_THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM TRACED IN SAXON TIMES--THE
SCATTERING OF THE STRIPS ORIGINATED IN THE METHODS OF
CO-ARATION._
I. THE VILLAGE FIELDS UNDER SAXON RULE WERE OPEN FIELDS.
«Traces of the open field in Saxon times.»
We have learned from a long line of evidence, leading backwards to
the date of the Domesday Survey, that the community in villenage
fitted into the open field system as a snail fits into a shell. Let
us now, following the same method, and beginning again with the
shell, inquire whether its distinctive features can be traced on
English fields in early Saxon times from the date of the Domesday
Survey, and of Edward the Confessor, backwards.
And first it will be convenient to find out whether traces can be
found of the 'strips,' and the 'furlongs,' 'headlands,' 'linches,'
'gored acres,' 'butts,' and odds and ends of 'no-man's-land,' the
remains of which are still to be seen wherever the open fields are
unenclosed.
It will be remembered that the strips upon examination were found
to be _acres_ laid out for ploughing [p106] on the open fields.
They were, in fact, the original actual divisions, from the general
dimensions of which the statute acre, with its four roods, was
derived.
«In the Saxon translation of the Gospels.»
Bearing this in mind, the Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospels may
be quoted in proof that the fields round a Saxon village were open
fields, and generally divided into acre strips in the tenth century,
just as the vision of _Piers Plowman_ was quoted in proof that it was
so in the fourteenth century.
The Saxon translator of the story of the disciples walking through
the corn-fields describes them as walking over the '_æceras_.'
Obviously the translator's notion of the corn-fields round a village
was that of the open fields of his own country. They were divided
into 'acres,' and he who walked over them walked over the 'acres.'
«In Saxon charters.»
But by far the best evidence occurs in the multitudes of charters,
from the eighth century downwards, so many of which are contained in
the cartularies of the various abbeys, and more than 1,300 of which
are collected in Kemble's _Codex Diplomaticus_.
These charters are generally in Latin. They most often relate to the
grant of a whole manor or estate with the village upon it. And to the
charters is generally added in Saxon a description of the boundaries
as known to the inhabitants. These descriptions are in precisely the
same form as the description of the boundaries on the Hitchin manor
rolls as presented by the homage in 1819.[130]
«In the boundaries.»
The boundary is always described as starting at [p107] some
well-known point--perhaps a road or stream--as passing on from it to
some other, and so on, from point to point, till the starting-place
is reached again. The chance of finding out from these boundaries
whether they contained within them open fields lies simply in the
possibility that some one or another of the distinctive features of
the system may happen to occur at the edge of the estate or township,
and so to be mentioned among the links in the chain of objects making
up the boundary.
The fact is that this happens very often.
«Example of _Hordwell_.»
By way of example, the boundaries of _Hordwell_ in Hampshire may be
taken. They are appended to a charter[131] by which King Edward, the
son of King Alfred, gave the estate to the Abbey of Abingdon, and
they are as follows:--
_Metæ de Hordwella._
An Swinbroc ærest, thæt up of Swinebroce in on riscslæd,
of thæs riscslædes byge foran ongean Hordwylles weg, thæt
andlang thæs weges oth hit cymth to Iecenhilde wege,
thonne of thæm wege, up on thone ealdan wude weg, thonne
of thæn wude waga be eastan Tellesbyrg on ænne garan,
thonne of thæm garan on næne garæcer, thæt andlangs
thære furh to anum andheafdum to anre forierthe, and
sio forierth gæth in to tham lande, thanne on gerihte
to tham stane on hricg weg, thanon west on anne goran,
andlanges thære furh to anum anheafdum, thanon of dune
on fearnhylles slæd, thæt thanon on ane furh an æcer
near thæm hlince, thonne on thæt hlinc æt fearnhylles
slæde suthewearde, of thæm hlince on anon heafde, forth
thær on ane furh, on ane stanræwe, thanon on gerihte on
hricgweg thæt thanone on ane garæcer on anon heafde, and
se garæcer in on thæt land, thanone andlanges anre furh
oth hitcymth to anum byg, thanone of thæm byge forth on
ane furh oth hit cymth to anre forierthe, and sio forierth
into tham lande, thonne on Icenhilde weg be Tellesburh
westan, thanone north ofer Icenhilde weg on sican wylle,
thæt hthweres ofer an furlang on gerihte on an ælrbed on
hæghylles broces byge, anlang thæs broces oth hit cymth to
twam garæcer, and than garæceras in on thæt land, thanon
on ane forierthe on anon heafde, thanon on gerihte on
readan clif on Swinbroc, thonne andlang thæs broces on
thæt riscslæd.
