RUN-RIG AND COMMON FIELD.
It is a familiar fact that the early open field system of agriculture
of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, known as run-rig or rundale, differed
in some important features from the common field system of England.
The mere fact suggests a series of questions with regard to the
relationships between common field and run-rig; whether, for instance,
the more complex common field system was evolved from the more simple
and primitive run-rig system; or supposing the two not connected,
whether a boundary can be defined on one side of which the early
agriculture was of the English type and on the other of the Celtic
type; and again, if so, which parts of England lie on the Celtic side
of the boundary, and which, if any, of Wales and Scotland lie on the
English side.
Obviously before considering such questions it is necessary to have a
clear grasp of the nature of run-rig, and of the differences between it
and the English system.
In the year 1695 the Scotch Parliament passed an Act allowing anyone
“coterminous heritor” owning a share in a “commonty” to have his
portion separate from the rest, and to enclose it; and a series of
cases established a defined system of computing the share of the
“commonty” to which the lord of the manor as such was entitled in
lieu of manorial rights. This caused the process of the separation
of intermixed properties in open fields to proceed without the
intervention of special Acts of Parliament, except for Royal burghs.
Also while in England under Enclosure Acts or agreements to enclose
the three processes of (_a_) the separation of intermixed and
intercommonable properties, (_b_) the separation of intermixed and
intercommonable holdings, and (_c_) the hedging or fencing of the
separated properties, were accomplished by one continuous series of
actions on the part of those concerned, in Scotland it was otherwise.
The separation of properties where necessary was first accomplished,
and for long afterwards the system of run-rig was followed by groups
of tenants on the same estate. After run-rig had been abandoned, the
separate holdings remained open and unenclosed, and the process of
building dykes or planting hedges was carried out at a later date, and
by slow degrees.
The abandonment of run-rig was general, according to the reports to
the Board of Agriculture, in the lowlands of Scotland about the year
1730. In the county of Perth up to the year 1744 “the land was always
occupied in run-rigg, either by the different tenants on the same farm,
and sometimes by coterminous heritors. The houses were in clusters for
the mutual protection of the inhabitants.” (James Robertson, D.D.,
“Agriculture of the Southern District of Perth,” 1794, pp. 22, 23.)
In the northern and Highland counties the transition was naturally
later. Sir John Sinclair (“General View of the Agriculture of the
Northern Counties and Islands of Scotland”) describes the cultivated
land of the Islands as being open almost everywhere, except in the
case of the “mains” or manor farms, the glebe lands, and the farms
of a few principal tacksmen. Of Caithness he says, “The greater part
of the arable land in this county is occupied by small farmers who
possess it in _run-rig_, or in _rig and rennal_, as it is here termed,
similar to the common fields of England, a system peculiarly hostile
to improvement” (p. 207). But in the Orkneys “Much of the land that
formerly lay in the state known in Scotland under the name of run-rig
land has been divided, but much still remains in the same situation”
(p. 227); and the process of enclosing had begun even in the Shetlands
(p. 252).
Turning westwards, we find that in the inner Hebrides 1850 was the
date at which the run-rig system finally died out, in a manner and
under conditions which will demand further attention. But it survived
in the Outer Hebrides to a considerably later date. A very full and
interesting description by Mr. Alexander Carmichael is given in
Skene’s “Celtic Scotland,” Vol. III. chapter x.
“Old systems are tenacious. They linger long among a rural people and
in remote places. Of these is the land system of run-rig (Mor Barann)
which characterises more or less the land system of the Western Isles.
The outer Hebrides are called the Long Island. They are a series of
islands 119 miles in length, and varying from half-a-mile to twenty
miles in breadth. This kite-like chain of forty inhabited and upwards
of a hundred and fifty uninhabited islands contains a population of
40,000. Much of this land is held by extensive tacksmen on leases (Fir
Baile), and there being no intermediate tenantry, the rest of the land
is occupied by small tenants at will without leases. These number
4,500, the majority of whom fish as well as farm.
