The Project Gutenberg eBook, The English Village Community, by Frederic Seebohm

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

This book contains Old English text that was originally printed in an Old English typeface. These passages have been transliterated into modern Latin characters. More details are located in the [Transcriber's Endnote].

To [Table of Contents.]

THE ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY

WORKS BY FREDERIC SEEBOHM.

THE OXFORD REFORMERS—John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More: a History of their Fellow-Work. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.

THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. With 4 Maps and 12 Diagrams. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d. (Epochs of Modern History.)

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. With 13 Maps and Plates. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.

CUSTOMARY ACRES AND THEIR HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE, being a Series of Unfinished Essays. 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 39 Paternoster Row; London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras.

Reduced Tracing of the Tithe Map of Hitchin Township about 1816, together with a Hand Map of pieces belonging to W. Lucas Esq^re about 1750, and an Enlarged Plan of the normal acre strips in the open fields afterwards adopted as the statute acre.

See Larger: [Tithe Map of Hitchen Twp.]
[W. Lucas land and normal acre strips.]
Go to: [List of Illustrations]

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

BY FREDERIC SEEBOHM Hon.LL.D.(Edin.), Litt.D.(Camb.)
D.Litt.(Oxford)

REPRINTED FROM THE FOURTH EDITION (1905)

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1915

All rights reserved

DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON

PREFACE.

When I had the honour to lay the two papers which have expanded into this volume before the Society of Antiquaries, it was with a confession and an apology which, in publishing and dedicating to them this Essay, I now repeat.

I confessed to having approached the subject not as an antiquary but as a student of Economic History, and even with a directly political interest. To learn the meaning of the old order of things, with its 'community' and 'equality' as a key to a right understanding of the new order of things, with its contrasting individual independence and inequality, this was the object which in the first instance tempted me to poach upon antiquarian manors, and it must be my apology for treating from an economic point of view a subject which has also an antiquarian interest.

To statesmen, whether of England or of the new Englands across the oceans, the importance can hardly be over-estimated of a sound appreciation of the nature of that remarkable economic evolution in the course of which the great English speaking nations have, so to speak, become charged in our time with the trial of the experiment—let us hope also with the solution of the problem—of freedom and democracy, using the words in the highest political sense as the antipodes of Paternal Government and Communism.

Perhaps, without presumption, it may be said that the future happiness of the human race—the success or failure of the planet—is in no small degree dependent upon the ultimate course of what seems, to us at least, to be the main stream of human progress, upon whether it shall be guided by the foresight of statesmen into safe channels or misguided, diverted, or obstructed, till some great social or political convulsion proves that its force and its direction have been misunderstood.

It may indeed be but too true that, in spite of the economic lessons of the past—

The weary Titan! with deaf

Ears, and labour dimmed eyes,

Regarding neither to right

Nor left, goes passively by,

Staggering on to her goal;

Bearing on shoulders immense,

Atlantëan, the load,

Wellnigh not to be borne,

Of the too vast orb of her fate.

And she may continue to do so, however clearly and truthfully the economic lessons of the past may be dinned into her ear. But still the deep sense I have endeavoured to describe in these few sentences of the importance of a sound understanding of English Economic History as the true basis of much of the practical politics of the future will be accepted, I trust, as a sufficient reason why, ill-furnished as I have constantly found myself for the task, I should have ventured to devote some years of scant leisure to the production of this imperfect Essay.

It is simply an attempt to set English Economic History upon right lines at its historical commencement by trying to solve the still open question whether it began with the freedom or with the serfdom of the masses of the people—whether the village communities living in the 'hams' and 'tons' of England were, at the outset of English history, free village communities or communities in serfdom under a manorial lordship; and further, what were their relations to the tribal communities of the Western and less easily conquered portions of the island.

On the answer to this question depends fundamentally the view to be taken by historians (let us say by politicians also) of the nature of the economic evolution which has taken place in England since the English Conquest. If answered in one way, English Economic History begins with free village communities which gradually degenerated into the serfdom of the Middle Ages. If answered in the other way, it begins with the serfdom of the masses of the rural population under Saxon rule—a serfdom from which it has taken 1,000 years of English economic evolution to set them free.

Much learning and labour have already been expended upon this question, and fresh light has been recently streaming in upon it from many sides.

A real flash of light was struck when German students perceived the connexion between the widely prevalent common or open field system of husbandry, and the village community which for centuries had used it as a shell. Whatever may be the ultimate verdict upon G. L. von Maurer's theory of the German 'mark,' there can be no doubt of its service as a working hypothesis by means of which the study of the economic problem has been materially advanced.

A great step was taken as regards the English problem when Mr. Kemble, followed by Mr. Freeman and others, attempted to trace in English constitutional history the development of ancient German free institutions, and to solve the English problem upon the lines of the German 'mark.' The merit of this attempt will not be destroyed even though doubt should be thrown upon the correctness of this suggested solution of the problem, and though other and non-German elements should prove to have been larger factors in English economic history. The caution observed by Professor Stubbs in the early chapters of his great work on English Constitutional History may be said to have at least reopened the question whether the German 'mark system' ever really took root in England.

Another step was gained on somewhat new lines when Professor Nasse, of Bonn, pointed out to English students (who hitherto had not realised the fact) that the English and German land systems were the same, and that in England also the open-field system of husbandry was the shell of the mediæval village community. The importance of this view is obvious, and it is to be regretted that no English student has as yet followed it up by an adequate examination of the remarkably rich materials which lie at the disposal of English Economic History.

A new flash of light at once lit up the subject and greatly widened its interest when Sir Henry S. Maine, carrying with him to India his profound insight into 'Ancient Law,' recognised the fundamental analogies between the 'village communities' of the East and the West, and sought to use actually surviving Indian institutions as typical representatives of ancient stages of similar Western institutions. Undoubtedly much more light may be looked for from the same direction.

Further, Sir Henry S. Maine has opened fresh ground, and perhaps (if he will permit me to say so) even to some extent narrowed the area within which the theory of archaic free village communities can be applied, by widening the range of investigation in yet another direction. In his lectures on the 'Early History of Institutions' he has turned his telescope upon the tribal communities, and especially the 'tribal system' of the Brehon laws, and tried to dissolve parts of its mysterious nebulæ into stars—a work in which he has been followed by Mr. W. F. Skene with results which give a peculiar interest to the third volume of that learned writer's valuable work on 'Celtic Scotland.'

Lastly, under the close examination of Dr. Landau and Professors Hanssen and Meitzen, the open-field system itself has been found in Germany to take several distinct forms, corresponding, in part at least, with differences in economic conditions, if not directly with various stages in economic development, from the early tribal to the later manorial system.

It is very much to be desired that the open-field system of the various districts of France should be carefully studied in the same way. An examination of its widely extended modern remains could hardly fail to throw important light upon the contents of the cartularies which have been published in the 'Collection de Documents Inédits sur l'histoire de France,' amongst which the 'Polyptique d'Irminon,' with M. Guérard's invaluable preface, is pre-eminently useful.

In the meantime, whilst students had perhaps been too exclusively absorbed in working in the rich mine of early German institutions, Mr. Coote has done service in recalling attention in his 'Neglected Fact in English History' and his 'Romans of Britain' to the evidences which remain of the survival of Roman influences in English institutions, even though it may be true that some of his conclusions may require reconsideration. The details of the later Roman provincial government, and of the economic conditions of the German and British provinces, remain so obscure even after the labours of Mommsen, Marquardt, and Madvig, that he who attempts to build a bridge across the gulf of the Teutonic conquests between Roman and English institutions still builds it somewhat at a venture.

