Rood

Medieval EnglishHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)

A quarter of an acre (1,011.7 m²), 40 square rods. A medieval English land unit, the area of a furlong by a rod.

1 rood = 1,011.714106 square meters (approximately).

About the rood

Old English rod meant a pole, and especially a cross, which is also why the word names the crucifix screens in medieval churches. As a land measure, the rood was the area of a strip one furlong long and one rod wide, which is the same as 40 square rods. That makes it a quarter of an acre, or 10,890 square feet, about 1,011.7 square meters. Its handiness for surveyors came from the simple fractions: four roods to an acre.

The medieval acre was imagined as a strip a furlong long and four rods wide, the ground a team of oxen could plough in a day, so the rood was the strip left when that width was cut into four. Records in England long gave land as acres, roods and perches, in that order. A separate and obsolete use of rood was as a length, with local values somewhere between about 16.5 and 24 feet. By the time the Oxford English Dictionary was compiled in 1914 that sense survived only locally. Normandy had a comparable unit called the vergee.

Sources: Wikipedia: Rood (unit); Wikipedia: Acre; Wikipedia: Rod (unit)

Rood conversion chart

1 rood expressed in every other area unit:

More Medieval English units

• oxgang (area)
• virgate (area)
• hide (area)
• barleycorn (length)
• palm (length)
• span (length)
• cubit (length)
• ell (length)
• moment (time)
• baker's dozen (counting & quantity)
• small gross (counting & quantity)

All Medieval English units

Browse all area units.