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Transcriber's note:
Original page numbers are included in this text file enclosed
in square brackets (example: [p052].
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Italics markup has been removed from British currency
abbreviations "l.", "s.", and "d.".
A carat character is used to denote superscription. Characters
following the carat and enclosed by curly brackets are
superscripted (example: Esq^{re}).
Small capital letters have been converted to uppercase.
Sidenotes of this form: "Chap. [number]" were eliminated. The
remaining sidenotes were moved from beside paragraphs to the
beginning of the affected one. This may result in several
sidenotes appearing together, between paragraphs. In this
version, sidenotes are marked with double angle quotation
marks "«" and "»".
TRANSLITERATION-CHARACTERS RETAINED: The characters Thorn
and thorn ("Þ" U+00DE, "þ" U+00FE) are retained. Also, the
characters Eth and eth ("Ð" U+00D0, "ð" U+00F0). The letter
"đ", (U+0111) is an abbreviation for "pence", used only twice,
in a Latin section. The abbreviation "ꝥ" (U+A765), meaning
þæt, and the Tironian sign "⁊" (U+204A), abbreviation for
et/and/ond, are retained. The latter two characters are not
supported by many common fonts; "DejaVu Sans" is one that does.
TRANSLITERATION-CHARACTERS CHANGED:
A symbol consisting of three dots arranged in an
equilateral triangle with vertical on the left was employed
at the ends of some paragraphs of Old English. In this
version this symbol has been replaced with a period, space
and black pointer: ". ►".
The letters Wynn and wynn ("Ƿ" U+01F7, "ƿ" U+01BF) are
transliterated as "W", "w".
The letter "insular g" ("ᵹ" U+1D79) is changed to "g".
The letter "insular s" ("ꞅ" U+A785) is changed to "s".
The letter "insular r" ("ꞃ" U+A783) is changed to "r".
The letter "insular t" ("ꞇ" U+A787) is changed to "t".
The letter "y with dot above" is changed to "y".
A letter "p with tilde above" was used twice in Old English
as an abbreviation for pence; this version uses "ƥ" (U+01A5)
instead.
Many other transliterations will need no comment here.
THE ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY
* * * * * *
WORKS BY FREDERIC SEEBOHM.
THE OXFORD REFORMERS--JOHN COLET, ERASMUS, AND THOMAS MORE: a
History of their Fellow-Work. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. With 4 Maps and 12
Diagrams. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d. (_Epochs of Modern History._)
THE ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY: Examined in its Relations to the
Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field
System of Husbandry. An Essay in Economic History. With 13 Maps
and Plates. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
CUSTOMARY ACRES AND THEIR HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE, being a Series
of Unfinished Essays. 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 39 Paternoster Row;
London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: Reduced Tracing of the TITHE MAP of HITCHIN
TOWNSHIP about 1816.]
[Illustration: Reduced Tracing of a Hand Map of the
scattered pieces (coloured red) belonging to W. Lucas
Esq^{re}. in the townfields of Hitchin about 1750.]
[Illustration: _Enlarged Plan of the normal acre strips
in the open fields afterwards adopted as the statute
acre._.]
THE ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY
Examined in Its Relations to the Manorial and
Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open
Field System of Husbandry
An Essay in Economic History
by
FREDERIC SEEBOHM
Hon.LL.D.(Edin.), LITT.D.(Camb.)
D.LITT.(Oxford)
REPRINTED FROM THE FOURTH EDITION (1905)
Longmans, Green, and Co.
39 Paternoster Row, London
Fourth Avenue & 30th Street, New York
Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras
1915
All rights reserved
DEDICATED BY PERMISSION
TO THE
SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON
PREFACE.
When I had the honour to lay the two papers which have expanded
into this volume before the Society of Antiquaries, it was with a
confession and an apology which, in publishing and dedicating to them
this Essay, I now repeat.
I confessed to having approached the subject not as an antiquary but
as a student of Economic History, and even with a directly political
interest. To learn the meaning of the old order of things, with its
'community' and 'equality' as a key to a right understanding of the
new order of things, with its contrasting individual independence and
inequality, this was the object which in the first instance tempted
me to poach upon antiquarian manors, and it must be my apology for
treating from an economic point of view a subject which has also an
antiquarian interest.
To statesmen, whether of England or of the new Englands across the
oceans, the importance can hardly be over-estimated of a sound
appreciation of the nature of that remarkable economic evolution
in the course of which the great English speaking nations have,
so to speak, become charged in our time with the trial of the
experiment--let us hope also with the solution of the problem--of
_freedom_ and _democracy_, using the words in the highest political
sense as the antipodes of _Paternal Government_ and _Communism_.
Perhaps, without presumption, it may be said that the future
happiness of the human race--the success or failure of the planet--is
in no small degree dependent upon the ultimate course of what seems,
to us at least, to be the main stream of human progress, upon whether
it shall be guided by the foresight of statesmen into safe channels
or misguided, diverted, or obstructed, till some great social or
political convulsion proves that its force and its direction have
been misunderstood.
It may indeed be but too true that, in spite of the economic lessons
of the past--
The weary Titan! with deaf
Ears, and labour dimmed eyes,
Regarding neither to right
Nor left, goes passively by,
Staggering on to her goal;
Bearing on shoulders immense,
Atlantëan, the load,
Wellnigh not to be borne,
Of the too vast orb of her fate.