* * * * *
On Swinbroc first, thence up from Swinbroc on to
rush-slade, from this rush-slade's corner fore-against
Hordwell-way, thence along this way until it comes to the
Icknild way, then from these ways upon the old wood-way,
then from that wood-way by east Tellesburg to a corner,
then from that corner to a _goreacre_, thence along its
furrow to the head of a _headland_, and which headland
goes into the land, then right on to the stone on ridge
way, then on west to a _gore_ along the furrow to its
head, then adown to fernhills slade, thence on a furrow
in the acre nearer the _lince_, then on that lince at
fernhills slade southward from that lince to its head,
forward then on a furrow to a stonerow, then right on to
the ridge-way, thence thereon to a _goreacre_ at its head,
the goreacre being within that land, thence along a furrow
till it comes to a corner, thence from that corner forward
on a furrow till it comes to a _headland_, which headland
is within the land, then on the Ickenild way by Tellesburg
west, thence north over the Ickenild way to Sican-well,
thence . . . over a _furlong_ right on to an alder-bed
at hedgehill's brook corner, along this brook till it
comes to two _goreacres_, which goreacres are within that
land, thence on a _headland_ to its head, then right on
to Redcliffe on Swinbrook, then along this brook on that
rush-slade.
In this single instance there is mention of _acres_ or strips, of
_gores_ or _gored-acres_, of _headlands_, of _furlongs_, and of
_linches_.
«All the marks are found.»
Scores of similar instances might be given from the Abingdon
charters, 'Liber de Hyda,' and the 'Codex Diplomaticus,' showing
that the boundaries constantly make mention of one or another
of the distinctive marks by which the open field system may be
recognised.[132] [p109]
«1,000 years ago.»
There can, therefore, be no doubt that the fields of Saxon manors
or villages were open fields divided into furlongs and strips, and
having their headlands and linches. Even the little odds and ends of
'_no mans land_' are incidentally found to have their place in the
Saxon open fields 1,000 years ago.
But how far back can these Saxon open fields be traced? The answer
is, as far back as the laws of King Ine can be held to reach into the
past.
These laws were republished by King Alfred as 'The Dooms of Ine,'
who came to the throne in A.D. 688. In their first clause they claim
to have been recorded by King Ine with the counsel and teaching of
his father _Cenred_, and of _Hedde_, his bishop (who was Bishop of
Winchester from A.D. 676 to 705), and of _Eorcenwold_, his bishop
(who obtained the see of London in 675); and so, if genuine, they
seem to represent what was settled customary law in Wessex during the
last half of the seventh century--the century after the conquest of
the greater part of Wessex.
In these laws there occurs a section which so clearly refers to open
common fields divided into acres, and to common meadows also divided
into strips or doles, that it would have been perfectly intelligible
and reasonable if it had been included word for word in the record of
the customs of the Hitchin manor as regards the three common fields
and the green commons and Lammas land:-- [p110]
_Be Ceorles Gærs-tune._[133]
(xlii.) Gif ceorlas gærs-tun hæbben gemænne. oþþe oðer
gedál-land to tynanne. ⁊ hæbben sume getyned hiora dæl. sume
næbban. ⁊ . . . etten hiora gemænan æceras oþþe gærs, gán
þa þonne þe ꝥ geat agan. ⁊ gebete[n] þam oðrum þe hiora dæl
getynedne. . . .
_Of a Ceorle's grass-tun (meadow)._
(42) If ceorls have common meadow or other _land divided into
strips_[134] to fence, and some have fenced their strip, some
have not, and . . . [stray cattle (?)] eat their common acres
or grass, let those go who own the gap, and compensate the
others who have fenced their strip. . . .
There is here in the smallest possible compass the most complete
evidence that in the seventh century the fields of Wessex were common
open fields, the arable being divided into _acres_ and the meadows
into _doles_[134]; and as the system is incidentally mentioned as
a thing existing as a matter of course, it is not likely to have
been suddenly or recently introduced. The evidence throws it back,
therefore, at least to the earliest period of Saxon rule.