“The country is divided into townlands of various extent. The arable
land (Fearann Grainsich) occupied by the small tenants of these
townlands is worked in three ways--as crofts wholly, as crofts and
run-rig combined, and as run-rig wholly. In Lewis and Harris the arable
land is wholly divided into crofts: in Uist and Barra the arable land
is divided in part into crofts, and in part worked in run-rig; while
in the townlands of Hosta, Coolas Paipil, and the island of Heisgeir
in North Uist, the arable land is worked exclusively upon the run-rig
system of share and share alike. The grazing land of the tenants of
each townland throughout the Long Island is held in common (in Lewis
called Comhpairt).
“The soil varies from pure sand to pure moss. Along the Atlantic there
is a wide plain of sandy soil called _Machair_. This merges into a
mixture of sand and moss (Breacthalamh, or mottled soil), which again
merges into pure moss (Mointeach) towards the Minch. As the soil is
dry and sandy, if the summer is dry the crop is light. On the other
hand, if the summer is moist the crop is heavy and good. In order
that all may have an equal chance, the _Machair_ belonging to them
is equally divided among the tenants of the township. Obviously the
man who is restricted to his croft has fewer advantages than the man
who, together with his croft, has his share of the _Machair_, and
still fewer advantages than the man who has, rig for rig with his
neighbours, the run of the various soils of his townland, which gives
name to the system. Consequently a wet or dry season affects the tenant
of the croft system more than the tenant of the combined system, and
the tenant of the combined system more than the tenant of the run-rig
system.
“The townland of Hosta is occupied by four, Ceolas Paipil by six, and
the island of Heisgeir by twelve tenants. Towards the end of autumn,
when harvest is over, and the fruits of the year have been gathered
in, the constable calls a meeting of the tenants of the townland for
Nabachd (neighbourliness). They meet, and having decided upon the
portion of land to be put under green crop next year, they divide it
into shares according to the number of tenants in the place, and the
number of shares in the soil they respectively possess. Thereupon
they cast lots, and the share which falls to a tenant he retains for
three years. A third of the land under cultivation is thus divided
every year. Accordingly the whole cultivated land of the townland
undergoes revision every three years. Should a man get a bad share he
is allowed to choose his share in the next division. The tenants divide
the land into shares of uniform size. For this purpose they use a rod
several yards long, and they observe as much accuracy in measuring
their land as a draper in measuring his cloth. In marking the boundary
between shares, a turf (Torc) is dug up and turned over the line of
demarcation. The _torc_ is then cut along the middle, and half is taken
by the tenant on one side, and half by the tenant on the other side,
in ploughing the subsequent furrow; similar care being afterwards
exercised in cutting the corn along the furrow. The tenant’s portion of
the run-rig is called Cianag, and his proportion of the grazing ground
for every pound he pays Coir-sgoraidh.
“There are no fences round the fields. The crop being thus exposed
to injury from the cattle grazing along the side, the people have
a protecting rig on the margin of the crop. This rig is divided
transversely into shares, in order to subject all tenants to equal
risks.... Occasionally, and for limited bits of ground, the people
till, sow, and reap in common, and divide the produce into shares and
draw lots. This is called _Comachadh_, promiscuous. The system was not
uncommon in the past, though now nearly obsolete.
“In making their own land arrangements for the year, the tenants set
apart a piece of land towards the support of the poor....
“In reclaiming moor-land the tenants divide the ground into narrow
strips of five feet wide or thereby. These strips, called lazy-beds
(Feannagan, from feann, to scarify), the tenants allot among themselves
according to their shares or crofts. The people mutually encourage one
another to plant as much of this ground as possible. In this manner
much waste ground is reclaimed and enhanced in value, the ground
hitherto the home of the stonechat, grouse, snipe and sundew, is
made to yield luxuriant crops of potatoes, corn, hay and grass. Not
unfrequently, however, these land reclamations are wrested without
acknowledgment from those who made them.
