Carruca

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The carruca, or caruca, was a heavy wheeled plow used in medieval Northern Europe. It had a strong iron plowshare to turn stubborn soil and often needed up to eight oxen. It also carried a coulter and a moldboard. The word carucate comes from this plow.

Dating clues suggest some Slavs used the carruca by about AD 568. It was in Italy’s Po Valley by 643 and in southwestern Germany by 720. The plow may have reached the British Isles with Viking invasions in the late 9th century.

The carruca could turn over a furrow and helped farmers work heavier soils and improve drainage, making it a major advance for medieval farming. Because it required many oxen, peasants often had to cooperate to use it.

Before the wheeled plow, the scratch plow was used for lighter soils in southern Europe and elsewhere, creating square fields because fields were ploughed twice at right angles. The carruca worked best in long, oblong plots, which conflicted with traditional land ownership, so it was most common when opening up uncultivated ground.

The Viking Danelaw in England shows the long presence of Scandinavians, and the idea that wheeled plows came with them is a plausible historical connection.

Hoff’s study of Danish landscape laws looks at agricultural systems from about the 2nd to the 12th century across Denmark, the Netherlands, northwestern Germany, and England. The earliest solid Danish date for a wheeled plow is the 11th century at Sønder Vium. Hoff notes that later plow marks don’t reveal the full system, and written laws show the plow’s use but with terminology indicating a transition period, likely from the 12th to the 14th centuries.