II. THE HOLDINGS WERE COMPOSED OF SCATTERED STRIPS.
«The holdings were _hides_ and _yard-lands_.»
Let us next ask whether there are traces of the _scattered
ownership_--the scattering all over the open fields of the strips
included in the holdings--which was so essential a characteristic of
the system; and, further, whether in tracing it back into early Saxon
[p111] times any clue to its original meaning and intention can be
found.
First, it may be stated generally that, when the nature and incidents
of the holdings are examined hereafter, it will be found that
throughout the period of Saxon rule, from the time of Edward the
Confessor backward to the date of the laws of King Ine, 300 years
earlier, the holdings were mainly the same as those with which we
have become familiar, viz. _hides_, _half-hides_, and _yard-lands_,
and that, generally speaking, there were no other kinds of holdings
the names of which are mentioned.
«Holdings composed of scattered strips.»
That these Saxon hides and yard-lands were composed of scattered
strips in the open fields, as they were afterwards, might well be
inferred from the mere fact that they bore the same names as those
used after the Conquest. It would be strange indeed if the same names
at the two dates meant entirely different things--if the virgate or
yard-land before the Conquest was a thing wholly different from what
it was after it.
But there is other evidence than the mere names of the holdings.
There is a general characteristic of the numerous Saxon charters of
all periods, which, when carefully considered, can hardly have any
other explanation than the fact that the holdings were composed not
of contiguous blocks of land, but of scattered strips.
«The boundaries were of whole manors,»
It is this--that whatever be the subject of the grant made by the
charter, _i.e._ whether it be a whole manor or township that is
granted, or only some of the holdings in it, the boundaries appended
are the boundaries of the _whole_ manor or township. No doubt the
royal gifts to the monastic houses generally [p112] did consist of
whole manors, and thus the boundaries in most cases naturally were
the boundaries of the whole, and could not be otherwise. But it was
not always so. Thus, among the Abingdon charters there are two of
Edward the Martyr, one of vii. hides (cassatos), in 'Cingestune,' and
another of xiii. 'mansas' in 'Cyngestun,' one to the Church of St.
Mary at Abingdon, the other to a person named _Ælfstan_;[135] and to
both charters are appended _the same boundaries_ in substantially the
same words. And these are the boundaries of the _whole township_.[136]
There can hardly be any other explanation of this peculiarity than
the fact that the holdings were not blocks of land, the boundaries
of which could be easily given, but, in fact, like the hides and
virgates after the Conquest, bundles of strips scattered over the
open fields, and intermixed with strips belonging to other holdings.
Indeed, there is in a charter of King Ethelred (A.D. 982) among
the Abingdon series relating to five hides at '_Cheorletun_,' a
direct confession of the reason why in this case all boundaries are
omitted. Instead of the usual boundaries of the whole township there
is the statement that the estate is 'the less distinctly defined by
boundaries, _quia jugera altrinsecus copulata adjacent_'--because the
acres are intermixed.[137]
«of which they were shares.»
On the hypothesis already suggested that the hides, half-hides,
virgates, and bovates were the shares in the results of the ploughing
of the village plough [p113] teams--in other words, the number of
strips allotted to each holder in respect of the oxen contributed by
him to the plough team of eight oxen--it is perfectly natural that in
a grant of _some_ only of the holdings the boundaries given should be
those of the whole township, viz. of the whole area, an intermixed
share in which constituted the holding.
«Other evidence.»
There is another fact, which has, perhaps, never yet been explained,
but which is nevertheless perfectly intelligible on the same
hypothesis.
It will be remembered that there was observed in the Winslow example
of a virgate a certain regular turn or rotation in the order of the
strips in the virgates--that John Moldeson's strips almost always
came next after the strips of one, and were followed by those of
another, particular neighbour. Now this fact strongly suggests that
originally the holdings had not always and permanently consisted of
the same actual strips, but that once upon a time the strips were
perhaps allotted afresh each year in the ploughing according to a
certain order of rotation, the turn of the contributor of two oxen
coming twice as often as that of the contributor of one ox, and so
making the virgate contain twice as many strips as the bovate. This,
and this alone, would give the requisite elasticity to the system so
as to allow, if necessary, of the admission of new-comers into the
village community, and new virgates into the village fields.