And she may continue to do so, however clearly and truthfully the
economic lessons of the past may be dinned into her ear. But still
the deep sense I have endeavoured to describe in these few sentences
of the importance of a sound understanding of English Economic
History as the true basis of much of the practical politics of
the future will be accepted, I trust, as a sufficient reason why,
ill-furnished as I have constantly found myself for the task, I
should have ventured to devote some years of scant leisure to the
production of this imperfect Essay.
It is simply an attempt to set English Economic History upon
right lines at its historical commencement by trying to solve the
still open question whether it began with the _freedom_ or with
the _serfdom_ of the masses of the people--whether the village
communities living in the 'hams' and 'tons' of England were, at the
outset of English history, _free_ village communities or communities
in _serfdom_ under a manorial lordship; and further, what were their
relations to the tribal communities of the Western and less easily
conquered portions of the island.
On the answer to this question depends fundamentally the view to be
taken by historians (let us say by politicians also) of the nature
of the economic evolution which has taken place in England since the
English Conquest. If answered in one way, English Economic History
begins with free village communities which gradually degenerated into
the serfdom of the Middle Ages. If answered in the other way, it
begins with the serfdom of the masses of the rural population under
Saxon rule--a serfdom from which it has taken 1,000 years of English
economic evolution to set them free.
Much learning and labour have already been expended upon this
question, and fresh light has been recently streaming in upon it from
many sides.
A real flash of light was struck when German students perceived the
connexion between the widely prevalent common or open field system
of husbandry, and the village community which for centuries had used
it as a shell. Whatever may be the ultimate verdict upon G. L. von
Maurer's theory of the German 'mark,' there can be no doubt of its
service as a working hypothesis by means of which the study of the
economic problem has been materially advanced.
A great step was taken as regards the English problem when Mr.
Kemble, followed by Mr. Freeman and others, attempted to trace in
English constitutional history the development of ancient German free
institutions, and to solve the English problem upon the lines of the
German 'mark.' The merit of this attempt will not be destroyed even
though doubt should be thrown upon the correctness of this suggested
solution of the problem, and though other and non-German elements
should prove to have been larger factors in English economic history.
The caution observed by Professor Stubbs in the early chapters of
his great work on English Constitutional History may be said to have
at least reopened the question whether the German 'mark system' ever
really took root in England.
Another step was gained on somewhat new lines when Professor Nasse,
of Bonn, pointed out to English students (who hitherto had not
realised the fact) that the English and German land systems were the
same, and that in England also the open-field system of husbandry
was the shell of the mediæval village community. The importance of
this view is obvious, and it is to be regretted that no English
student has as yet followed it up by an adequate examination of
the remarkably rich materials which lie at the disposal of English
Economic History.
A new flash of light at once lit up the subject and greatly widened
its interest when Sir Henry S. Maine, carrying with him to India
his profound insight into 'Ancient Law,' recognised the fundamental
analogies between the 'village communities' of the East and the West,
and sought to use actually surviving Indian institutions as typical
representatives of ancient stages of similar Western institutions.
Undoubtedly much more light may be looked for from the same direction.
Further, Sir Henry S. Maine has opened fresh ground, and perhaps
(if he will permit me to say so) even to some extent narrowed the
area within which the theory of archaic free village communities can
be applied, by widening the range of investigation in yet another
direction. In his lectures on the 'Early History of Institutions'
he has turned his telescope upon the _tribal_ communities, and
especially the 'tribal system' of the Brehon laws, and tried to
dissolve parts of its mysterious nebulæ into stars--a work in which
he has been followed by Mr. W. F. Skene with results which give a
peculiar interest to the third volume of that learned writer's
valuable work on 'Celtic Scotland.'
Lastly, under the close examination of Dr. Landau and Professors
Hanssen and Meitzen, the open-field system itself has been found in
Germany to take several distinct forms, corresponding, in part at
least, with differences in economic conditions, if not directly with
various stages in economic development, from the early tribal to the
later manorial system.
It is very much to be desired that the open-field system of the
various districts of France should be carefully studied in the
same way. An examination of its widely extended modern remains
could hardly fail to throw important light upon the contents of the
cartularies which have been published in the 'Collection de Documents
Inédits sur l'histoire de France,' amongst which the '_Polyptique
d'Irminon_,' with M. Guérard's invaluable preface, is pre-eminently
useful.
In the meantime, whilst students had perhaps been too exclusively
absorbed in working in the rich mine of early German institutions,
Mr. Coote has done service in recalling attention in his 'Neglected
Fact in English History' and his 'Romans of Britain' to the evidences
which remain of the survival of Roman influences in English
institutions, even though it may be true that some of his conclusions
may require reconsideration. The details of the later Roman
provincial government, and of the economic conditions of the German
and British provinces, remain so obscure even after the labours of
Mommsen, Marquardt, and Madvig, that he who attempts to build a
bridge across the gulf of the Teutonic conquests between Roman and
English institutions still builds it somewhat at a venture.
It is interesting to find that problems connected with early English
and German Economic History are engaging the careful and independent
research also of American students. The contributions of Mr. Denman
Ross, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Professor Allen, of the
University of Wisconsin, will be welcomed by fellow-students of these
questions in the old country.
It has seemed to me that the time may have come when an inquiry
directed strictly upon economic lines, and carefully following the
English evidence, might strike a light of its own, in the strength of
which the various side lights might perhaps be gathered together and
some clear result obtained, at least as regards the main course of
economic evolution in England.