“The sheep, cattle and horses of the townland graze together, the
species being separate. A tenant can only keep stock conformably to his
share in the soil. He is however at liberty to regulate the proportions
of the different kinds, provided that his total stock does not exceed
his total grazing rights. He can keep a greater number of one species
and a corresponding smaller number of another. Or he can keep a greater
number of the young, and a corresponding less number of the old of the
same species, or the reverse. About Whitsuntide, when the young braird
appears, the people remove their sheep and cattle to the grazing ground
behind the arable land. This is called clearing the townland. The
tenants bring forward their stock (Leibhidh) and a souming (Sumachadh)
is made. The _Leibhidh_ is the tenant’s stock, the _Sumachadh_ the
number he is entitled to graze in common with his neighbours. Should
the tenant have a croft, he is probably able to graze some extra stock
thereon, though this is demurred to by his neighbours. Each ‘penny’ of
arable lands has grazing rights of so many soums. Neither, however, is
the extent of land in the penny, nor the number of animals in the soum
uniformly the same.”
A soum consists of a cow and her progeny; in some places the cow and
her calf only: in some a cow, her calf, her one-year-old progeny
(called a _stirk_) and her two-year-old _quey_; in other places again,
the cow, calf, stirk, quey and a three-year-old heifer. At four years
old the heifer becomes a cow, and so originates a fresh soum.
In making souming calculations, it is assumed that one cow is equal
to two queys or to four stirks or to eight calves, or to one heifer
and one stirk. Also one cow is equal to eight sheep, or to twelve
hoggs (one-year-old sheep) or to sixteen lambs or to sixteen geese.
One mature horse is equal to two cows; also to eight foals, or to four
one-year-old colts or fillies, or to two two-year-olds, or to one
three-year-old and one colt or filly. The cow is entitled to her calf;
and if one tenant has two cows without calves they are entitled to take
one stirk instead.
Those tenants who are found at the souming to have overstock must
either buy grazing from a tenant who has understock or may be allowed
by the community to let the overstock remain on the grass till he
can dispose of it. In that case payment must be made, according to a
recognised code, into a common fund which is used to buy bulls or tups
or for some other common purpose. The souming is amended at Lammas, and
again at Hallowtide.
In Lewis and Harris similar arrangements with regard to stock obtain
among the _crofters_, the amount of stock allowed to each crofter being
regulated according to the rent paid.
During the early summer the herds are put at night into enclosures,
according to the species, and two tenants, chosen in rotation, keep
watch to prevent them from straying over the open fields. If they
escape, the watchmen are fined and have to make any damage good, but
the fines, and the amount assessed for damages, both go into the common
fund.
Early in June, the tillage being finished, the people go to the hill
grazing with their flocks. The scene is vividly described by Mr.
Carmichael, the general excitement, the men shouting directions, the
women knitting and chatting, the children scampering about. Sheep lead
the procession, cattle come next, the younger ones preceding the older,
the horses follow. Implements and materials are carried to repair the
summer huts. When the grazing ground is reached the huts are repaired,
fires lit, and food cooked. The people bring forward their stock into
an enclosure, and the constable and another man stand at the gate of
the enclosure and count each man’s stock separately to see that he has
brought only his proper souming. Then the cattle are turned out to
graze, and the “Shealing Feast” is celebrated by the singing of hymns
and the eating of cheese. The summer huts are of a beehive shape, and
are sometimes constructed of stone, and sometimes of turf and frail
materials.[85]
[85] The ruins of beehive huts all over Dartmoor, and of enclosures
like Grimspound, are conceivably evidence of similar customs in
Devonshire. Now, however, the care of the cattle pastured on Dartmoor
by the occupiers of adjacent farms, is a distinct occupation. Those
who follow it are called “Moor-men.”
Each tenant under the run-rig system is responsible for his own rent
only. Formerly the rent was paid partly in money, partly in meal,
partly in butter and cheese, and partly in cattle.
The common functionaries, the shepherd, cattleherd and marchkeeper,
are paid by their co-tenants for their services in seaweed, land and
grazing. The business of the marchkeeper is to watch the open marches
of the townland and prevent trespass. He may also have the duty of
watching the shore to see when the seaweed is cast upon it. Then he
erects a pole with a bunch of seaweed at the end, and the people
come down to the shore to collect the weed for manure. No tenant is
permitted to take seaweed till his neighbours arrive, unless the custom
prevails of collecting the weed in common, dividing it into shares and
casting lots.