So long as the limits of the land were not reached a fresh tenant
would rob no one by adding his oxen to the village plough teams, and
receiving in regular turn the strips allotted in the ploughing to
his oxen. In the working of the system the strips of a new holding
[p114] would be intermixed with the others by a perfectly natural
process.
Now, that something like this process did actually happen in Saxon
times is clear from the way in which the Church was provided for
under the Saxon laws.
«The mode in which _tithes_ were taken.»
In the light which is given by the knowledge of what the open field
system really was, there is nothing intrinsically impossible even in
the alleged but doubtful donation by King Ethelwulf of one-tenth of
the whole land of England by one stroke of the pen to the Church. It
has been said that he could not do it except on the royal domains
without robbing the landowners and their tenants of their holdings.
It would be so if the holdings were blocks. But there is nothing
impossible in the supposition that a Saxon king should enact a law
that every tenth strip ploughed by the common ploughs throughout the
villages of England should be devoted to the Church. It would create
no confusion or dislocation anywhere. And it would have meant just
the same thing if Ethelwulf had enacted that every tenth virgate, or
every tenth holding, should be devoted to the Church. For the sum of
every tenth strip ploughed by the villagers, when the strips were
tied, as it were, together into the bundles called virgates or hides,
would amount to every tenth virgate, or hide, as the case might be.
Nor would there be anything strange in his freeing the strips thus
granted to the Church from all secular services.[138]
The alleged donation may be spurious, the documents relating to it
may be forgeries, but there is [p115] nothing impossible or unlikely
in the thing itself. And the very fact of the forgery of such a grant
is evidence of its intrinsic possibility. And, whatever may be said
as to the donation of Ethelwulf, whether it be spurious or not, there
are other proofs that something of the kind was afterwards effected.
«Priests often have yard-lands.»
In No. XXV.[139] of the 'Excerptiones' of Archbishop Egbert (A.D.
735–766) it is ordained that 'to every church shall be allotted one
complete holding (mansa), and that this shall be free from all but
ecclesiastical services.' This was simply putting the priest in the
position of a recognised village official, like the _præpositus_ or
the _faber_. They held their virgates free of service, and perhaps
their strips were ploughed by the common ploughs in return for their
services without their contributing oxen to the manorial plough team.
The Domesday Survey proves that, in a great number of instances at
least, room had in fact been made in the village community for the
priest and his _virgate_.[140]
«Tithe taken in acres, _i.e. every tenth strip_.»
The following passages in the Saxon laws also show that for some
time, at all events, the tithes were actually taken, not in the
shape of every tenth sheaf, but exactly in accordance with the plan
suggested by the spurious grant of Ethelwulf, by every tenth strip
being set aside for the Church in the ploughing.
In the laws of King Ethelred[141] (A.D. 978–1016) [p116] there is a
command that every Christian man shall 'pay his tithe justly, _always
as the plough traverses the tenth "æcer."_'
VII. And pite cristenra manna gehpilc. ꝥ he his Drihtene his
teoðunge. á spa seo sulh þone teoðan æcer gegá. rihtlice
gelǽste. be Godes miltse.[142]
And be it known to every Christian man that he pay to his lord
his tithe rightly always _as the plough traverses the tenth
acre_, on peril of God's mercy.
Further, in a Latin law of King Ethelred there is the following
direction:-
Et præcipimus, ut omnis homo . . . det cyricsceattum, et rectam
decimam suam, . . . hoc est, sicut aratrum peragrabit decimam
acram.[143]
And we command, that every man . . . give his _churchshot_, and
just _tithe_, . . . that is, _as the plough traverses the tenth
acre_.
And that this applied to land in villenage as well as to land in
demesne is clear from a still earlier law of King Edgar (A.D. 959,
975): 'That every tithe be rendered to the old minster to which the
district belongs, and that it be then so paid both from a _thane's
in-land and from geneat-land, so as the plough traverses it_.'