The English, like the Continental village community, as we have said,
inhabited a shell--an open-field system--into the nooks and corners
of which it was curiously bound and fitted, and from which it was
apparently inseparable.
The remains of this cast-off shell still survive in parishes where
no Enclosure Act happens to have swept them away. The common or
open field system can even now be studied on the ground within the
township in which I am writing as well as in many others. Men are
still living who have held and worked farms under its inconvenient
rules, and who know the meaning of its terms and eccentric details.
Making use of this circumstance the method pursued in this Essay will
be, first, to become familiar with the little distinctive marks and
traits of the English open-field system, so that they may be readily
recognised wherever they present themselves; and then, proceeding
from the known to the unknown, carefully to trace back the shell
by searching and watching for its marks and traits as far into the
past as evidence can be found. Using the knowledge so acquired about
the shell as the key, the inquiry will turn upon its _occupant_.
Examining how the mediæval English village community in serfdom
fitted itself into the shell, and then again working back from the
known to the unknown, it may be perhaps possible to discern whether,
within historical times, it once had been free, or whether its
serfdom was as old as the shell.
The relation of the 'tribal system' in Wales, in Ireland, and
in Germany to the open-field system, and so also to the village
community, will be a necessary branch of the inquiry. It will embrace
also both the German and the Roman sources of serfdom and of the
manorial system of land management.
It may at least be possible that Economic History may sometimes
find secure stepping stones over what may be impassable gulfs in
constitutional history; and it obviously does not follow that a
continuity lost, perhaps, to the one may not have been preserved
by the other. The result of a strictly economic inquiry may, as
already suggested, prove that more things went to the 'making of
England' than were imported in the keels of the English invaders of
Britain. But whatever the result--whatever modifications of former
theories the facts here brought into view, after full consideration
by others, may suggest--I trust that this Essay will not be regarded
as controversial in its aim or its spirit. I had rather that it were
accepted simply as fellow-work, as a stone added at the eleventh hour
to a structure in the building of which others, some of whose names I
have mentioned, have laboured during the length and heat of the day.
* * * * *
In conclusion, I have to tender my best thanks to Sir Henry S.
Maine for the kind interest he has taken, and the sound advice he
has given, during the preparation of this Essay for the press; also
to Mr. Elton, for similar unsolicited help generously given. To my
friend George von Bunsen, and to Professor Meitzen, of Berlin, I am
deeply indebted as regards the German branches of my subject, and to
Mr. T. Hodgkin and Mr. H. Pelham as regards the Roman side of it. For
the ever ready assistance of my friend Mr. H. Bradshaw, of Cambridge,
Mr. Selby, of the Record Office, and Mr. Thompson, of the British
Museum, in reference to the manuscripts under their charge, I cannot
be too grateful. Nor must I omit to acknowledge the care with which
Messrs. Stuart Moore and Kirk have undertaken for me the task of
revising the text and translations of the many extracts from mediæval
documents contained in this volume.
F. SEEBOHM.
THE HERMITAGE, HITCHIN:
_May_, 1883
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE ENGLISH OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM EXAMINED IN ITS MODERN
REMAINS.
PAGE
1. The distinctive marks of the open-field system 1
2. Scattered and intermixed ownership in the open fields 7
3. The open fields were the common fields of a village
community or township under a manor 8
4. The wide prevalence of the system through Great Britain 13
CHAPTER II.
THE ENGLISH OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM TRACED BACK TO THE DOMESDAY
SURVEY--IT IS THE SHELL OF SERFDOM--THE MANOR WITH A
VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN VILLENAGE UPON IT.
1. The identity of the system with that of the Middle Ages 17
2. The Winslow Manor Rolls of the reign of Edward
III.--example of a virgate or yard-land 22
3. The Hundred Rolls of Edward I. embracing five Midland
Counties 32
4. The Hundred Rolls (_continued_).--Relation of the
virgate to the hide and carucate 36
5. The Hundred Rolls (_continued_).--The services of the
villein tenants 40
6. Description in Fleta of a manor in the time of Edward
I. 45
7. S.E. of England--The hide and virgate under other names
(the records of Battle Abbey and St. Paul's) 49
8. The relation of the virgate to the hide traced in the
cartularies of Gloucester and Worcester Abbeys, and the
custumal of Bleadon in Somersetshire 55
9. Cartularies of Newminster and Kelso, thirteenth
century--The connexion of the holdings with the common
plough team of eight oxen 60
10. The Boldon Book, A.D. 1183 68
11. The 'Liber Niger' of Peterborough Abbey, A.D. 1125 72
12. Summary of the post-Domesday evidence 76
CHAPTER III.
THE DOMESDAY SURVEY (A.D. 1086).
1. There were manors everywhere 82
2. The division of the manor into lord's demesne and land
in villenage 84
3. The free tenants on the lord's demesne 86
4. The classes of tenants in villenage 89
5. The villani were holders of virgates, &c. 91
6. The holdings of the bordarii or cottiers 95
7. The Domesday survey of the Villa of Westminster 97
8. The extent of the cultivated land of England, and how
much was included in the yard-lands of the villani 101
CHAPTER IV.
THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM TRACED IN SAXON TIMES--THE
SCATTERING OF THE STRIPS ORIGINATED IN THE METHODS OF
CO-ARATION.