When required by the proprietor or the people, the constable convenes a
meeting of the inhabitants. At such meetings the questions in dispute
are settled, after full discussion, by votes; lots are drawn if the
votes are equal.
“The closer the run-rig system is followed, the more are the unwritten
customs and regulations observed. The more intelligent tenants regret a
departure from them....
“The houses of the tenants form a cluster. In parts of Lewis the houses
are in a straight line called _Straid_, street, occasionally from one
to three miles in length. They are placed in a suitable part of the
townland, and those of the tenants on the run-rig system are warm,
good and comfortable. These tenants carry on their farming operations
simultaneously, and not without friendly and wholesome rivalry, the
enterprise of one stimulating the zeal of another....
“Not the least pleasing feature in this semi-family system is the
assistance rendered by their neighbours to a tenant whose work has
fallen behind through accident, sickness, death, or other unavoidable
cause....
“Their mode of dividing the land and of equalising the stock may seem
primitive and complex to modern views, but they are not so to the
people themselves, who apply them amicably, accurately and skilfully.
The division of the land is made with care and justice. This is the
interest of all, no one knowing which place may fall to himself, for
his neighbour’s share may become his own three years hence.
“Whatever may be the imperfections, according to modern notions, of
this very old semi-family system of run-rig husbandry, those tenants
who have least departed from it are the most comfortable in North Uist,
and, accordingly, in the Outer Hebrides.”
Mr. Carmichael informs me that the whole of this description held good
at least up to May, 1904.
The brief descriptions and other references to the run-rig system
of the agricultural writers whom Sir John Sinclair and Arthur Young
enlisted in the service of the Board of Agriculture at the end of the
eighteenth, and the beginning of the nineteenth century, are sufficient
to show that in all essential features it was fundamentally identical
in different parts of Scotland. Sir John Sinclair’s own description
is meagre and unsympathetic: “Were there twenty tenants and as many
fields, each tenant would think himself unjustly treated unless he
had a proportionate share in each. This causes treble labour, and as
they are perpetually crossing each other, they must be in a state of
constant quarrelling and bad neighbourhood. In order to prevent any of
the soil being carried to the adjoining ridge, each individual makes
his own ridge as high as possible, which renders the furrow quite bare,
so that it produces no crop, while the accumulated soil in the middle
of the ridge is never stirred deeper than the plough. The proprietors
begin to see the inconveniences of this system, and in general intend
to remedy it, by dividing the land into regular farms.”[86]
[86] “General View of the Agriculture of the Northern Counties and
Highlands of Scotland,” p. 205.
This is obviously a description of run-rig in a state of decrepitude;
the communal spirit has died out of it, and apparently the practice
of periodic redivision of the land has fallen into desuetude. In
another passage[87] we find a variation of the method of guarding the
crops which again, when compared with Mr. Carmichael’s description of
the “promiscuous rig,” appears to show the decay of the system. “The
tenants have a miserable sort of fence, made of turf, which separates
their arable land from the adjoining waste; but it requires constant
repairs, and when the corn is taken off the ground, is entirely
neglected, and the country becomes one immense common, over which
immense numbers of cattle are straggling in search of food, greatly to
the injury of the soil.”
[87] _Ibid._, p. 207. This passage and the next occur in the
description of Caithness, but they appear to be intended to apply to
the whole district.
William Marshall, the rival as an agricultural writer and bitter critic
of Arthur Young, supplied the “General View of the Agriculture of the
Central Highlands of Scotland.” He supplies us with one significant
hint, if we need it, with regard to the fundamental basis of run-rig:
“Not the larger farms only, but each subdivision, though ever so
minute, _whether ‘plow-gait,’ ‘half-plow,’ or ‘horse-gang,’_ has its
pittance of hill and vale, and its share of each description of land,
as arable, meadow, green pasture and muir” (p. 29). By the way, even
smaller farms than the “horse-gang,” _i.e._, one quarter of the arable
land which could be ploughed by a four-horse plough, together with the
corresponding proportion of meadow, pasture and moor, were to be found
on the Royal burghs where intermixed ownership was exempt from the
operation of the Act of 1695. On these the smallest farms consisted of
a “horse’s foot” of land, _i.e._, one sixteenth part of a “plow-gait.”