1. Dæt syndyon þonne ærest. ꝥ Godes cyrican syn ælces rihtes
þyrðe. ⁊ man agífe ælce teoðunge to þam ealdan mynstre þe seo
hyrnes to-hyrð. ⁊ ꝥ sy þonne spa gelæst. ægðer ge of þegnes
in-lande ge of geneatlande. spa spa hit seo sulh gegange.[144]
1. These then are first: that God's churches be entitled to
every right; and that every tithe be rendered to the old
minster to which the district belongs; and that it be then so
paid, both from a thane's _in-land_, and from _geneat-land_, so
_as the plough traverses it_.
«_Acres_ of tithe in Domesday Survey.»
There is very little reference in the Domesday Survey to the churches
and their tithes, but there happens to be one entry at least in which
there seems [p117] to be a clear reference to this practice of the
tithes being taken in actual strips and acres. It relates to the
church at _Wallop_, in Hampshire (the place from which the family
name of the Earls of Portsmouth is derived), and it states that 'to
the church there pertains one hide, also half of the tithes of the
manor, also the whole kirkshot. And of the tithes of the villani
xlvi. pence and _half of the acres_. There is in addition a little
church to which pertain _viii. acres of the tithes_.'[145]
It may be taken then as certain that the holdings in villenage in
the open fields of the Saxon 'hams' and 'tuns' were composed, like
the virgate of John Moldeson, in the manor of Winslow, centuries
afterwards, of strips scattered, one in this furlong and another in
that, all over the village fields; and it may be taken as already
almost certain that the scattering of the strips was in some way
connected with the order in which the strips were allotted in respect
of the oxen contributed to the village plough teams.
III. THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM OF CO-ARATION DESCRIBED IN THE ANCIENT
LAWS OF WALES.
«Strips taken in an order of rotation,»
The law that every tenth strip as it was traversed by the plough was
to be set apart for the tithe is certainly the clearest hint that
has yet been discovered of the perhaps annual redistribution of the
strips among the holdings in a certain order of rotation, [p118]
though it is possible of course that a redistribution being once
made, to make room for the acres set apart for the tithe, the same
strips might always thereafter be assigned to the tithe and to each
particular yard-land year after year without alteration.
«according to the oxen contributed.»
What is still wanted to lift the explanation already offered of
the connexion of the grades of holdings in the open fields and the
scattering of the strips in each holding, with the team of 8 oxen,
out of the region of hypothesis into that of ascertained fact is the
discovery if possible somewhere actually at work of the system of
common ploughing with eight oxen, and the assignment of the strips
in respect of the oxen to their several owners. Were it possible to
watch such an example of the actual process going on, there probably
would be disclosed by some little detail of its working the reason
and method of the scattering of the strips, and of the order of
rotation in which they seem to have been allotted.
«The system at work under the ancient laws of Wales.»
Now it happens that such an instance is at hand, affording every
opportunity for examination under the most favourable circumstances
possible. We find it in the ancient Welsh laws, representing to a
large extent ancient Welsh traditions collected and codified in the
tenth century, but somewhat modified afterwards, and coming down
to us in a text of the fourteenth century. In these laws is much
trustworthy evidence from which might be drawn a very graphic picture
of the social and economic condition of the unconquered Welsh people,
at a time parallel to the centuries of Saxon rule in England. And
amongst other things fortunately there is an almost perfect picture
of the method of ploughing. Nor is it too [p119] much to say that
in this picture we have a key which completely fits the lock, and
explains the riddle of the English open field system.
For the ancient Welsh laws describe a simple form of the open field
system at an earlier stage than that in which we have yet seen it--at
a time, in fact, when it was a living system at work, and everything
about it had a present and obvious meaning, and its details were
consistent and intelligible.
Let us examine this Welsh evidence.
«The Welsh erws, or acre strips.»
«Divided by turf balks.»
Precisely as the modern statute acre had its origin in the Saxon
_æcer_, which was an actual division of the fields, so that the Saxon
_æceras_ were the strips divided by balks--the _seliones_--of the
open field system; so the modern Welsh word for _acre_ as a quantity
of land is '_erw_,' and the same word in its ancient meaning in the
Welsh laws was the actual strip in the open fields. This is placed
beyond a doubt by the fact that its measurements are carefully given
over and over again, and that it was divided from its neighbours by
an unploughed balk of turf two furrows wide.[146]
«Measured by a rod.»