It is interesting to find that problems connected with early English and German Economic History are engaging the careful and independent research also of American students. The contributions of Mr. Denman Ross, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Professor Allen, of the University of Wisconsin, will be welcomed by fellow-students of these questions in the old country.

It has seemed to me that the time may have come when an inquiry directed strictly upon economic lines, and carefully following the English evidence, might strike a light of its own, in the strength of which the various side lights might perhaps be gathered together and some clear result obtained, at least as regards the main course of economic evolution in England.

The English, like the Continental village community, as we have said, inhabited a shell—an open-field system—into the nooks and corners of which it was curiously bound and fitted, and from which it was apparently inseparable.

The remains of this cast-off shell still survive in parishes where no Enclosure Act happens to have swept them away. The common or open field system can even now be studied on the ground within the township in which I am writing as well as in many others. Men are still living who have held and worked farms under its inconvenient rules, and who know the meaning of its terms and eccentric details. Making use of this circumstance the method pursued in this Essay will be, first, to become familiar with the little distinctive marks and traits of the English open-field system, so that they may be readily recognised wherever they present themselves; and then, proceeding from the known to the unknown, carefully to trace back the shell by searching and watching for its marks and traits as far into the past as evidence can be found. Using the knowledge so acquired about the shell as the key, the inquiry will turn upon its occupant. Examining how the mediæval English village community in serfdom fitted itself into the shell, and then again working back from the known to the unknown, it may be perhaps possible to discern whether, within historical times, it once had been free, or whether its serfdom was as old as the shell.

The relation of the 'tribal system' in Wales, in Ireland, and in Germany to the open-field system, and so also to the village community, will be a necessary branch of the inquiry. It will embrace also both the German and the Roman sources of serfdom and of the manorial system of land management.

It may at least be possible that Economic History may sometimes find secure stepping stones over what may be impassable gulfs in constitutional history; and it obviously does not follow that a continuity lost, perhaps, to the one may not have been preserved by the other. The result of a strictly economic inquiry may, as already suggested, prove that more things went to the 'making of England' than were imported in the keels of the English invaders of Britain. But whatever the result—whatever modifications of former theories the facts here brought into view, after full consideration by others, may suggest—I trust that this Essay will not be regarded as controversial in its aim or its spirit. I had rather that it were accepted simply as fellow-work, as a stone added at the eleventh hour to a structure in the building of which others, some of whose names I have mentioned, have laboured during the length and heat of the day.

In conclusion, I have to tender my best thanks to Sir Henry S. Maine for the kind interest he has taken, and the sound advice he has given, during the preparation of this Essay for the press; also to Mr. Elton, for similar unsolicited help generously given. To my friend George von Bunsen, and to Professor Meitzen, of Berlin, I am deeply indebted as regards the German branches of my subject, and to Mr. T. Hodgkin and Mr. H. Pelham as regards the Roman side of it. For the ever ready assistance of my friend Mr. H. Bradshaw, of Cambridge, Mr. Selby, of the Record Office, and Mr. Thompson, of the British Museum, in reference to the manuscripts under their charge, I cannot be too grateful. Nor must I omit to acknowledge the care with which Messrs. Stuart Moore and Kirk have undertaken for me the task of revising the text and translations of the many extracts from mediæval documents contained in this volume.

F. Seebohm.

The Hermitage, Hitchin:

May, 1883

CONTENTS.

• CHAPTER I. THE ENGLISH OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM EXAMINED IN ITS MODERN REMAINS.
  • 1. The distinctive marks of the open-field system [1]
  • 2. Scattered and intermixed ownership in the open fields [7]
  • 3. The open fields were the common fields of a village community or township under a manor [8]
  • 4. The wide prevalence of the system through Great Britain [13]
• CHAPTER II. THE ENGLISH OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM TRACED BACK TO THE DOMESDAY SURVEY—IT IS THE SHELL OF SERFDOM—THE MANOR WITH A VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN VILLENAGE UPON IT.
  • 1. The identity of the system with that of the Middle Ages [17]
  • 2. The Winslow Manor Rolls of the reign of Edward III.—example of a virgate or yard-land [22]
  • 3. The Hundred Rolls of Edward I. embracing five Midland Counties [32]
  • 4. The Hundred Rolls (continued).—Relation of the virgate to the hide and carucate [36]
  • 5. The Hundred Rolls (continued).—The services of the villein tenants [40]
  • 6. Description in Fleta of a manor in the time of Edward I. [45]
  • 7. S.E. of England—The hide and virgate under other names (the records of Battle Abbey and St. Paul's) [49]
  • 8. The relation of the virgate to the hide traced in the cartularies of Gloucester and Worcester Abbeys, and the custumal of Bleadon in Somersetshire [55]
  • 9. Cartularies of Newminster and Kelso, thirteenth century—The connexion of the holdings with the common plough team of eight oxen [60]
  • 10. The Boldon Book, A.D. 1183 [68]
  • 11. The 'Liber Niger' of Peterborough Abbey, A.D. 1125 [72]
  • 12. Summary of the post-Domesday evidence [76]
• CHAPTER III. THE DOMESDAY SURVEY (A.D. 1086).
  • 1. There were manors everywhere [82]
  • 2. The division of the manor into lord's demesne and land in villenage [84]
  • 3. The free tenants on the lord's demesne [86]
  • 4. The classes of tenants in villenage [89]
  • 5. The villani were holders of virgates, &c. [91]
  • 6. The holdings of the bordarii or cottiers [95]
  • 7. The Domesday survey of the Villa of Westminster [97]
  • 8. The extent of the cultivated land of England, and how much was included in the yard-lands of the villani [101]
• CHAPTER IV. THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM TRACED IN SAXON TIMES—THE SCATTERING OF THE STRIPS ORIGINATED IN THE METHODS OF CO-ARATION.
  • 1. The village fields under Saxon rule were open fields [105]
  • 2. The holdings were composed of scattered strips [110]
  • 3. The open-field system of co-aration described in the ancient laws of Wales [117]
• CHAPTER V. MANORS AND SERFDOM UNDER SAXON RULE.
  • 1. The Saxon 'hams' and 'tuns' were manors with village communities in serfdom upon them [126]
  • 2. The 'Rectitudines Singularum Personarum' [129]
  • 3. The thane and his services [134]
  • 4. The geneats and their services [137]
  • 5. The double and ancient character of the services of the gebur—Gafol and week-work [142]
  • 6. Serfdom on a manor of King Edwy [148]
  • 7. Serfdom on a manor of King Alfred [160]
  • 8. The theows or slaves on the lord's demesne [164]
  • 9. The creation of new manors [166]
  • 10. The laws of King Ethelbert—There were manors in the sixth century [173]
  • 11. Result of the Saxon evidence [175]
• CHAPTER VI. THE TRIBAL SYSTEM (IN WALES).
  • 1. Evidence of the Domesday Survey [181]
  • 2. The Welsh land system in the twelfth century [186]
  • 3. The Welsh land system according to the Welsh laws [189]
  • 4. Land divisions under the Welsh Codes [199]
  • 5. Earlier evidence of the payment of Welsh gwestva, or food-rent [208]
• CHAPTER VII. THE TRIBAL SYSTEM (continued).
  • 1. The tribal system in Ireland and Scotland [214]
  • 2. The tribal system in its earlier stages [231]
  • 3. The distinction between the tribal and agricultural economy of the West and South-East of Britain was pre-Roman, and so also was the open-field system [245]
• CHAPTER VIII. CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ROMAN LAND SYSTEM AND THE LATER MANORIAL SYSTEM.
  • 1. Importance of the Continental evidence [252]
  • 2. The connexion between the Saxon 'ham,' the German 'heim,' and the Frankish 'villa' [253]
  • 3. The Roman 'villa,' its easy transition into the later manor, and its tendency to become the predominant type of estate [263]
  • 4. The smaller tenants on the 'Ager Publicus' in Roman provinces—The veterans [272]
  • 5. The smaller tenants on the 'Ager Publicus' (continued)—the 'læti' [280]
  • 6. The 'tributum' of the later Empire [289]
  • 7. The 'sordida munera' of the later Empire [295]
  • 8. The tendency towards a manorial management of the 'Ager Publicus,' or Imperial domain [300]
  • 9. The succession to semi-servile holdings, and methods of cultivation [308]
  • 10. The transition from the Roman to the later manorial system [316]
• CHAPTER IX. THE GERMAN SIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE.
  • 1. The German tribal system and its tendency towards the manorial system [336]
  • 2. The tribal households of German settlers [346]
• CHAPTER X. THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM AND SERFDOM OF ENGLAND AND OF THE ROMAN PROVINCES OF GERMANY AND GAUL.
  • 1. The open-field system in England and in Germany compared [368]
  • 2. The boundaries or 'marchæ' [375]
  • 3. The three fields, or 'zelgen' [376]
  • 4. The division of the fields into furlongs and acres [380]
  • 5. The holdings—the 'yard-land' or 'hub' [389]
  • 6. The hide, the 'hof,' and the 'centuria' [395]
  • 7. The gafol and gafol-yrth [399]
  • 8. The boon-work and week-work of the serf [403]
  • 9. The creation of serfs and the growth of serfdom [405]
  • 10. The confusion in the status of the tenants on English and German manors [407]
  • 11. Result of the comparison [409]
• CHAPTER XI. RESULT OF THE EVIDENCE.
  • 1. The method of the English settlements [412]
  • 2. Local evidence of continuity between Roman and English villages [424]
  • 3. Conclusion [437]
• • APPENDIX [443]
• • INDEX and GLOSSARY [455]