Dr. James Robertson defines run-rig as “Two or three or perhaps four
men yoking their horses together in one plough, and having their ridges
alternately in the same field, with a bank of unploughed land between
them, by way of march.”[88]
[88] “Agriculture of the Southern Districts of Perth” (1794).
James McDonald, writing in 1811 a later report on the Agriculture of
the Hebrides, published in 1811, gives an account of the beginning
of the disappearance of run-rig in those islands. “Mr. Maclean of
Coll insisted upon some of his tenants dividing among them the land
which they formerly held in common, or run-rig, and which they were
accustomed for ages to divide annually by lot, for the purposes of
cultivation. They obeyed with great reluctance, and each tenant had
his own farm to himself. Three or four years’ experience has convinced
them now that their landlord acted wisely.... The same thing happened
on various other estates, and especially in Mull, Tyree and Skye”
(p. 133). But the general disappearance of run-rig in these islands
took place about the middle of the nineteenth century, and was the
consequence of the temporary prosperity produced by the rise of
the kelp industry. This led to extreme subdivision of holdings by
sub-letting, the body of small crofters so created relying in the main
upon the kelp industry for a livelihood, and using their crofts as a
subsidiary means of subsistence (Skene, “Celtic Scotland,” Vol. III.,
ch. x.).
It is clear that the two essential features of run-rig are (1) that
it is based upon co-aration, several farmers yoking their horses to
one plough, and tilling the land in partnership; just as the English
common-field system was also based upon co-aration, with the difference
that in England, in general, at the time that co-aration was practised,
the plough was generally drawn by eight oxen instead of by four horses.
(2) That run-rig has a special distinctive feature in the periodical
division and re-division of the land, and that in the Hebrides, at
least, this feature survived after co-aration had become obsolete.[89]
In this respect the Scotch agricultural community resembles that of
Great Russia, where also the periodical re-division of the open fields,
so as to make the shares proportional to the working power of each
family, persists after co-aration has disappeared.
[89] Mr. A. N. Palmer, in his important work, “A History of Ancient
Tenures of Land in the Marches of N. Wales,” expresses the opinion
that co-aration and the shifting of land disappeared simultaneously in
North Wales, and had come to an end by the reign of Henry VI. (p. 36,
note).
That throughout the British Isles, and indeed throughout Northern
Europe, the earliest tillage of the soil by ploughs was accomplished by
the method of co-aration, scarcely admits of doubt; nor is it easy to
doubt that before the possibility of improving the crop by manure was
discovered, there was no permanent occupation by one of the partners in
the ploughing, of any particular set of strips so ploughed.
But it is also obvious that whereas we know that in some places, as
in the Hebrides and in Russia, the idea of common occupation of the
land persisted, after co-aration had ceased, and displayed itself in
the form of periodic or occasional re-division of the arable land, it
is equally possible for the permanent occupation of certain strips of
land to be definitely allotted to some individuals, while the practice
of co-aration is still persistent among other individuals of the same
community. In the latter case when individual cultivation begins, the
peasant who drives his own plough team, drives it over the same set of
strips of land as had previously been ploughed by the common plough;
he feels more than ever that they are his own, and that he must guard
them against encroachment; though, perhaps, he is not averse, when
occasion offers, to widen his strips at the expense of his neighbours.
The consequence is that by the time individual cultivation has entirely
superseded co-operative ploughing in any particular village, freeholds
and copyholds are definitely arranged as we know them in the English
common fields. Particularly is this likely to be the case if a long
interval of time elapses between the first beginning of individual
ploughing and the last disappearance of combined ploughing.
