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.