LIST OF MAPS AND PLATES.

• to face
  
• [1.] Map of Hitchin Township, &c. title-page
• [2.] Map of Part of Purwell Field 2
• [3.] Sketch of 'Linces' 5
• [4.] Hitchin, Purwell Field 6
• [5.] A normal Virgate or Yard-land 26
• [6.] Domesday Survey, Distribution of Sochmanni, Liberi Homines, Servi, Bordarii, and Villani 85
• [7.] Manor of Tidenham, &c. 148
• [8.] Group of Puttchers on the Severn near Tidenham 152
• [9.] Maps of an Irish 'Bally' and 'half-Bally' 224
• [10.] Examples of Divisions in a Townland 228
• [11.] Distribution in Europe of Local Names ending in 'heim,' 'ingen,' &c. 256
• [12.] Map of the Neighbourhood of Hitchin 426
• [13.] Map of the Parish of Much Wymondley and Roman Holding 432
• [14.] Roman Pottery found on ditto 434

[p001]

THE ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.

CHAPTER I. THE ENGLISH OPEN FIELD SYSTEM EXAMINED IN ITS MODERN REMAINS.

I. THE DISTINCTIVE MARKS OF THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM.

The distinctive marks of the open or common field system once prevalent in England will be most easily learned by the study of an example.

Open fields of Hitchin Manor.

The township of Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, will answer the purpose. From the time of Edward the Confessor—and probably from much earlier times—with intervals of private ownership, it has been a royal manor.[1] And the Queen being still the lady of the manor, the remains of its open fields have never been swept away by the ruthless broom of an Enclosure Act.

Annexed is a reduced tracing of a map of the [p002] township without the hamlets, made about the year 1816, and showing all the divisions into which its fields wore then cut up.

It will be seen at once that it presents almost the features of a spiders web. A great part of the township at that date, probably nearly the whole of it in earlier times, was divided up into little narrow strips.

Divided into strips or seliones, i.e. acres, by balks.

Form of the acre.

These strips, common to open fields all over England, were separated from each other not by hedges, but by green balks of unploughed turf, and are of great historical interest. They vary more or less in size even in the same fields, as in the examples given on the map of a portion of the Hitchin Purwell field. There are 'long' strips and 'short' strips. But taking them generally, and comparing them with the statute acre of the scale at the corner of the map, it will be seen at once that the normal strip is roughly identical with it. The length of the statute acre of the scale is a furlong of 40 rods or poles. It is 4 rods in width. Now 40 rods in length and 1 rod in width make 40 square rods, or a rood; and thus, as there are 4 rods in breadth, the acre of the scale with which the normal strips coincide is an acre made up of 4 roods lying side by side.

Thus the strips are in fact roughly cut 'acres,' of the proper shape for ploughing. For the furlong is the 'furrow long,' i.e. the length of the drive of the plough before it is turned; and that this by long custom was fixed at 40 rods, is shown by the use of the Latin word 'quarentena' for furlong. The word 'rood' naturally corresponds with as many furrows in the ploughing as are contained in the breadth of one rod. And four of these roods lying side by side made [p003] the acre strip in the open fields, and still make up the statute acre.

Part of Purwell Field, Hitchin.

Go to: [List of Illustrations]

Very ancient.

This form of the acre is very ancient. Six hundred years ago, in the earliest English law fixing the size of the statute acre (33 Ed. I.), it is declared that '40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre.' [2] And further, we shall find that more than a thousand years ago in Bavaria the shape of the strip in the open fields for ploughing was also 40 rods in length and 4 rods in width, but the rod was in that case the Greek and Roman rod of 10 ft. instead of the English rod of 1612 ft.

Half-acres.

But to return to the English strips. In many places the open fields were formerly divided into half-acre strips, which were called 'half-acres.' That is to say, a turf balk separated every two rods or roods in the ploughing, the length of the furrow remaining the same.

The strips in the open fields are generally known by country folk as 'balks,' and the Latin word used in terriers and cartularies for the strip is generally 'selio,' corresponding with the French word 'sillon,' (meaning furrow). In Scotland and Ireland the same strips generally are known as 'rigs,' and the open field system is known accordingly as the 'run-rig' system.

The whole arable area of an uninclosed township was usually divided up by turf balks into as many thousands of these strips as its limits would contain, and the tithing maps of many parishes besides Hitchin, dating sixty or eighty years ago, show remains of [p004] them still existing, although the process of ploughing up the balks and throwing many strips together had gradually been going on for centuries.

Shots or furlongs, or quarentenæ.

Next, it will be seen that the strips on the map lie side by side in groups, forming larger divisions of the field. These larger divisions are called 'shots,' or 'furlongs,' and in Latin documents 'quarentenæ,' being always a furrow-long in width. Throughout their whole length the furrows in the ploughing run parallel from end to end; the balks which divide them into strips being, as the word implies, simply two or three furrows left unploughed between them.[3]

The shots or furlongs are divided from one another by broader balks, generally overgrown with bushes.