1. The village fields under Saxon rule were open fields 105
2. The holdings were composed of scattered strips 110
3. The open-field system of co-aration described in the
ancient laws of Wales 117
CHAPTER V.
MANORS AND SERFDOM UNDER SAXON RULE.
1. The Saxon 'hams' and 'tuns' were manors with village
communities in serfdom upon them 126
2. The 'Rectitudines Singularum Personarum' 129
3. The thane and his services 134
4. The geneats and their services 137
5. The double and ancient character of the services of the
gebur--Gafol and week-work 142
6. Serfdom on a manor of King Edwy 148
7. Serfdom on a manor of King Alfred 160
8. The theows or slaves on the lord's demesne 164
9. The creation of new manors 166
10. The laws of King Ethelbert--There were manors in the
sixth century 173
11. Result of the Saxon evidence 175
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRIBAL SYSTEM (IN WALES).
1. Evidence of the Domesday Survey 181
2. The Welsh land system in the twelfth century 186
3. The Welsh land system according to the Welsh laws 189
4. Land divisions under the Welsh Codes 199
5. Earlier evidence of the payment of Welsh gwestva, or
food-rent 208
CHAPTER VII.
THE TRIBAL SYSTEM (_continued_).
1. The tribal system in Ireland and Scotland 214
2. The tribal system in its earlier stages 231
3. The distinction between the tribal and agricultural
economy of the West and South-East of Britain was
pre-Roman, and so also was the open-field system 245
CHAPTER VIII.
CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ROMAN LAND SYSTEM AND THE LATER
MANORIAL SYSTEM.
1. Importance of the Continental evidence 252
2. The connexion between the Saxon 'ham,' the German
'heim,' and the Frankish 'villa' 253
3. The Roman 'villa,' its easy transition into the later
manor, and its tendency to become the predominant type of
estate 263
4. The smaller tenants on the 'Ager Publicus' in Roman
provinces--The veterans 272
5. The smaller tenants on the 'Ager Publicus'
(_continued_)--the 'læti' 280
6. The 'tributum' of the later Empire 289
7. The 'sordida munera' of the later Empire 295
8. The tendency towards a manorial management of the 'Ager
Publicus,' or Imperial domain 300
9. The succession to semi-servile holdings, and methods of
cultivation 308
10. The transition from the Roman to the later manorial
system 316
CHAPTER IX.
THE GERMAN SIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE.
1. The German tribal system and its tendency towards the
manorial system 336
2. The tribal households of German settlers 346
CHAPTER X.
THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM AND SERFDOM OF
ENGLAND AND OF THE ROMAN PROVINCES OF GERMANY AND GAUL.
1. The open-field system in England and in Germany
compared 368
2. The boundaries or 'marchæ' 375
3. The three fields, or 'zelgen' 376
4. The division of the fields into furlongs and acres 380
5. The holdings--the 'yard-land' or 'hub' 389
6. The hide, the 'hof,' and the 'centuria' 395
7. The gafol and gafol-yrth 399
8. The boon-work and week-work of the serf 403
9. The creation of serfs and the growth of serfdom 405
10. The confusion in the status of the tenants on English
and German manors 407
11. Result of the comparison 409
CHAPTER XI.
RESULT OF THE EVIDENCE.
1. The method of the English settlements 412
2. Local evidence of continuity between Roman and English
villages 424
3. Conclusion 437
APPENDIX 443
INDEX AND GLOSSARY 455
LIST OF MAPS AND PLATES.
facing page
1. MAP OF HITCHIN TOWNSHIP, &C. _title-page_
2. MAP OF PART OF PURWELL FIELD 2
3. SKETCH OF 'LINCES' 5
4. HITCHIN, PURWELL FIELD 6
5. A NORMAL VIRGATE OR YARD-LAND 26
6. DOMESDAY SURVEY, DISTRIBUTION OF SOCHMANNI, LIBERI
HOMINES, SERVI, BORDARII, AND VILLANI 85
7. MANOR OF TIDENHAM, &C. 148
8. GROUP OF PUTTCHERS ON THE SEVERN NEAR TIDENHAM 152
9. MAPS OF AN IRISH 'BALLY' AND 'HALF-BALLY' 224
10. EXAMPLES OF DIVISIONS IN A TOWNLAND 228
11. DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE OF LOCAL NAMES ENDING IN
'HEIM,' 'INGEN,' &C. 256
12. MAP OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF HITCHIN 426
13. MAP OF THE PARISH OF MUCH WYMONDLEY AND ROMAN HOLDING 432
14. ROMAN POTTERY FOUND ON DITTO 434
[p001]
THE
ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
CHAPTER I.
_THE ENGLISH OPEN FIELD SYSTEM EXAMINED IN ITS MODERN
REMAINS._
I. THE DISTINCTIVE MARKS OF THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM.
The distinctive marks of the open or common field system once
prevalent in England will be most easily learned by the study of an
example.
«Open fields of Hitchin Manor.»
The township of Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, will answer the purpose.
From the time of Edward the Confessor--and probably from much
earlier times--with intervals of private ownership, it has been a
royal manor.[1] And the Queen being still the lady of the manor, the
remains of its open fields have never been swept away by the ruthless
broom of an Enclosure Act.
Annexed is a reduced tracing of a map of the [p002] township without
the hamlets, made about the year 1816, and showing all the divisions
into which its fields wore then cut up.
