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 (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

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

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.