If on the other hand the practice of periodic re-allotment of the land
persists up to the time when co-aration ceases, it will obviously be
natural for the peasants when they dissolve their plough-partnership,
to allot their land to one another with some regard for convenience
as well as equity. They will naturally--as Sir John Sinclair noticed
they did--allot to each household a share in each particular sort of
soil which had previously been cultivated in common, but each man’s
share in each field is likely to be allotted to him in one piece, or
at least in a few, and not in a number of strips intermixed with those
of his neighbours. Then when at a later period hedging and ditching
begin, each man has his land in a form convenient for enclosure; and
by enclosing it he forms a series of irregular fields, roughly square,
or when oblong, with the length not many times exceeding the width. No
throwing of the parish into the melting pot, either by a private Act of
Parliament or by a voluntary submission to a Commission, was necessary
in order to effect enclosure.
On the one hand, then, it is obvious that the great inequality of the
holdings held by servile and semi-servile tenures from the time of
Domesday onwards, was favourable to the creation of the conditions
necessary to make piecemeal enclosure difficult. The _socmanni_
or _francigenae_, who held a whole carucate or ploughland apiece,
presumably also had, as a rule, a whole ploughteam, and were able to
plough for themselves, while their neighbours, who held yardlands and
half-yardlands, _i.e._, one-quarter or one-eighth of a ploughland,
could only have their lands ploughed by the common village ploughs.
As soon as the _socmanni_ and _francigenae_ began to permanently
improve the soil, as for instance by marling, the beneficial results
of which were believed in the eighteenth century to last for at least
twelve years, they would naturally become a practically insuperable
obstacle not only to any re-division of the land, but also to any
minor variation in the exact position of the ridges which comprised
the different holdings. Once one such holding was definitely located,
the fixing of all other holdings which were intermixed with it would
follow: every increase of certainty would be an encouragement to any
given tenant to improve his land, and every expenditure of effort by a
tenant on permanent improvement would be an additional motive to him to
resist any changes in the position of his ridges.
On the other hand, in the case of land first brought into cultivation
at a later date, when servile tenures had become obsolete, by “tenants
at will” of the lord of the manor, the assured continued occupation
of a defined set of ridges in land so reclaimed would not arise, even
if the original tenants practised co-aration; and if the original
cultivators worked independently, of course no intermixture of holdings
would ever arise on such holdings.
Hence the very close connection between copyholds, _i.e._, the commuted
servile tenures, and common fields, which was observed as long as
common fields were numerous.
To sum up, it is clear that on _a priori_ grounds there are certain
defined conditions in which alone we can expect to find the peculiarly
English type of open-field arable, the type which most obstinately
resists dissolution, persisting until destroyed by (_a_) the absorption
of all properties into the hands of a single owner, or (_b_) a general
valuation and redistribution of properties and holdings. These are that
the land must originally have been tilled by the method of co-aration,
and that co-aration must have persisted until after some at least of
the holdings had become a definite set of strips of land, the position
of which was not shifted from year to year. These conditions, as
Seebohm shows, are the characteristics of the typical English village
community. But they are not to be found in open arable fields of the
Celtic type of run-rig; and they are not to be expected in lands first
brought into cultivation after the disappearance of serfdom.
We may therefore expect to find enclosure of arable land proceeding
easily, without the necessity for special Acts of Parliament, and at
a comparatively early stage of social evolution, on the one hand in
Devon and Cornwall, the counties bordering on Wales, and in Cumberland,
Westmoreland and Lancashire; and on the other hand in districts like
the Weald of Surrey, Kent and Sussex.
That this inference agrees with the facts will be shown in detail.
Traces of run-rig, however, both in the form of characteristic terms,
and of records of local custom, are not confined entirely to the
counties within or near the borders of Wales or West Wales. The Act
(1770 c. 59) for Matton in Lincolnshire has for its object to enclose
certain commons and “forty-five acres or thereabouts of antient
Toftheads and small Inclosures called the Town Rig.” To the Act for
Barton in Westmoreland (1819 c. 83), which encloses “certain open
common fields or town fields,” which mentions “the dales or parcels of
land in the said common fields or town fields,” there is a parallel
in the Act (1814 c. 284), for Gateshead in Durham to enclose “certain
common or town fields, and other commonable lands and grounds.” These
phrases are all reminiscent of the fact that lands held, or which had
previously been held, in run-rig in Scotland, or in rundale in Ireland,
are known as town lands.[90]
[90] “The Town Fields” indifferently with “The Common Fields” is the
name by which the ancient arable area of Wrexham is called in old
deeds, and the same name is applied to the ancient common fields in
many places in North Wales. (See A. N. Palmer, “History of Ancient
Tenures of Land in the Marches of North Wales,” pp. 1, 2.)