It will be seen at once that it presents almost the features of a
spiders web. A great part of the township at that date, probably
nearly the whole of it in earlier times, was divided up into little
narrow strips.
«Divided into strips or seliones, _i.e._ acres, by balks.»
«Form of the acre.»
These strips, common to open fields all over England, were separated
from each other not by hedges, but by green balks of unploughed turf,
and are of great historical interest. They vary more or less in size
even in the same fields, as in the examples given on the map of a
portion of the Hitchin Purwell field. There are 'long' strips and
'short' strips. But taking them generally, and comparing them with
the statute acre of the scale at the corner of the map, it will be
seen at once that the normal strip is roughly identical with it.
The length of the statute acre of the scale is a furlong of 40 rods
or poles. It is 4 rods in width. Now 40 rods in length and 1 rod in
width make 40 square rods, or a _rood_; and thus, as there are 4
rods in breadth, the acre of the scale with which the normal strips
coincide is an _acre_ made up of 4 roods lying side by side.
Thus the strips are in fact roughly cut 'acres,' of the proper
shape for ploughing. For the furlong is the 'furrow long,' _i.e._
the length of the drive of the plough before it is turned; and that
this by long custom was fixed at 40 rods, is shown by the use of the
Latin word '_quarentena_' for furlong. The word 'rood' naturally
corresponds with as many furrows in the ploughing as are contained in
the breadth of one rod. And four of these roods lying side by side
made [p003] the acre strip in the open fields, and still make up
the statute acre.
[Illustration: PART OF PURWELL FIELD, HITCHIN.]
«Very ancient.»
This form of the acre is very ancient. Six hundred years ago, in the
earliest English law fixing the size of the statute acre (33 Ed.
I.), it is declared that '40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make
an acre.'[2] And further, we shall find that more than a thousand
years ago in Bavaria the shape of the strip in the open fields for
ploughing was also 40 rods in length and 4 rods in width, but the rod
was in that case the Greek and Roman rod of 10 ft. instead of the
English rod of 16½ ft.
«Half-acres.»
But to return to the English strips. In many places the open fields
were formerly divided into half-acre strips, which were called
'half-acres.' That is to say, a turf balk separated every two rods or
roods in the ploughing, the length of the furrow remaining the same.
The strips in the open fields are generally known by country folk
as 'balks,' and the Latin word used in terriers and cartularies for
the strip is generally '_selio_,' corresponding with the French word
'_sillon_,' (meaning furrow). In Scotland and Ireland the same strips
generally are known as 'rigs,' and the open field system is known
accordingly as the 'run-rig' system.
The whole arable area of an uninclosed township was usually divided
up by turf balks into as many thousands of these strips as its limits
would contain, and the tithing maps of many parishes besides Hitchin,
dating sixty or eighty years ago, show remains of [p004] them still
existing, although the process of ploughing up the balks and throwing
many strips together had gradually been going on for centuries.
* * * * *
«Shots or furlongs, or _quarentenæ_.»
Next, it will be seen that the strips on the map lie side by side
in groups, forming larger divisions of the field. These larger
divisions are called 'shots,' or 'furlongs,' and in Latin documents
'_quarentenæ_,' being always a furrow-long in width. Throughout their
whole length the furrows in the ploughing run parallel from end to
end; the balks which divide them into strips being, as the word
implies, simply two or three furrows left unploughed between them.[3]
The shots or furlongs are divided from one another by broader balks,
generally overgrown with bushes.
«Headlands.»
This grouping of the strips in furlongs or shots is a further
invariable feature of the English open field system. And it involves
another little feature which is also universally met with, viz. the
_headland_.
It will be seen on the map that mostly a common field-way gives
access to the strips; _i.e._ it runs along the side of the furlong
and the ends of the strips. But this is not always the case; and
when it is not, then there is a strip running along the length of
the furlong inside its boundaries and across the ends of the strips
composing it.[4] This is the _headland_. Sometimes when the strips of
the one furlong run at right angles to the strips of its neighbour,
the first strip in the one furlong does [p005] duty as the
headland giving access to the strips in the other. In either case all
the owners of the strips in a furlong have the right to turn their
plough upon the headland, and thus the owner of the headland must
wait until all the other strips are ploughed before he can plough his
own. The Latin term for the headland is '_forera_;' the Welsh, '_pen
tir_;' the Scotch, '_headrig_;' and the German (from the turning of
the plough upon it), '_anwende_.'
[Illustration: 'LINCHES' IN THE OPEN FIELDS OF CLOTHALL, HERTS.]
«Lynches, or linces.»
A less universal but equally peculiar feature of the open field
system in hilly districts is the 'lynch,' and it may often be
observed remaining when every other trace of an open field has
been removed by enclosure. Its right of survival lies in its
indestructibility. When a hill-side formed part of the open field
the strips almost always were made to run, not up and down the
hill, but horizontally along it; and in ploughing, the custom for
ages was always to turn the sod of the furrow downhill, the plough
consequently always returning one way idle. If the whole hill-side
were ploughed in one field, this would result in a gradual travelling
of the soil from the top to the bottom of the field, and it might
not be noticed. But as in the open field system the hill-side was
ploughed in strips with unploughed balks between them, no sod could
pass in the ploughing from one strip to the next; but the process
of moving the sod downwards would go on age after age just the same
within each individual strip. In other words, every year's ploughing
took a sod from the higher edge of the strip and put it on the lower
edge; and the result was that the strips became in time long level
terraces one above the other, and the balks between them [p006]
grew into steep rough banks of long grass covered often with natural
self-sown brambles and bushes. These banks between the plough-made
terraces are generally called _lynches_, or _linces_; and the word is
often applied to the terraced strips themselves, which go by the name
of 'the linces.'[5]
«Butts.»