Headlands.

This grouping of the strips in furlongs or shots is a further invariable feature of the English open field system. And it involves another little feature which is also universally met with, viz. the headland.

It will be seen on the map that mostly a common field-way gives access to the strips; i.e. it runs along the side of the furlong and the ends of the strips. But this is not always the case; and when it is not, then there is a strip running along the length of the furlong inside its boundaries and across the ends of the strips composing it.[4] This is the headland. Sometimes when the strips of the one furlong run at right angles to the strips of its neighbour, the first strip in the one furlong does [p005] duty as the headland giving access to the strips in the other. In either case all the owners of the strips in a furlong have the right to turn their plough upon the headland, and thus the owner of the headland must wait until all the other strips are ploughed before he can plough his own. The Latin term for the headland is 'forera;' the Welsh, 'pen tir;' the Scotch, 'headrig;' and the German (from the turning of the plough upon it), 'anwende.'

'Linches' in the Open Fields of Clothall, Herts.

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Lynches, or linces.

A less universal but equally peculiar feature of the open field system in hilly districts is the 'lynch,' and it may often be observed remaining when every other trace of an open field has been removed by enclosure. Its right of survival lies in its indestructibility. When a hill-side formed part of the open field the strips almost always were made to run, not up and down the hill, but horizontally along it; and in ploughing, the custom for ages was always to turn the sod of the furrow downhill, the plough consequently always returning one way idle. If the whole hill-side were ploughed in one field, this would result in a gradual travelling of the soil from the top to the bottom of the field, and it might not be noticed. But as in the open field system the hill-side was ploughed in strips with unploughed balks between them, no sod could pass in the ploughing from one strip to the next; but the process of moving the sod downwards would go on age after age just the same within each individual strip. In other words, every year's ploughing took a sod from the higher edge of the strip and put it on the lower edge; and the result was that the strips became in time long level terraces one above the other, and the balks between them [p006] grew into steep rough banks of long grass covered often with natural self-sown brambles and bushes. These banks between the plough-made terraces are generally called lynches, or linces; and the word is often applied to the terraced strips themselves, which go by the name of 'the linces.' [5]

Butts.

Where the strips abruptly meet others, or abut upon a boundary at right angles, they are sometimes called butts.

Gored acres. No man's land.

Two other small details marking the open field system require only to be simply mentioned. Corners of the fields which, from their shape, could not be cut up into the usual acre or half-acre strips, were sometimes divided into tapering strips pointed at one end, and called 'gores,' or 'gored acres.' In other cases little odds and ends of unused land remained, which from time immemorial were called 'no man's land,' or 'any one's land,' or 'Jack's land,' as the case might be.

Hitchin, Purwell Field.
Proprietors Names With Their Numbers.

See [Larger].
Go to: [List of Illustrations]

Thus there are plenty of outward marks and traits by which the open common field may be recognised wherever it occurs,—the acre or half-acre [p007] strips or seliones, the gored shape of some of them, the balks and sometimes lynches between them, the shots or furlongs (quarentenæ) in which they lie in groups, the headlands which give access to the strips when they lie off the field-ways, the butts, and lastly the odds and ends of 'no man's land.'

II. SCATTERED AND INTERMIXED OWNERSHIP IN THE OPEN FIELDS.

Scattered or intermixed ownership.

Passing from these little outward marks to the matter of ownership, a most inconvenient peculiarity presents itself, which is by far the most remarkable and important feature of the open field system wherever it is found. It is the fact that neither the strips nor the furlongs represented a complete holding or property, but that the several holdings were made up of a multitude of strips scattered about on all sides of the township, one in this furlong and another in that, intermixed, and it might almost be said entangled together, as though some one blindfold had thrown them about on all sides of him.

The extent to which this was the case in the Hitchin common fields, even so late as the beginning of the present century, will be realised by reference to the map annexed. It is a reduced tracing of a map showing the ownership of the strips in one division of the open fields of Hitchin called the Purwell field. The strips are numbered, and correspond with the owners' names given in the tally at the side. The strips belonging to two of the owners are also coloured, so as at once to catch the eye, and the area of each separate piece is marked upon it. The number [p008] of scattered pieces held by each owner is also given in the note below; and as the map embraces only about one-third of the Hitchin fields, it should be noticed that each owner probably held in the parish three times as many separate pieces as are there described![6] Further, at the side of the map of the Hitchin township, is a reduced tracing of a plan of the estate of a single landowner in the townfields of Hitchin, which shows very clearly the curious scattering of the strips in a single ownership all over the fields, notwithstanding that the tendency towards consolidation of the holdings by exchanges and purchases had evidently made some progress.

III. THE OPEN FIELDS WERE THE COMMON FIELDS OF A VILLAGE COMMUNITY OR TOWNSHIP UNDER A MANOR.

The next fact to be noted is that under the English system the open fields were the common fields—the arable land—of a village community or township under a manorial lordship. This could hardly be more clearly illustrated than by the Hitchin example. [p009]

Periodical presentment of the jurors and the homage of the manor.

The Hitchin manor was, as already stated, a royal manor. The Court Leet and View of Frankpledge were held concurrently with the Court Baron of the manor. Periodically at this joint court a record was made on the presentment of the jurors and homage of various particulars relating to both the manor and township.

The record for the year 1819 will be found at length in Appendix A, and it may be taken as a common form.

The jurors and homage first present that the manor comprises the township of Hitchin and hamlet of Walsworth, and includes within it three lesser manors; also that it extends into other hamlets and parishes.

The boundaries.

They then record the boundaries of the township (including the hamlet of Walsworth) as follows, viz.:—

• 'From Orton Head to Burford Ray,
• and from thence to a Water Mill called Hide Mill,
• and from thence to Willberry Hills,
• and from thence to a place called Bossendell,
• and from thence to a Water Mill called Purwell Mill,
• and from thence to a Brook or River called Ippollitt's Brook,
• and from thence to Maydencroft Lane,
• and from thence to a place called Wellhead,
• and from thence to a place called Stubborn Bush,
• and from thence to a place called Offley Cross,
• and from thence to Five Borough Hills [Five Barrows],
• and from thence back to Orton Head, where the boundaries commenced.'

The form in which these boundaries are given is of great antiquity. It is a form used by the Romans two thousand years ago, and almost continuously followed from that time to this.[7] Its importance for [p010] the purpose in hand will be manifest as the inquiry proceeds.

The courts.

The jurisdiction of the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge is recorded to extend within the foregoing boundaries, i.e. over the township, that of the Court Baron beyond them over the whole manor, which was more extensive than the township. The Court Leet is therefore the Court of the township, the Court Baron that of the manor.

It is then stated that in the Court Leet at Michaelmas the jurors of the king elect and present to the lord—

The officers.

Two constables,

Six headboroughs (two for each of the three wards),

Two ale-conners,

Two leather-searchers and sealers, and

A bellman, who is also the watchman and crier of the town.

All the foregoing presentments have reference to the township, and are those of 'the jurors of our lord the King (i.e. of the Court Leet), and the homage of the Court' [Baron] of the manor.

Reliefs, fines, &c. Pound and stocks.