Much more striking, however, is the local custom at Stamford, described
in the following passage by Arthur Young: “Lord Exeter has property
on the Lincoln side of Stamford, that seems held by some tenure of
ancient custom among the farmers, resembling the _rundale_ of Ireland.
The tenants divide and plough up the commons, and then lay them down
to become common again; and shift the open fields from hand to hand
in such a manner, that no man has the same land two years together;
which has made such confusion that were it not for ancient surveys it
would now be impossible to ascertain the property” (“General View of
the Agriculture of Lincolnshire,” p. 27). William Marshall’s comment
is perhaps worth adding: “In regard to commons, a similar custom has
prevailed, and indeed still prevails, in Devonshire and Cornwall; and
with respect to _common fields_, the same practice under the name
of ‘Run-rig’ formerly was common in the Highlands of Scotland, and,
perhaps in more remote times, in Scotland in general.”
Lastly, it is to be noticed that there is no mention in any description
of run-rig of the arable fields being used as a common pasture after
harvest, or during a fallow year. We shall find later the same absence
of this custom characteristic of English Common Field, from open arable
fields in Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, Wales and Devonshire;
_i.e._, from the Celtic part of England and Wales. This may, of course,
be a mere coincidence, and the true explanation may in each be that
the stubble was not needed for pasture. But in any case the absence
of rights of pasture over arable fields removes a great obstacle to
piecemeal enclosure.
EVERY YEAR LANDS.
In the chapter on Norfolk agriculture it is shown that the distinction
between Infield and Outfield, which was characteristic of the
agriculture of the Lothians, was also characteristic of the agriculture
of Norfolk; and that a great part of the uninclosed intermixed arable
land was not subject to rights of common, and was made to bear a crop
every year, such land being known as Every Year lands, Whole Year
lands, or Infields.
Here again we were obliged to look to Scotland for further light upon
the customs of an English county, but in this case we cannot attribute
the resemblance between the customs of Norfolk and the east of Scotland
to a common Celtic influence. The hypothesis would be a difficult one,
and a different explanation presents itself.
Seebohm points out that the ancient characteristic agriculture of
Westphalia, East Friesland, Oldenburg, North Hanover, Holland, Belgium,
Denmark, Brunswick, Saxony and East Prussia, a vast area comprising
all districts from which the Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain are
believed by any historians to have come, is that known among German
scholars as “Einfeldwirthschaft,” the “one field system.” Crops,
usually of rye and buckwheat, are continually grown year after year,
in the strips in the open fields, the fertility being maintained by
marling and the application of peat manure.[91]
[91] “The English Village Community,” p. 372.
It is therefore natural to attribute the whole year or every year lands
of Norfolk, and the infields of Scotland, alike, to the influence of
Saxon, Anglian or Danish conquest and settlement. If it is asked why
the same agricultural feature was not more widely produced, the obvious
answer is that when people of different races are mixed together in the
occupation of the same villages, it is by no means certain that the
agricultural customs which will afterwards prevail will be those of
the conquerors, or of the race which is in the majority. The customs
of the first occupiers had been modified by the environment, and had
to some extent modified the environment, till something like harmony
was created. After a conquest by another race, if any of the conquered
race remain, the _easiest_ course is to continue the existing mode of
husbandry. It is more likely that the customs of the conquered race
should remain as the basis of the future practice, though altered to
some extent in form and more in spirit, than that the previous customs
of the conquerors, which they had followed in other circumstances on a
different soil and amidst other surroundings, should be imposed on the
conquered people.
The following are the Acts for places outside Norfolk which specify the
existence of Whole Year lands, Every Year lands, or Infields.
1740, c. 19. Gunnerton, _Northumberland_. This Act is to enclose 1300
acres of Ingrounds, and 1000 acres of Outgrounds.
1752, c. 27. Enclosing Wytham on the Hill, Infield, _Lincolnshire_.