Where the strips abruptly meet others, or _abut_ upon a boundary at
right angles, they are sometimes called _butts_.
«Gored acres.»
«No man's land.»
Two other small details marking the open field system require only
to be simply mentioned. Corners of the fields which, from their
shape, could not be cut up into the usual acre or half-acre strips,
were sometimes divided into tapering strips pointed at one end, and
called 'gores,' or 'gored acres.' In other cases little odds and ends
of unused land remained, which from time immemorial were called 'no
man's land,' or 'any one's land,' or 'Jack's land,' as the case might
be.
[Illustration: HITCHIN, PURWELL FIELD.
PROPRIETORS NAMES WITH THEIR NUMBERS.]
Thus there are plenty of outward marks and traits by which the open
common field may be recognised wherever it occurs,--the acre or
half-acre [p007] strips or _seliones_, the gored shape of some of
them, the balks and sometimes lynches between them, the shots or
furlongs (_quarentenæ_) in which they lie in groups, the headlands
which give access to the strips when they lie off the field-ways, the
butts, and lastly the odds and ends of 'no man's land.'
II. SCATTERED AND INTERMIXED OWNERSHIP IN THE OPEN FIELDS.
«Scattered or intermixed ownership.»
Passing from these little outward marks to the matter of ownership,
a most inconvenient peculiarity presents itself, which is by far
the most remarkable and important feature of the open field system
wherever it is found. It is the fact that neither the strips nor the
furlongs represented a complete holding or property, but that the
several holdings were made up of a multitude of strips scattered
about on all sides of the township, one in this furlong and another
in that, intermixed, and it might almost be said entangled together,
as though some one blindfold had thrown them about on all sides of
him.
The extent to which this was the case in the Hitchin common fields,
even so late as the beginning of the present century, will be
realised by reference to the map annexed. It is a reduced tracing
of a map showing the ownership of the strips in one division of
the open fields of Hitchin called the _Purwell_ field. The strips
are numbered, and correspond with the owners' names given in the
tally at the side. The strips belonging to two of the owners are
also coloured, so as at once to catch the eye, and the area of each
separate piece is marked upon it. The number [p008] of scattered
pieces held by each owner is also given in the note below; and as the
map embraces only about one-third of the Hitchin fields, it should be
noticed that each owner probably held in the parish three times as
many separate pieces as are there described![6] Further, at the side
of the map of the Hitchin township, is a reduced tracing of a plan of
the estate of a single landowner in the townfields of Hitchin, which
shows very clearly the curious scattering of the strips in a single
ownership all over the fields, notwithstanding that the tendency
towards consolidation of the holdings by exchanges and purchases had
evidently made some progress.
III. THE OPEN FIELDS WERE THE COMMON FIELDS OF A VILLAGE COMMUNITY OR
TOWNSHIP UNDER A MANOR.
The next fact to be noted is that under the English system the
open fields were the common fields--the arable land--of a village
community or township under a manorial lordship. This could hardly be
more clearly illustrated than by the Hitchin example. [p009]
«Periodical presentment of the jurors and the homage of the manor.»
The Hitchin manor was, as already stated, a royal manor. The _Court
Leet_ and _View of Frankpledge_ were held concurrently with the
_Court Baron_ of the manor. Periodically at this joint court a record
was made on the presentment of the jurors and homage of various
particulars relating to both the manor and township.
The record for the year 1819 will be found at length in Appendix A,
and it may be taken as a common form.
The jurors and homage first present that the manor comprises the
township of Hitchin and hamlet of Walsworth, and includes within it
three lesser manors; also that it extends into other hamlets and
parishes.
«The boundaries.»
They then record the _boundaries_ of the township (including the
hamlet of Walsworth) as follows, viz.:--
'From Orton Head to Burford Ray, and from thence to a Water Mill
called Hide Mill, and from thence to Willberry Hills, and from
thence to a place called Bossendell, and from thence to a Water
Mill called Purwell Mill, and from thence to a Brook or River
called Ippollitt's Brook, and from thence to Maydencroft Lane, and
from thence to a place called Wellhead, and from thence to a place
called Stubborn Bush, and from thence to a place called Offley
Cross, and from thence to Five Borough Hills [Five Barrows], and
from thence back to Orton Head, where the boundaries commenced.'
The form in which these boundaries are given is of great antiquity.
It is a form used by the Romans two thousand years ago, and almost
continuously followed from that time to this.[7] Its importance for
[p010] the purpose in hand will be manifest as the inquiry proceeds.
«The courts.»
The jurisdiction of the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge is
recorded to extend within the foregoing boundaries, _i.e._ over
the township, that of the Court Baron beyond them over the whole
manor, which was more extensive than the township. The Court Leet
is therefore the Court of the township, the Court Baron that of the
manor.
It is then stated that in the Court Leet at Michaelmas the jurors of
the king elect and present to the lord--
«The officers.»
Two constables,
Six headboroughs (two for each of the three wards),
Two ale-conners,
Two leather-searchers and sealers, and
A bellman, who is also the watchman and crier of the town.
