13 GEO. III. C. 81.
One of the most striking and interesting features of the open field
village life is the existence of a self-governing constitution for the
settlement of disputes, and the most profitable use of the village
lands--the annual meetings of farmers and common-right owners; the
institution of field reeves and field juries; the division among
commoners of the profits of the common property. One cannot but look
upon this as the survival of an ancient village communal life, which
must have been much stronger and more vigorous in earlier days, when
each village was more of a self-contained and isolated economic unit;
and particularly while the co-operative ploughing persisted, from
which the intermixture of lands in common field arable is admitted
to have originated. Even in its degenerate state, when co-operative
ploughing has been extinct for generations, the open field parish
involves a certain partnership among the cultivators, necessitating
some recognised rules, mutual consultation, and organised combination:
how much more binding the necessity must have been in the Middle Ages?
Hence from the very necessity of the case, there must have been a bond
between the village workers, such as is conveyed by the words “village
community,” which probably preceded, and underlay as a foundation,
the better known manorial and parochial institutions, the manorial
organisation arising from the contact between the village community
and the Central Government, or outside enemies, the parochial from its
contact with the Church.
But while these features of common-field management in general are
survivals of “the village community,” it is possible _in any particular
village_ that such institutions and customs were the creation of the
legislature since the latter part of the eighteenth century. For in
the year 1773 a noteworthy Act was passed for the better regulation of
the culture of common arable fields. It enacts that “where there are
open or common field lands, all the Tillage or Arable lands lying in
the said open or Common Fields, shall be ordered, fenced, cultivated or
improved, in such manner as three-fourths in number and value of the
occupiers shall agree, with consent of the owner and tithe-owner.”
Such agreements were to be binding for six years, or two _rounds_,
“according to the ancient and established course of each parish or
place”; _i.e._, presumably, in a parish where the ancient customary
course had been one crop and a fallow, the agreement was binding for
four years; where it had been three crops and a fallow, for eight
years. Further, every year between the 21st and 24th of May a field
reeve or field reeves were to be elected. These field reeves, acting
under the instructions of a three-fourths majority in number and value,
might delay the opening of the common fields, might give permission
for any balks, slades or meers (those words are synonyms) to be
ploughed up, an equivalent piece of land being laid down in common, and
boundary stones being put down instead. Since this Act was designed
in the interest of better cultivation, and for the advantage of the
proprietors and large occupiers, special provision is made that if the
cottagers owning common rights feel themselves prejudiced, they may
claim to have a separate piece of land set out as a common for them.
The effect of the Act was to enable the common-field system to be
adjusted to the new agriculture of the eighteenth century, which was
marked by the introduction of turnips, artificial grasses, and the
abandonment of frequent fallowing. A precise account of the adoption of
a scheme under the Act is given us by the prime mover.
In the township of Hunmanby, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the
cultivators had fallen into one of the besetting temptations to which
“champion” farmers were liable. They had gradually extended the arable
fields at the expense of the common pasture, till the manure produced
by the latter was insufficient for the needs of the former, and the
land was losing its fertility. Isaac Leatham got his brother farmers
to agree to abandon the old (three-year) course of husbandry, and to
substitute the following six-year course:--
1. Turnips, hoed, and fed off with sheep.
2. Barley with grass seed.
3. Grass.
4. Grass.
5. Wheat.
6. Oats or peas.
The grass seed sown with the barley was bought in common, and paid for
proportionately. From the time the barley was carried until it was
time to plough for the wheat crop, one gathers that the grass, which
had been sown with the barley, was being fed with sheep; therefore, at
any particular time after the course was established, half the common
field area was feeding sheep, or growing turnips for sheep, and half
was growing grain or pulse. The sheep flock was managed in common; each
occupier was allowed to contribute sheep to it in proportion to his
holding; the whole was under the care of two shepherds, who folded the
sheep nightly upon different strips of land in succession, so that all
occupiers received equal benefit. Field reeves were appointed.
“Thus,” says Isaac Leatham, “an open field is enjoyed in as beneficial
a manner as if it were enclosed ... two persons are fully sufficient
to attend the sheep-stock, instead of many ... the precarious rearing
of fences is avoided, and the immense expense of continually repairing
them saved.”[35]
[35] Isaac Leatham, “East Riding,” p. 46.
I take it that Isaac Leatham, who, by the way, was a strong advocate of
enclosure in general, meant that the open field was, _on the whole_,
enjoyed in as beneficial a manner as if it were enclosed, because
there still remained the great disadvantage that each occupier had
his lands in widely scattered strips, and had to waste much time and
labour in cultivating them; cross-ploughing, which might, or might not
have been desirable, was any way impossible; the village lands had to
be treated as one whole, so no enterprising and original man was able
to experiment with new ideas, nor could any further improvement be
adopted without the consent of a three-fourths majority; and, perhaps,
the keeping of sheep in a common flock put obstacles in the way of
improving the breed.
I may add that an Act for the enclosure of Hunmanby was passed in the
year 1800, so that Isaac Leatham’s course was abandoned just seven
years after he wrote about it so triumphantly.
The Act of 1773, therefore, was, perhaps, not a brilliant success in
Hunmanby; perhaps, on the other hand, improved agriculture excited an
appetite for further improvement, and one novelty having been accepted,
the stiff conservatism which might have postponed enclosure, was broken
down. But, as a glance at the map for the East Riding will show, the
whole countryside was subject to a rage for enclosure, and the famine
prices for grain of 1796, doomed to recur again in 1800–1, in 1812, and
1817, were acting as a powerful solvent to all old agricultural customs.
It is quite obvious that the Act of 1773 was an endeavour to select out
of the customs and traditions prevailing in different villages those
which were most in harmony with advanced agriculture, to further amend
these, and to make them universal.
So far as I know, Hunmanby is the only place where it has been recorded
as having been put into execution, and it has been doubted whether
it was not practically a dead letter. My own impression is that
the distribution of the “sicks” at Laxton was consciously arranged
in accordance with the provisions of the Act, that originally the
method of choosing the fallow crops in Castor and Ailesworth was an
application of it, and also the six years’ course used for part of
the fields of Barrowden and Luffenham, but I can bring no evidence to
support this view. If, however, it is correct, the Act may have been
of considerable use to many other parishes also by clearly defining
methods of procedure which otherwise would be determined by custom
only.