1761, c. 32. Enclosing Norham Infields. Norham was nominally in
_Durham_, but it is on the Scottish border.
1807, c. 18. Herringswell, _Suffolk_. “Divers old inclosed meadow and
pasture grounds, and old inclosed whole year or every year arable
lands, open or common fields, half year or shack lands, common meadows,
heaths, warrens, fens, commons, and waste grounds.”
1811, c. ccxix. Great Waddingfield c. Chilton and Great Coniard,
_Suffolk_, “divers open fields called Whole Year lands and Half Year
lands.”
1813, c. 29. Icklingham, _Suffolk_. “Open and Common fields, Infields
or Every Year lands, Common Meadows, Heaths, Commons and Wastes.”
1819, c. 18. Yelling, _Huntingdon_, “Whole year lands.”
Further, Arthur Young (“Agriculture of Suffolk,” appendix, p. 217)
tells us that the parish of Burnham, near Euston, in Suffolk, contained
in 1764--
Infield arable, inclosed 381 acres,
Outfield arable 2626 ″
Meadow and Pasture 559 ″
Heath or Sheep-walk 1735 ″
────
Total 5302
────
And William Marshall (“General View of the Agriculture of the Central
Highlands of Scotland,” 1794, p. 38) remarks: “The every year lands as
they are called, of _Gloucester_, may be said to be clean compared with
those of Breadalbane.” Now, William Marshall knew the agriculture of
Gloucestershire well; and he was an extremely accurate observer, and
more interested in the local variations of common field cultivation
than other agricultural writers of his time; his authority may
therefore be considered good enough to establish the existence of lands
known as every year lands in Gloucestershire.
It is also to be noticed that Acts of Enclosure for Gloucester and
Oxford frequently specify, not “open and common fields” but “an open
and common field,” perhaps of between two and three thousand acres;
and further, as we have previously noted, the Board of Agriculture
reporter for Oxfordshire says: “In divers uninclosed parishes the same
rotation prevails over the whole of the open fields; but in others,
the more homeward or bettermost land is oftener cropped, or sometimes
cropped every year.” Of Gloucestershire, William Marshall says: “In the
neighbourhood of Gloucester are some extensive Common fields which have
been cropped, year after year, during a century, or perhaps centuries,
without the intervening of a whole year’s fallow. Hence they are called
Every Year’s land. Cheltenham, Deerhurst, and some few other townships,
have also their Every Year’s lands.” On these lands no regular
succession of crops is observed, except that “a brown and a white
crop--pulse and corn--are cultivated in alternacy” (“Rural Economy of
Gloucestershire,” Vol. I., p. 65).
It may be suggested, further, that a four-year course, such as we have
seen was customary in many places, might possibly have originated
from the custom of cropping the land every year. The difficulties of
maintaining the fertility of the land, and of keeping it clean, under
perennial crops, might very well have been found insuperable before
the introduction of turnip culture, and the natural remedy, suggested
by the two-or three-year course in neighbouring parishes, would be a
periodic fallow. It is, however, so far as any evidence that can be
supplied from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries goes, equally
possible that the four-year course was a modification of the three-year
course, or that the two-, three-and four-years systems are all equally
ancient; and that the varying customs, not only of systems of tillage,
but also of occupation of meadow land and regulation of common of
pasture, as found in different parts of the country, have grown up in
each district as the result of the inter-action of Keltic, Anglo-Saxon,
and Norse tradition.
If we take this view, which appears to me antecedently probable, we can
see in the Midland or Mercian system a complete blend of Anglo-Saxon
and Keltic custom, in which the specific features of both of the
original strains are lost, and an intermediate, but perfectly distinct,
type of village community resulted. The Wessex system, both in its
feature of lot or rotation meadow, and in the customs of individual
cultivation of land for common benefit, as in the sowing of clover by
each occupier to be fed on by the village flock, compared with the
Mercian system, shows a much closer affinity with Keltic run-rig; while
the Norfolk customs are quite easily accounted for as the result of
a fresh infusion of Teutonic tradition, re-introducing the original
one-field system into villages where that system had previously been
blended with Keltic custom.