Where shall we find these words and things on the Continent?

Looking to the Latin words used for the three fields, it is obvious that these were sometimes regarded as three separate ploughings—araturæ, or culturæ,—or as so many sowings—sationes,[571]—just as in the north of England they are called 'falls,' or 'fallows,' which have to be ploughed.

Names for the three fields, 'Felder,' 'Sationes,' 'Zelgen.'

In North Germany, where they occur, they are generally simply called 'felder;' [572] in France around Paris they were called in the ninth century 'sationes;' [573] but in South Germany and Switzerland the usual word for each field is Zelg, which Dr. Landau connects with the Anglo-Saxon 'tilgende' (tilling), and the later English 'tilth,' one of the Hitchin words. And he says that Zelg strictly means only the ploughed field[574] (aratura), though used for all the three. The three fields were thus spoken of as three tilths. The word 'Zelg' we have already found in the St. Gall charters in the eighth century, and Dr. Landau points out other instances of the same date of its use in the districts of Swabia, the middle Rhine, and later in the Inn Valley.

'Esch,' and the Gothic 'Attisk.'

On the other hand, in Westphalia, in Baden, and especially in Upper Swabia and Upper Bavaria, as far as the river Isar, and also in Switzerland, the word Esch is the one in use,[575] the word being used in [p379] Westphalia, also for the whole arable area.[576] Esch also was in use at the date of the earliest form of the Bavarian laws (in the seventh century). The hedge put up in defence of the sown field is there called an 'ezzisczun.' [577] Still earlier, in the fourth century, further East the open fields seem to have been called 'attisk;' for Ulphilas, in his translation of Mark ii. 23, speaks of the disciples walking over the 'attisk'—i.e. over the 'etch,' or 'eddish'—instead of as in the Anglo-Saxon translation over the 'æcera.' Here, therefore, we have another of the Hitchin words.

'Brachfrichte.'

These words point to connexion with South Germany.

In Hesse, according to Dr. Landau, the three fields are spoken of as—