All the foregoing presentments have reference to the township, and
are those of 'the jurors of our lord the King (_i.e._ of the Court
Leet), and the homage of the Court' [Baron] of the manor.
«Reliefs, fines, &c.»
«Pound and stocks.»
Then come presentments of the homage of the Court of the Manor
alone, describing the reliefs of freeholders and the fines, &c., of
copyholders under the manor, and various particulars as to powers
of leasing, [p011] forfeiture, cutting timber, heriots, &c.; the
freedom of grain from toll in the market, the provision by the lord
of the _common pound_ and the _stocks_ for the use of the tenants of
the manor, and the right of the lord with the consent of the homage
to grant out portions of the waste by copy of court roll at a rent
and the customary services.
Next the _commons_ are described.
«Green commons. Lammas meadows.»
(1) The portions coloured dark green on the map are described
as _Green Commons_, and those coloured light green as _Lammas
Meadows_;[8] and every occupier of an ancient messuage or cottage
in the township has certain defined rights of common thereon, the
obligation to find the common bull falling upon the rectory, and a
common herdsman being elected by the homage at a Court Baron.
«Common fields.»
«The three fields and rotation of crops.»
(2) The _common fields_ are stated to be--
{Purwell field, Welshman's croft,}
{Burford field, Spital field,}
{Moremead field, Bury field;}
and it is recorded that these common fields have immemorially been,
and ought to be, kept and cultivated in three successive seasons
of _tilth grain_, _etch grain_, and _fallow_: Purwell field and
Welshman's croft being fallow one year; Burford field and Spital
field the next year; Moremead field and Bury field the year after,
and so on in regular rotation. [p012]
«Common rights over the open fields when not under crop.»
It is stated that every occupier of unenclosed land in any of the
common fields of the township may pasture his sheep over the rest of
the field after the corn is cut and carried, and when it is fallow.
If he choose to enclose his own portion of the common field he may
do so, but he then gives up for ever his right of pasture over the
rest. It is under this custom that the strips and balks are gradually
disappearing.
«Hamlet.»
The ancient messuages and cottages in the hamlet of Walsworth had
their separate green common and herdsman, but (at this date) no
common fields, because they had already been some time ago enclosed.
It will be seen from the map how very small a proportion of the land
of the township was in meadow or pasture. The open arable fields
occupied nearly the whole of it. The community to which it belonged,
and to whose wants it was fitted, was evidently a community occupied
mainly in agriculture.
«Copyholds and freeholds intermixed.»
Another feature requiring notice was the fact that in the open fields
freehold and copyhold land were intermixed; some of the strips being
freehold, whilst the next strip was copyhold, instead of all the
freehold and all the copyhold lying together. And in the same way the
lands belonging to the three lesser or sub-manors lay intermixed, and
not all apart by themselves. The open field system overrode the whole.
Thus, if the Hitchin example may be taken as a typical one of the
English open field system, it may be regarded generally as having
belonged to a village or township under a manor. We may assume that
the holdings were composed of numbers of strips scattered [p013]
over the three open fields: and that the husbandry was controlled by
those rules as to rotation of crops and fallow in three seasons which
marked the three-field system, and secured uniformity of tillage
throughout each field. Lastly, whilst fallow after the crop was
gathered, the open fields were probably everywhere subject to the
common rights of pasture. The sheep of the whole township wandered
and pastured all over the strips and balks of its fields, while the
cows of the township were daily driven by a common herdsman to the
green commons, or, after Lammas Day, when the hay crop of the owners
was secured, to the lammas meadows.
IV. THE WIDE PREVALENCE OF THE SYSTEM THROUGH GREAT BRITAIN.
But before the attempt is made to trace back the system, it may be
well to ask what evidence there is as to its wide prevalence in
England, and with what reason the particular example of the Hitchin
township may be taken as generally typical.
«Enclosure of open fields.»
In the first place, an examination into the details of an Enclosure
Act will make clear the point that the system as above described
is the system which it was the object of the Enclosure Acts to
remove. They were generally drawn in the same form, commencing with
the recital that the open and common fields lie dispersed in small
pieces intermixed with each other and inconveniently situated, that
divers persons own parts of them, and are entitled to rights of
common on them, so that in their present state they are incapable of
improvement, and that it is [p014] desired that they may be divided
and enclosed, a specific share being set out and allowed to each
owner. For this purpose Enclosure Commissioners are appointed, and
under their award the balks are ploughed up, the fields divided into
blocks for the several owners, hedges planted, and the whole face of
the country changed.
«Number of Acts.»
The common fields of twenty-two parishes within ten miles of Hitchin
were enclosed in this way between 1766 and 1832. All the Acts were
of the same character.[9] And as, taking the whole of England, with,
roughly speaking, its 10,000 parishes, nearly 4,000 Enclosure Acts
were passed between 1760 [p015] and 1844,[10] it will at once be
understood how generally prevalent was this form of the open field
system so late as the days of the grandfathers of this generation.
«Wide extent of open field system.»
The old 'Statistical Account of Scotland,' obtained eighty years ago
by inquiry in every parish, shows that at its date, under the name
of 'run-rig,' a simpler form of the open field system still lingered
on here and there more or less all over Scotland. Traces of it still
exist in the Highlands, and there are well-known remains of its
strips and balks also in Wales. The run-rig system is still prevalent
in some parts of Ireland. But at present we confine our attention to
the form which the system assumed in England, and for this purpose
the Hitchin example may fairly be taken as typical.
