[1231] Rectitudines, 4, § 3; Seebohm, Village Community, 141. Mr Seebohm’s inference is ingenious and plausible. See also Andrews, Old English Manor, 218.
[1232] K. 259 (ii. 26), A.D. 845: Gift of 19 acres near the city of Canterbury, 6 acres in one place, 6 in another, 7 in a third.
[1233] K. 241 (ii. 1), A.D. 839: Gift of 24 acres, 10 in one place, 14 in another.—K. 339 (ii. 149), A.D. 904: Gift of 60 acres of arable to the south and 60 to the north of a certain stream.—K. 586 (iii. 118): ‘and 30 æcra on ðæm twæm feldan dallandes.’
[1234] See e.g. Glastonbury Rentalia (Somerset Record Soc.) pp. 14, 15, 55, 67, 89, 119, 128–9, 137–8, 155, 166, 192, 195, 208, 219. A system which leaves half the land idle in every year is of course quite compatible with the growth of both winter and spring corn. When, as is not uncommon, the villeins have to do between Michaelmas and Christmas twice as much ploughing as they will do between Christmas and Lady Day, this seems to point to a scheme which leaves one field idle and divides the other between winter and spring corn in the proportion of 2:1. Even in the fourteenth century a three-field system seems to have been regarded in some places as ‘high farming.’ Larking, Domesday of Kent, App. p. 23: Extent of Addington, A.D. 1361: ‘Et sunt ibidem 60 acrae terrae arabilis, de quibus duae partes possunt seminari per annum, si bene coluntur.’ For evidence of the three-field system, see Nasse, Agricultural Community, Engl. transl. 53.
[1235] Meitzen, op. cit. ii. 592.
[1236] Turton, Forest of Pickering (North Riding Record Society), 148 ff. Twenty years ago A. E. enclosed an acre; sown eight times with spring corn; value of a sown acre 1s., of an unsown, 4d. Twenty-two years ago E. C. enclosed a rood; sown seven times with oats, value 6d. a year; value, when unsown, 1d. a year. In the same book are many instances of a husbandry which alternates oats with hay.
[1237] Scrutton, Commons and Common Fields, 118, citing a Report to the Board of Agriculture.
[1238] Ine, 63–68, 70. See above, [p. 238].
[1239] A very fine instance is found on the north coast of Norfolk:—Burnham Deepdale, B. Norton, B. Westgate, B. Sutton, B. Thorpe, B. Overy. As to this see Stevenson, E. H. R. xi. 304.
[1240] Index Map of Ordnance Survey of Norfolk. Six inch Map of Norfolk, LVI. Another instance occurs near Yarmouth along the banks of the Waveney. Even if the allotment was the result of modern schemes of drainage, it still might be a satisfaction of very ancient claims.