The Welsh laws describe the primitive way in which the erw was to
be measured. In one province this was to be done by a man holding
a rod of a certain length and stretching it on both sides of him
to fix the width, while the length is to be a certain multiple of
its breadth.[147] In other provinces of Wales the width was to be
fixed by a rod equal in length to the [p120] _long yoke_ used in
ploughing with four oxen abreast.[148] The erw thus ascertained
closely resembled in shape the English strips, though it varied in
size in different districts, and was less than the modern acre in its
contents.
Next there was, according to the Welsh laws, a certain regulated
rotation of ownership in the erws '_as they were traversed by the
plough_,' resulting from a well-ordered system of co-operative
ploughing. In the _Venedotian_ Code especially are elaborate rules as
to the '_cyvar_' or _co-aration_, and these expose the system in its
ancient form actually at work, with great vividness of detail.
«Team of eight oxen in the co-aration.»
The chief of these rules are given below,[149] from [p121] which
it will be seen that in the co-tillage the team, as in England and
Scotland, was assumed to be of eight oxen. And those who join in
co-ploughing must bring a proper contribution, whether oxen or plough
irons, handing them over during the common ploughing to the charge
of the common ploughman and the driver, who together are bound to
keep and use everything as well as they would do their own, till, the
co-ploughing being done, the owners take their own property away.
«Rotation in 'erws' according to the oxen.»
So the common ploughing was arranged. But how was the produce of
the partnership to be divided? This, too, is settled by the law,
representing no doubt immemorial custom. The first erw ploughed was
to go to the ploughman, the second to the irons, the third to the
outside sod ox, the fourth to the outside sward ox, the fifth to the
driver, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh to
the other six oxen in order of worth; and lastly, the twelfth was
the plough erw, for ploughbote, _i.e._ for the maintenance of the
woodwork of the plough; and so, it is stated, 'the tie of 12 erws was
completed.' Further, [p122] if any dispute should arise between the
co-tillers as to the fairness of the ploughing, the common-sense rule
was to be followed that the erw which fell to the ploughman should
be examined as to the depth, length, and breadth of the furrows and
every one's erw must be ploughed equally well.
Here, then, in the Welsh laws is the clearest evidence not only of
the division of the common fields by turf balks two furrows wide
into the long narrow strips called _erws_, or acres, and roughly
corresponding in shape, though not in area, with those on English
fields, but also of the very rules and methods by which their size
and shape, as well as the order of their ownership, were fixed in
Wales.
«It is the method of division of the results of co-tillage.»
And this order in the allotment of the erws turns out to be an
ingenious system for equitably dividing year by year the produce of
the co-operative ploughing between the contributors to it.
Now, without entering at present into the question of its connexion
with the tribal system in Wales, which will require careful
consideration hereafter, several interesting and useful flashes of
light may be drawn from this glimpse into the methods and rules of
the ancient Welsh system of co-operative ploughing.
«The size of the team necessitates co-operation,»
In the first place, ancient Welsh ploughing was evidently not like
the classical ploughing of the sunny south, a mere scratching of the
ground with a light plough, which one or two horses or oxen could
draw. In the Welsh laws a team of eight oxen, as already said, is
assumed to be necessary. And hence the necessity of co-operative
ploughing. The plough was evidently heavy and the ploughing deep,
just as was the case in [p123] the twelfth century, and probably
from still earlier to quite modern times in Scotland, where, as we
have seen, the plough was of the same heavy kind, and the team of
eight or of twelve oxen. And it is curious to observe that the Welsh,
like the Scotch oxen in modern times, were driven four abreast,
_i.e._ yoked four to a yoke. So that, as already suggested, the
plough was aptly described by the monks in their mediæval Latin as a
'caruca,' and the ploughed land as a 'carucate.'
«and the strips go with the oxen.»
But the most interesting point about the ancient Welsh co-operative
ploughing was the fact that the key to a share in the produce was
the contribution of one or more oxen to the team. He who contributed
one ox was entitled to one erw in the twelve. He who contributed
two oxen was entitled to two erws. He who contributed a whole yoke
of four oxen would receive four erws, while only the _owner_ of the
full team of eight oxen could possibly do without the co-operation
of others in ploughing. Surely this Welsh evidence satisfactorily
verifies the hypothesis already suggested by the term _bovate_, and
by the allotment of two oxen as outfit to the yard-land or virgate,
and by the taking of tithes in the shape of every tenth strip as it
was traversed by the plough, and lastly by the order of rotation in
the strips disclosed by the Winslow example.