«Uneconomical;»
Now, judged from a modern point of view, it will readily be
understood that the open field system, and especially its peculiarity
of straggling or scattered ownership, regarded from a modern
agricultural point of view, was absurdly uneconomical. The waste
of time in getting about from one part of a farm to another; the
uselessness of one owner attempting to clean his own land when it
could be sown with thistles from the seed blown from the neighbouring
strips of a less careful and thrifty owner; the quarrelling about
headlands and rights of way, or [p016] paths made without right;
the constant encroachments of unscrupulous or overbearing holders
upon the balks--all this made the system so inconvenient, that Arthur
Young, coming across it in France, could hardly keep his temper as he
described with what perverse ingenuity it seemed to be contrived as
though purposely to make agriculture as awkward and uneconomical as
possible.
«but must have had meaning once.»
But these now inconvenient traits of the open field system must once
have had a meaning, a use, and even a convenience which were the
cause of their original arrangement. Like the apparently meaningless
sentinel described by Prince Bismarck uselessly pacing up and down
the middle of a lawn in the garden of the Russian palace, there
must have been an originally sufficient reason to account for the
beginning of what is now useless and absurd. And just as in that
case, search in the military archives disclosed that once upon
a time, in the days of Catherine the Great, a solitary snowdrop
had appeared on the lawn, to guard which a sentinel was posted by
an order which had never been revoked; so a similar search will
doubtless disclose an ancient original reason for even the (at first
sight) most unreasonable features of the open field system.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The lesser manors included in it are clearly only _sub_-manors,
and for the present purpose do not destroy its original unity.
[2] _Statutes_, _Record Com._ Ed. i. p. 206.
[3] _Balc_ is a Welsh word; and when the plough is accidentally
turned aside, and leaves a sod of grass unturned between the furrows,
the plough is said by the Welsh ploughman speaking Welsh, to '_balc_'
(balco).
[4] See the map of a portion of the Purwell field.
[5] Striking examples of these lynches may be seen from the railroad
at Luton in Bedfordshire, and between Cambridge and Hitchin, as well
as in various other parts of England. They may be seen often on the
steep sides of the Sussex Downs and the Chiltern Hills. Great numbers
of them are to be noticed from the French line between Calais and
Paris. In some cases on the steep chalk downs, terraces for ploughing
have evidently been artificially cut; but even in these cases there
must always have been a gradual natural growth of the lynches by
annual accretion from the ploughing. In old times, in order to secure
the turning of the sod downhill, the plough, after cutting a furrow,
returned as stated one way idle; but in more recent times a plough
called a 'turn-wrist plough' came into use, which by reversing its
share could be used both ways, to the great saving of time.
[6] The number of parcels held by each owner was as follows:--
Owner Parcels
No. 1 38
2 35
3 28
4 25
5 3
6 8
7 4
8 28
9 6
10 1
11 10
12 2
13 5
14 5
15 8
16 7
17 2
18 1
19 12
20 1
21 3
22 1
23 4
24 0
25 0
26 1
27 1
28 0
29 1
30 3
31 2
32 1
33 3
34 6
35 4
36 1
37 2
38 2
39 1
40 1
41 6
42 3
43 2
44 1
45 1
46 2
47 7
48 1
──────
Total 289
[7] _Hyginus de Condicionibus Agrorum._ _Die Schriften der Römischen
Feldmesser_ (Lachmann, &c.), i. p. 114. 'Nam invenimus sæpe in
publicis instrumentis significanter inscripta territoria, ita ut
_ex colliculo qui appellatur ille ad flumen illud, et super flumen
illud ad rivum illum aut viam illam, et per viam illam ad infima
montis illius, qui locus appellatur ille, et inde per jugum montis
illius in summum, et super summum montis per divergia aquæ ad locum,
qui appellatur ille, et inde deorsum versus ad locum illum, et inde
ad compitum illius, et inde per monumentum illius, ad locum unde
primum cœpit scriptura esse_.' See as an early example, 'Sententia
Minuciorum,' _Corpus Inscript. Lat._ i. 199.
[8] The lammas meadows are divided into strips like the arable land
for the purpose of the hay crop.
[9] These Enclosure Acts were as follows:--
Date of Names of Parishes
Enclosure whose open fields
Acts were thereby enclosed
1766 Hexton [Herts].
1795 Henlow [Beds].
1796 Norton [Herts].
1797 Campton-cum-ShefFord [Beds].
1797 King's Walden [Herts].
1797 Weston [Herts].
1802 Hinxworth [Herts].
1802 Shitlington [Beds]. Holwell [Beds].
1804 Arlsey [Beds].
1807 Offley [Herts].
1808 Luton [Beds].
1809 Barton-in-the-Clay [Beds].
Codicote [Herts].
1810 Welwyn [Herts].
Knebworth [Herts].
1811 Pirton [Herts].
1811 Great Wymondley [Herts]. Little Wymondley [Herts].
Ippollitts [Herts].
1827 Langford [Beds].
1832 Clifton [Beds].
[10] Porter's _Progress of the Nation_, p. 146:--
1760–69 385
1770–79 660
1780–89 246
1790–99 469
1800–9 847
1810–19 853
1820–29 205
1830–39 136
1840–44 66
─────
3,867
[p017]