Note 439 — Chapter VIII · CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ROMAN LAND SYSTEM AND THE LATER MANORIAL SYSTEM.

The 'veredus' or post-horse, from which the paraveredus or extra post-horse, sometimes parhippus (all these words occur in the Codex Justin. xii. l. [li.], 2 and 4, De Cursu Publico), may have been equivalent to the later 'averius' or 'affrus' by which the averagium was performed. Cf. 'Parhippus vel Avertarius' (Cod. Theod. VIII. v. xxii.) and see Id. xlvii., 'avertarius' = a horse carrying 'averta' or saddlebags. Hence, perhaps, the base Latin avera, averiæ, averii, affri, beasts of burden, oxen, or farm horses, and the verb 'averiare' (Saxon of 10th century 'averian'), and lastly the noun 'averagium' for the service. See also the Gallic Ep-o-rediæ (men of the horse-course) mentioned by Pliny iii. 21 (Dr. Guest's Origines Celticæ, i. 381), and compare this word with paraveredi. In modern Welsh 'Rhed' = a running, a course.