It explains how the possession of the oxen came to be in Saxon, as
probably in still earlier British or Roman times, the key to the
position of the holder, and his rank in the hierarchy of the village
community. And it points to the Saxon system of hides and yard-lands
having possibly sprung naturally out [p124] of pre-existing British
or Roman arrangements, rather than as having been a purely Saxon
importation.
«Hence the yard-land became a bundle of scattered strips.»
It also suggests a ready explanation of how when the common tillage
died out, and the strips included in a hide, yard-land, or virgate,
instead of varying with each year's arrangements of the plough teams,
became occupied by the villein tenant year after year in permanent
possession, there would naturally be left, as a survival of the
ancient system, that now meaningless and inconvenient scattering of
the strips forming a holding all over the open fields which in modern
times so incensed Arthur Young, and made the Enclosure Acts necessary.
«The strip the day's ploughing.»
There is, lastly, another point in which the Welsh laws of co-aration
suggest a clue to the reason and origin of a widely spread trait of
the open field system. Why were the strips in the open field system
uniformly so small? The acre or _erw_ was obviously a furrow-long for
the convenience of the ploughing. But what fixed its breadth and its
area? This, too, is explained. According to the Welsh laws it was the
measure of a _day's co-ploughing_. This is clear from two passages in
the laws where it is called a '_cyvar_,' or a 'co-ploughing.'[150]
And it would seem that a day's ploughing ended at midday, because in
the legal description of a complete ox it is required to plough only
to midday.[151] The Gallic word for the acre or strip, '_journel_,'
in the Latin of the monks '_jurnalis_,' and [p125] sometimes
_diurnalis_,[152] also points to a day's ploughing; while the German
word 'morgen' for the same strips in the German open fields still
more clearly points to a day's work which ended, like the Welsh
'cyvar,' at noon.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] The boundaries of the charters contained in first two volumes
of the Codex Div. are collected in the Appendix to vol. iii. After
this they are given with the charters.
[131] _Hist. Monasterii de Abingdon_, vol. i. p. 57.
[132] _Codex Dip._ cclxxii. '_grenan hlinc_,' cccliii. '_hlinces_,'
ccclxxvii. 'ealde gare quod indigenæ _nane monnes land_ vocant.' (See
also dlxx. '_nane mannes land_'), cccxcix. '_furlang_,' ccccvii.
'_forlang_,' '_heued lande_,' ccccxiii. '_furlang_,' '_hlinces_,'
ccccxiv. '_mær hlinces_,' ccccxvii. '_forerth akere_,' ccccxviii.
'_furlanges_,' ccccxix. and xx. '_foryrthe_,' '_greatan hlinces_,'
and so on. Instances are equally numerous in the Abingdon charters
and those of the _Liber de Hyda_. For linces, see _Hist. Abingdon_,
i. pp. 111, 147, 158, 188, 259, 284, 315, 341, 404. _Liber de Hyda_,
pp. 86, 103, 107, 176, 235, 239.
[133] Laws of King Ine. _Ancient Laws, &c., of England_, Thorpe, p.
55.
[134] It will be remembered that Lammas land is divided into strips
for the hay crop. In the Winslow Rolls, in the list of strips
included in the virgate of John Moldeson were some strips or _doles_
of meadow--hence _dǽl_ and _gedál-land_. That gedal-land = open
fields divided into strips, see _Hist. Abingdon_ (p. 304), where
there is a charter, A.D. 961, making a grant of '9 mansas' and 'thas
nigon hida lieggead on gemang othran _gedal-lande_, feldes gemane and
mæda gemane and yrthland gemane.'
[135] Vol. i. pp. 349–352.
[136] So also see _Codex Diplomaticus_, dii. and dxvi., and
cccclxvii. and cccxxxv.
[137] Vol. i. p. 384. Compare also the boundaries of Draitune, '_æcer
under æcer_,' p. 248. Also the same expression, pp. 350 and 353.
[138] See, with regard to this donation, Kemble's _Saxons in
England_, c. x.; and Stubbs' _Const. Hist._ i. pp. 262–71.