Then come presentments of the homage of the Court of the Manor alone, describing the reliefs of freeholders and the fines, &c., of copyholders under the manor, and various particulars as to powers of leasing, [p011] forfeiture, cutting timber, heriots, &c.; the freedom of grain from toll in the market, the provision by the lord of the common pound and the stocks for the use of the tenants of the manor, and the right of the lord with the consent of the homage to grant out portions of the waste by copy of court roll at a rent and the customary services.

Next the commons are described.

Green commons. Lammas meadows.

(1) The portions coloured dark green on the map are described as Green Commons, and those coloured light green as Lammas Meadows;[8] and every occupier of an ancient messuage or cottage in the township has certain defined rights of common thereon, the obligation to find the common bull falling upon the rectory, and a common herdsman being elected by the homage at a Court Baron.

Common fields. The three fields and rotation of crops.

(2) The common fields are stated to be—

Purwell field, Welshman's croft,

Burford field, Spital field,

Moremead field, Bury field;

and it is recorded that these common fields have immemorially been, and ought to be, kept and cultivated in three successive seasons of tilth grain, etch grain, and fallow: Purwell field and Welshman's croft being fallow one year; Burford field and Spital field the next year; Moremead field and Bury field the year after, and so on in regular rotation. [p012]

Common rights over the open fields when not under crop.

It is stated that every occupier of unenclosed land in any of the common fields of the township may pasture his sheep over the rest of the field after the corn is cut and carried, and when it is fallow. If he choose to enclose his own portion of the common field he may do so, but he then gives up for ever his right of pasture over the rest. It is under this custom that the strips and balks are gradually disappearing.

Hamlet.

The ancient messuages and cottages in the hamlet of Walsworth had their separate green common and herdsman, but (at this date) no common fields, because they had already been some time ago enclosed.

It will be seen from the map how very small a proportion of the land of the township was in meadow or pasture. The open arable fields occupied nearly the whole of it. The community to which it belonged, and to whose wants it was fitted, was evidently a community occupied mainly in agriculture.

Copyholds and freeholds intermixed.

Another feature requiring notice was the fact that in the open fields freehold and copyhold land were intermixed; some of the strips being freehold, whilst the next strip was copyhold, instead of all the freehold and all the copyhold lying together. And in the same way the lands belonging to the three lesser or sub-manors lay intermixed, and not all apart by themselves. The open field system overrode the whole.

Thus, if the Hitchin example may be taken as a typical one of the English open field system, it may be regarded generally as having belonged to a village or township under a manor. We may assume that the holdings were composed of numbers of strips scattered [p013] over the three open fields: and that the husbandry was controlled by those rules as to rotation of crops and fallow in three seasons which marked the three-field system, and secured uniformity of tillage throughout each field. Lastly, whilst fallow after the crop was gathered, the open fields were probably everywhere subject to the common rights of pasture. The sheep of the whole township wandered and pastured all over the strips and balks of its fields, while the cows of the township were daily driven by a common herdsman to the green commons, or, after Lammas Day, when the hay crop of the owners was secured, to the lammas meadows.

IV. THE WIDE PREVALENCE OF THE SYSTEM THROUGH GREAT BRITAIN.

But before the attempt is made to trace back the system, it may be well to ask what evidence there is as to its wide prevalence in England, and with what reason the particular example of the Hitchin township may be taken as generally typical.

Enclosure of open fields.

In the first place, an examination into the details of an Enclosure Act will make clear the point that the system as above described is the system which it was the object of the Enclosure Acts to remove. They were generally drawn in the same form, commencing with the recital that the open and common fields lie dispersed in small pieces intermixed with each other and inconveniently situated, that divers persons own parts of them, and are entitled to rights of common on them, so that in their present state they are incapable of improvement, and that it is [p014] desired that they may be divided and enclosed, a specific share being set out and allowed to each owner. For this purpose Enclosure Commissioners are appointed, and under their award the balks are ploughed up, the fields divided into blocks for the several owners, hedges planted, and the whole face of the country changed.

Number of Acts.

The common fields of twenty-two parishes within ten miles of Hitchin were enclosed in this way between 1766 and 1832. All the Acts were of the same character.[9] And as, taking the whole of England, with, roughly speaking, its 10,000 parishes, nearly 4,000 Enclosure Acts were passed between 1760 [p015] and 1844,[10] it will at once be understood how generally prevalent was this form of the open field system so late as the days of the grandfathers of this generation.

Wide extent of open field system.

The old 'Statistical Account of Scotland,' obtained eighty years ago by inquiry in every parish, shows that at its date, under the name of 'run-rig,' a simpler form of the open field system still lingered on here and there more or less all over Scotland. Traces of it still exist in the Highlands, and there are well-known remains of its strips and balks also in Wales. The run-rig system is still prevalent in some parts of Ireland. But at present we confine our attention to the form which the system assumed in England, and for this purpose the Hitchin example may fairly be taken as typical.

Uneconomical;

Now, judged from a modern point of view, it will readily be understood that the open field system, and especially its peculiarity of straggling or scattered ownership, regarded from a modern agricultural point of view, was absurdly uneconomical. The waste of time in getting about from one part of a farm to another; the uselessness of one owner attempting to clean his own land when it could be sown with thistles from the seed blown from the neighbouring strips of a less careful and thrifty owner; the quarrelling about headlands and rights of way, or [p016] paths made without right; the constant encroachments of unscrupulous or overbearing holders upon the balks—all this made the system so inconvenient, that Arthur Young, coming across it in France, could hardly keep his temper as he described with what perverse ingenuity it seemed to be contrived as though purposely to make agriculture as awkward and uneconomical as possible.

but must have had meaning once.

But these now inconvenient traits of the open field system must once have had a meaning, a use, and even a convenience which were the cause of their original arrangement. Like the apparently meaningless sentinel described by Prince Bismarck uselessly pacing up and down the middle of a lawn in the garden of the Russian palace, there must have been an originally sufficient reason to account for the beginning of what is now useless and absurd. And just as in that case, search in the military archives disclosed that once upon a time, in the days of Catherine the Great, a solitary snowdrop had appeared on the lawn, to guard which a sentinel was posted by an order which had never been revoked; so a similar search will doubtless disclose an ancient original reason for even the (at first sight) most unreasonable features of the open field system.

Go to:
[Contents.]
[Next Chapter].

CHAPTER I. FOOTNOTES.

[  1.] The lesser manors included in it are clearly only sub-manors, and for the present purpose do not destroy its original unity.

[  2.] Statutes, Record Com. Ed. i. p. 206.

[  3.] Balc is a Welsh word; and when the plough is accidentally turned aside, and leaves a sod of grass unturned between the furrows, the plough is said by the Welsh ploughman speaking Welsh, to 'balc' (balco).

[  4.] See the map of a portion of the Purwell field.

[  5.] Striking examples of these lynches may be seen from the railroad at Luton in Bedfordshire, and between Cambridge and Hitchin, as well as in various other parts of England. They may be seen often on the steep sides of the Sussex Downs and the Chiltern Hills. Great numbers of them are to be noticed from the French line between Calais and Paris. In some cases on the steep chalk downs, terraces for ploughing have evidently been artificially cut; but even in these cases there must always have been a gradual natural growth of the lynches by annual accretion from the ploughing. In old times, in order to secure the turning of the sod downhill, the plough, after cutting a furrow, returned as stated one way idle; but in more recent times a plough called a 'turn-wrist plough' came into use, which by reversing its share could be used both ways, to the great saving of time.

