphone photos .. which she has taken to her heart. We’re going to do a revamp of the decorations this week – so I shall be kept busy – I needed to warn her, as it will interrupt her quietness, and she will be prepared.

Hilary Melton-Butcher
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