[139] Thorpe, p. 328. 'Item--Ut unicuique æcclesiæ vel una mausa
integra absque alio servitio adtribuatur, et presbiteri in eis
constituti non de decimis, neque de oblationibus fidelium, nec de
domibus, neque de atriis vel ortis juxta æcclesiam positis, neque de
præscripta mansa, aliquod servitium faciant præter æcclesiasticum; et
si aliquid amplius habuerint, inde senioribus suis secundum patriæ
morem, debitum servitium impendant.'
[140] See especially the Survey Middlesex, and _supra_ pp. 92–95.
[141] Thorpe, p. 146.
[142] Thorpe, p. 146.
[143] _Ibid._ p. 144. So also in the Laws of Cnut, 'The tenth acre as
the plough traverses it.' Thorpe, p. 156.
[144] _Ibid._ p. 111.
[145] _D._ i. 38_b_. Wallope (Hants). 'Ibi æcclesia cui pertinet
una hida et medietas decimæ manerii et totum Cirset, et de decima
villanorum XLVI. denarii et medietas agrorum.'
'Ibi est adhuc æcclesiola, ad quam pertinent viii. acræ de decima.'
[146] (5) The breadth of a boundary (_fin_) between two trevs, if it
be of _land_, is a fathom and a half. . . .
(7) Between two erws, two furrows (_Ancient Laws, &c., of Wales_, p.
373). 'The boundary (tervyn) between two erws, two furrows, and that
is called a _balk_ (synach).' (P. 525.)
[147] _Ancient Laws_: _Venedotian Code_, pp. 81 and 90. _Leges
Wallicæ_, p. 831.
[148] _Ancient Laws_, p. 263 (_Dimetian Code_); p. 374 (_Gwentian
Code_).
[149] _Ancient Laws_, p. 153. (_Venedotian Code._)
XXIV. _Of Co-tillage this treats._
1. Whoever shall engage in co-tillage with another, it is right for
them to give surety for performance, and mutually join hands; and,
after they have done that, to keep it until the tye be completed: the
tye is twelve erws.
2. The measure of the erw, has it not been before set forth?
3. The first erw belongs to the ploughman; the second to the irons;
the third to the exterior sod ox; the fourth to the exterior sward
ox, lest the yoke should be broken; and the fifth to the driver: and
so the erws are appropriated, from best to best, to the oxen, thence
onward, unless the yoke be stopped between them, unto the last; and
after that the plough erw, which is called the plough-bote cyvar; and
that once in the year
* * * * *
10. Every one is to bring his requisites to the ploughing, whether
ox, or irons, or other things pertaining to him; and after everything
is brought to them, the ploughman and the driver are to keep the
whole safely, and use them as well as they would their own.
The driver is to yoke in the oxen carefully, so that they be not too
tight, nor too loose; and drive them so as not to break their hearts:
and if damage happen to them on that occasion, he is to make it good;
or else swear that he used them not worse than his own.
12. The ploughman is not to pay for the oxen, unless they be bruised
by him; and if he bruise either one or the whole, let him pay, or
exonerate himself. The ploughman is to assist the driver in yoking
the oxen; but he is to loosen only the two short-yoked.
13. After the co-tillage shall be completed, every one is to take his
requisites with him home.
* * * * *
16. If there should be a dispute about bad tillage between two
co-tillers, let the erw of the ploughman be examined as to the depth,
length, and breadth of the furrow, and let every one's be completed
alike.
* * * * *
28. Whoever shall own the irons is to keep them in order, that
the ploughman and driver be not impeded; and they are to have no
assistance.
The driver is to furnish the bows of the yokes with wythes; and, if
it be a long team, the small rings, and pegs of the bows.
See also _Gwentian Code_, p. 354; and the _Leges Wallice_, p. 801.
[150] _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 150, _Venedotian Code_. The worth of
'winter tilth of a _cyvar_ two legal pence;' and so p. 286, _Dimetian
Code_.
P. 153. 'The plough erw, which is called the ploughbot cyvar.'
P. 354, _Gwentian Code_. 'The worth of one day's ploughing is two
legal pence.'
[151] _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 134.
[152] See Du Cange under '_Diurnalis_,' who quotes a passage of A.D.
704.
[p126]