[  6.] The number of parcels held by each owner was as follows:—

[  7.] Hyginus de Condicionibus Agrorum. Die Schriften der Römischen Feldmesser (Lachmann, &c.), i. p. 114. 'Nam invenimus sæpe in publicis instrumentis significanter inscripta territoria, ita ut ex colliculo qui appellatur ille ad flumen illud, et super flumen illud ad rivum illum aut viam illam, et per viam illam ad infima montis illius, qui locus appellatur ille, et inde per jugum montis illius in summum, et super summum montis per divergia aquæ ad locum, qui appellatur ille, et inde deorsum versus ad locum illum, et inde ad compitum illius, et inde per monumentum illius, ad locum unde primum cœpit scriptura esse.' See as an early example, 'Sententia Minuciorum,' Corpus Inscript. Lat. i. 199.

[  8.] The lammas meadows are divided into strips like the arable land for the purpose of the hay crop.

[  9.] These Enclosure Acts were as follows:—

[ 10.] Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 146:—

[p017]

CHAPTER II. THE ENGLISH OPEN FIELD SYSTEM TRACED BACK TO THE DOMESDAY SURVEY—IT IS THE SHELL OF SERFDOM—THE MANOR WITH A VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN VILLENAGE UPON IT.

I. THE IDENTITY OF THE SYSTEM WITH THAT OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

That this open field system, the remains of which have now been examined, was identical with that which existed in the Middle Ages might easily be proved by a continuous chain of examples. But it will be enough for the present purpose to pick out a few typical instances, using them as stepping-stones.

Tusser.

It would be easy to quote Tusser's description of 'Champion Farming' in the sixteenth century. In his 'Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry' he describes the respective merits of 'several,' and 'champion' or open field farming. But as he describes the latter as a system already out of date in his time, and as rapidly giving way to the more economical system of 'several' or enclosed fields, we may pass on at once to evidence another couple of centuries earlier in date. [p018]

Of the fact that the open field system 500 years ago (in the fourteenth century), with its divisions into furlongs and subdivision into acre or half-acre strips, existed in England, the 'Vision of Piers the Plowman' may be appealed to as a witness.

Piers the Plowman.

What was 'the faire felde ful of folke,' in which the poet saw 'alle maner of men' 'worchyng and wandryng,' some 'putten hem to the plow,' whilst others 'in settyng and in sowyng swonken ful harde'?[11] A modern English field shut in by hedges would not suit the vision in the least. It was clearly enough the open field into which all the villagers turned out on the bright spring morning, and over which they would be scattered, some working and some looking on. In no other 'faire felde' would he see such folk of all sorts, the '[hus]bondemen,' bakers and brewers, butchers, woolwebsters and weavers of linen, tailors, tinkers, and tollers in market, masons, dikers, and delvers; while the cooks cried 'Hote pies hote!' and tavern-keepers set in competition their wines and roast meat at the alehouse.[12]

Then as to the division of the fields into furlongs; remembering that the wide balks between them and along the headlands were often covered with 'brakes and brambles,' the point is at once settled by the naïve confession of the priest who scarce knew perfectly his Paternoster, and could 'ne solfe ne synge' 'ne seyntes lyues rede,' yet knew well enough the 'rymes of Robyn hood,' and how to 'fynde an hare in a fourlonge.' [13] [p019]

Further, a chance indication that the furlongs were divided into half-acre strips occurs most naturally in that part of the story where the folk in the fair field, sick of priests and parsons and other false guides, come at last to Piers the plowman, and beg him to show them the way to truth; and he replies that he must first plow and sow his 'half-acre:'

I have an half acre to erye · bi the heighe way:

Hadde I eried this half acre · and sowen it after,

I wolde wende with you · and the way teche.[14]

And if there should remain a shadow of doubt whether Piers' half-acre must necessarily have been one of the strips between the balks into which the furlongs were divided, even this is cleared up by the perfect little picture which follows of the folk in the field helping him to plow it. For in its unconscious truthfulness of graphic detail, after saying,—

Now is perkyn and his pilgrymes · to the plowe faren:

To erie his halue acre · holpyn hym manye,

the very first lines in the list of services rendered explain that—

Dikeres and delueres · digged up the balkes.[15]

Terrier of Cambridge open fields in the fourteenth century.

This incidental evidence of 'Piers the Plowman' is fully borne out by a manuscript terrier of one of the open fields near Cambridge, belonging to the later years of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century.[16] It gives the names of the owners and occupiers of all the seliones or strips. They are [p020] divided by balks of turf. They lie in furlongs or quarentenæ. They have frequently headlands or foreræ. Some of the strips are gored, and called gored acres. Many of them are described as butts. Indeed, were it not that the country round Cambridge being flat there are no lynches, almost every one of the features of the system is distinctly visible in this terrier.

The system already decaying.

But this terrier also contains evidence that the system was even then in a state of decay and disintegration. The balks were disappearing, and the strips, though still remembered as strips, were becoming merged in larger portions, so that they lie thrown together sine balca. The mention is frequent of iii. seliones which used to be v., ii. which used to be iv., iii. which used to be viii., and so on. Evidently the meaning and use of the half-acre strips are already gone.

It will be well, therefore, to take another leap, and at once to pass behind the Black Death—that great watershed in economic history—so as to examine the details of the system before rather than after it had sustained the tremendous shock which the death in one year of half the population may well have given to it.

Winslow Manor rolls of Ed. III.

A remarkably excellent opportunity for inquiry is presented by a complete set of manor rolls during the reign of Edward III. for the Manor of Winslow in Buckinghamshire, preserved in the Cambridge University Library.[17] [p021]

No evidence could possibly be more to the purpose. Belonging to the Abbey of St. Albans, the rolls were kept with scrupulous accuracy and care. Every change of ownership during the long reign of Edward III. is recorded in regular form; and the year 1348–9—the year of the Black Death—occurring in the course of this reign, and occasioning more changes of ownership than usual, the MS. presents, if one may appropriate a geological expression, something like an economic section of the manor, revealing with unusual clearness the various economic strata in which its holdings were arranged.

The open field.

Before examining these holdings it is needful only to state that here, as in the later examples, the fields of the manor are open fields, divided into furlongs, which in their turn are made up with apparently almost absolute regularity of half-acre strips. Whenever (with very rare exceptions) a change of ownership takes place, and the contents of the holding are described, they turn out to be made up of half-acre pieces, or seliones, scattered all over the fields.

Half-acre strips.

The typical entry on these rolls in such cases is that A. B. surrenders to the lord, or has died holding, a messuage and so many acres of land, of which a half-acre lies in such and such a field, and often in such and such a furlong, between land of C. D. and E. F., another half-acre somewhere else between two other persons' land, another half-acre somewhere else, and so on. If the holding be of 112 acres it is found to be in 3 half-acre pieces, if of 4 acres, in 8 half-acre pieces, and so on, scattered over the fields. Sometimes amongst the half-acres are mentioned still smaller portions, roods and even half-roods or doles [p022] (chiefly of pasture or meadow land), belonging to the holdings, but the division into half-acre strips was clearly the rule.

There can be no doubt, therefore, of the identity of the system seen at work in these manor rolls with that of which some of the débris may still be examined in unenclosed parishes to-day.

II. THE WINSLOW MANOR ROLLS OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD III.—EXAMPLE OF A VIRGATE OR YARD-LAND.

Starting with the fact that the fields of the manor of Winslow and its hamlets[18] were open fields divided into furlongs and half-acre strips, the chief object of inquiry will be the nature of the holdings of its various classes of tenants.

Demesne and villenage.

In the first place the land of the manor was divided, like that of almost all other manors, into two distinct parts—land in the lord's demesne, and land in villenage.

The land in demesne may be described as the home farm of the lord of the manor, including such portions of it as he may have chosen to let off to tenants for longer or shorter terms, and at money rents in free tenure.

Three-field system.

The land in villenage is also in the occupation of tenants, but it is held in villenage, at the will of the lord, and at customary services. It lies in open fields. These are divided into three seasons, according to the [p023] three-field system. There is a west field, east field, and south field. The demesne land lies also in these three fields,[19] probably more or less intermixed, as in many cases, with the strips in villenage, but sometimes in separate furlongs or shots from the latter.

Throughout the pages of the manor rolls, in recording transfers of holdings in villenage, the common form is always adhered to of a surrender by the old tenant to the lord, and a re-grant of the holding to the new tenant, to be held by him at the will of the lord in villenage at the usual services. Where the change of holding occurs on the death of a tenant, the common form recites that the holding has reverted to the lord, who re-grants it to the new tenant as before in villenage.

Further examination at once discloses a marked difference in kind between some classes of holdings in villenage and others.

Virgates and half-virgates.

In some cases the holding handed over is simply described by the one comprehensive word 'virgata' (the Latin equivalent for 'yard-land'), without any further description. The 'virgate' of A. B. is transferred to C. D. in one lump; i.e. the holding is an indivisible whole, evidently so well known as to need no description of its contents.

In other cases the holding is in the same way described as a 'half-virgate,' without any details being needful as to its contents.

But in the case of all other holdings the contents are described in detail half-acre by half-acre, each half-acre being identified by the names of the holders [p024] of the strips on either side of it. They vary in size from one half-acre to 8 or 10 or 12 half-acres, and in a few cases more. The greater number of them are, however, evidently the holdings of small cottier tenants. A few cases occur, but only a few, where a messuage is held without land.

What is a virgate or yard-land?

But the question of interest is what may be the nature of the holdings called virgates and half-virgates—these well-known bundles of land, which, as already said, need no description of their contents. Fortunately in one single case a virgate or yard-land—that of John Moldeson—loses its indivisible unity and is let out again by the lord to several persons in portions. These being new holdings, and no longer making up a virgate, it became needful to describe their contents on the rolls.[20] Thus the details of which a virgate was made up are accidentally exposed to view.

Putting the broken pieces of it together, this virgate of John Moldeson is found to have consisted of a messuage in the village of Shipton, in the manor of Winslow, and the following half-acre strips of land scattered all over the open fields of the manor.

The virgate or yard-land of John Moldeson.

Summary of the contents of a virgate or yard-land.

Thus the virgate or yard-land of John Moldeson was composed of a messuage and

• 68 half-acre strips of arable land,
• 3 rood strips of arable land,
• 2 doles,
• 1 acre of pasture,
• 3 half-acres of pasture, and
• 1 half-acre of meadow,

scattered all over the open fields in their various furlongs.

A Normal Virgate Or Yardland.

The normal holding of the villanus, consisting of a messuage and 30 scattered acres coloured red, by way of example on the Map of the open fields of Hitchen.

See [Larger].
Go to: [List of Illustrations]

Rotation in the order of the strips.

But it may be asked, how can it be proved that the other virgates were like the one virgate of John [p027] Moldeson thus by chance described and exposed to view on the manor rolls? Is it right to assume that this virgate may be taken as a pattern of the rest? The answer is, that in the description of its 72 half-acre strips the 144 neighbouring strips are incidentally involved. And as 66 of its strips had on one side of them 66 other strips of another tenant, viz. John Watekyns, and on the other side 43 of the next strips belonged to Henry Warde, and 23 to John Mayn, and 8 of the strips only had other neighbours, it is evident that the virgate of John Moldeson was one of a system of similar virgates formed of scattered half-acre strips, arranged in a certain regular order of rotation, in which John Moldeson came 66 times next to John Watekyns, and two other neighbours followed him, one 43 and the other 23 times, in similar succession.

A virgate or yard-land is a bundle of 30 or 40 acres in scattered acre or half-acre strips.

Thus the Winslow virgates were intermixed, and each was a holding of a messuage in the village, and between 30 and 40 modern acres of land, not contiguous, but scattered in half-acre pieces all over the common fields. The half-virgate consisted in the same way of a messuage in the village with half as many strips scattered over the same fields. The intermixed ownership complained of in the Inclosure Acts, and surviving in the Hitchin maps, need no longer surprise us.

The normal virgate was of 30 acres.

We know now what a virgate or yard-land was. We shall find that its normal area was 30 scattered acres—10 acres in each of the three fields. Using again the map of the Hitchin fields, we may mark upon it the contents of a normal virgate by way of impressing upon the eye the nature of this peculiar holding. It must always be remembered that when [p028] the fields were divided into half-acres instead of acres the number of its scattered strips would be doubled.

Two-thirds of the land held in virgates and half-virgates.

It is not possible to ascertain from a mere record of the changes in the holdings precisely how many of these virgates and half-virgates there were in the manor of Winslow. But in the year of the Black Death it may be assumed that the mortality fell with something like equality upon all classes of tenants, 153 changes of holding from the death of previous holders being recorded in 1348–9. Out of these, 28 were holders of virgates and 14 of half-virgates. The virgates and half-virgates of these holders who died of the Black Death must have included more than 2,400 half-acre strips in the open fields; and adding up the contents of the other holdings of tenants who died that year, it would seem that about two-thirds of the whole area which changed hands in that memorable year were included in the virgates and half-virgates. It may be inferred, therefore, that about the same proportion of the whole area of the open fields must have been included in the virgates and half-virgates whose holders died or survived. Clearly, then, the mass of the land in the open fields was held in these two grades of holdings.[21]

They are held in villenage.

Thus much, then, may be learned from the Winslow manor rolls with respect to the virgates and half-virgates. Not only were they holdings each composed of a messuage and the scattered strips belonging to it in the open fields, not only did they form the [p029] two chief grades of holdings with equality in each grade, but also they were all alike held in villenage. They were not holdings of the lord's demesne land, but of the land in villenage. The holders, besides their virgates and half-virgates, often, it is true, held other land, part of the lord's demesne, as free tenants at an annual rent. But such free holdings were no part of their virgates. The virgates and half-virgates were held in villenage. Of these they were not free tenants, but villein tenants. So also the lesser cottage holdings were held in villenage. But the holders of virgates and half-virgates were the highest grades in the hierarchy of tenants in villenage. They not only held the greater part of the open fields in their bundles of scattered strips; the rolls also show that they almost exclusively served as jurors in the 'Halimot,' or Court of the Manor; though occasionally one or two other villein tenants with smaller holdings were associated with them.[22]

The villein holders, 'villani,' are 'adscripti glebæ.'

It is possible that just as villein tenants could hold in free tenure land in the lord's demesne, so free men might hold virgates in villenage and retain their personal freedom; but those at all events of the holders of virgates who were nativi, i.e. villeins by descent were adscripti glebæ. They held their holdings at the will of the lord, and were bound to perform the customary services. If they allowed their houses to [p030] get out of repair they were guilty of waste, and the jury were fined if they did not report the neglect.[23]

Yet the entries in the rolls prove that their holdings were hereditary, passing by the lord's re-grant from father to son by the rule of primogeniture, on payment of the customary heriot or relief.[24]

Widows had dower, and widowers were tenants by the curtesy, as in the case of freeholds. The holders in villenage, even 'nativi,' could make wills which were proved before the cellerarius of the abbey, and had done so time out of mind, while the wills of free tenants were proved at St. Albans.[25]

These things all look like a certain recognition of freedom within the restraints of the villenage. But if the 'nativi' married without the lord's consent they were fined. If they sold an ox without licence, again they were fined. If they left the manor without licence they were searched for, and if found arrested as fugitives and brought back.[26] If their daughters lost their chastity[27] the lord again had his fine. And [p031] in all these cases the whole jury were fined if they neglected to report the delinquent.

But their serfdom is breaking up.

Their services were no doubt limited and defined by custom, and so late as the reign of Edward III. mostly discharged by a money payment in lieu of the actual service, but they rested nominally on the will of the lord; and sometimes to test their obedience the relaxed rein was tightened, and trivial orders were issued, such as that they should go off to the woods and pick nuts for the lord.[28] In case of dispute a court was held under the great ash tree at St. Albans, and the decision of this superior manorial court at head-quarters settled the question.[29] This villenage of the Winslow tenants was, no doubt, in the fourteenth century mild in its character; the silent working of economic laws was breaking it up; but it was villenage still. It was serfdom, but it was serfdom in the last stages of its relaxation and decay.

Already, any harking back by the landlord upon older and stricter rules—any return, for instance, to the actual services instead of the money payments in lieu of them—produced resentment and insubordination amongst the villein tenants. Murmurs were already heard in the courts, and symptoms appear on the rolls in the year following the Black Death which clearly indicate the presence of smouldering embers very likely soon to burst into flame.[30] The rebellion under Wat Tyler was, in fact, not far ahead. But in this inquiry we are looking backwards into earlier times, in order to learn what English serfdom was when fully in force, rather than in the days when [p032] it was breaking up. In the meantime the practical knowledge gained from the Winslow manor rolls, how a community in serfdom fitted as it were into the open field system as into an outer shell, and still more the knowledge of what the virgate and half-virgate in villenage really were, drawn from actual examples, may prove a useful key in unlocking still further the riddle of earlier serfdom.

III. THE HUNDRED ROLLS OF EDWARD I., EMBRACING FIVE MIDLAND COUNTIES.

The facts thus learned from the Winslow Manor Rolls throw just that flash of light upon the otherwise dry details of the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. which is needful to make the picture they give in detail of the manors in parts of five midland counties vivid and clear.

Surveys of manors in five counties, A.D. 1279.

English economic history is rich in its materials; and of all the records of the economic condition of England, next to the Domesday Survey, the Hundred Rolls are the most important and remarkable. The second volume, in its 1,000 folio pages, contains inter alia a true and clear description of every manor in a large district, embracing portions of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire, in about the year 1279; and as in most cases the name of every tenant is recorded, with the character of his holding and a description of his payments and services, the picture of each manor has almost the detail and accuracy of a photograph. Turning over its pages, the mass of detail may at first appear confused and bewildering, and in one sense it is so, because [p033] it relates to a system which, however simple when fully at work, becomes broken up and entangled whilst in process of disintegration. But the key to it once mastered, the original features of the system may still be recognised. Even the broken pieces fall into their proper places, and the general economic outlines of the several manors stand out sharply and clearly marked.

They are of the Winslow type.

Speaking generally, in its chief economic features every manor is alike, as in the record itself one common form of survey serves for them all. Hence the Winslow example gives the requisite key to the whole. Bringing to the record the knowledge of how the open fields were everywhere divided into furlongs, and acre or half-acre strips, and that virgates and half-virgates were equal bundles of strips scattered all over the fields, the description of the manors in the Hundred Rolls becomes perfectly intelligible.

In the first place the manor consists, as in the Winslow example, of two parts—the land in demesne and the land in villenage.

The land in demesne consists of the home farm, and portions, irregular in area, let out from it to what are called free tenants (libere tenentes), some of them being nevertheless villeins holding their portions of the demesne lands in free tenure at certain rents in addition to their regular holdings.

Virgates and half-virgates.

The land in villenage, as in the Winslow manor, is held mostly in virgates and half-virgates, and below these cottiers hold smaller holdings, also in villenage.

In describing the tenants in villenage there is first a statement that A. B. holds a virgate in villenage at such and such payments and services, which are often [p034] very minutely described. The money value of each service and the total value of them all is in many cases also carefully given. This description of the holding and services of A. B. is then followed by a list of persons who also each hold a virgate at the same services as A. B.

Secondly, there is a similar statement in detail that C. D. holds a half-virgate in villenage, and that such and such are his payments and services, followed by a similar list of persons who also each hold a half-virgate at the same services as C. D.

Cottier tenants.

Then follows a list of the little cottier tenants, and their holdings and services. Amongst some of these cottage holdings there is equality, some are irregular, and some consist of a cottage and nothing else.

These holdings are all in villenage, but, as before mentioned, the names of the villein tenants often occur again in the list of free tenants (libere tenentes) of portions of the lord's demesne or of recently reclaimed land (terra assarta).

This may be taken as a fair description of the common type of manor throughout the Hundred Rolls, with local variations.

With exceptional variations the manors are all of one type.

The chief of these is that in many places in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire the holdings of the villani, instead of being described as virgates and half-virgates, are described by their acreage. There are so many holders of 30, 20, 15, 10, or other number of acres each. They are not the less in grades, with equality in each grade, but the holdings bear no distinctive name.

There is also in these counties a class of tenants, partly above the villani, called sochemanni, which we [p035] shall find again when we reach the Domesday Survey. But upon exceptional local circumstances it is not needful to dwell here.

The fact is, then, that in the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. there is disclosed over the much wider area of five midland counties almost precisely the same state of things as that which existed in the manor of Winslow late in the reign of Edward III. That manor was under the ecclesiastical lordship of an abbey, but here in the Hundred Rolls the same state of things exists under all kinds of ownership. Manors of the king or the nobility, of abbeys, and of private and lesser landowners, are all substantially alike. In all there is the division of the manor into demesne land and land in villenage. In all the mass of the land in villenage is held in the grades of holdings mostly called virgates and half-virgates, with equality in each grade both as to the holding and the services. In all alike are found the smaller cottage holdings, also in villenage; and lastly, in all alike there are the free tenants of larger or smaller portions of the demesne land.

The open field system is the shell of serfdom.

If the picture of a manor and its open fields and virgates or yard-lands in villenage—i.e. both of the shell and of the community in serfdom inhabiting the shell—drawn in detail from the single Winslow example, has thrown light upon the Hundred Rolls, these latter, embracing hundreds of manors in the midland counties of England, give the picture a typical value, proving that it is true, not for one manor only, but, speaking generally, for all the manors of central England.

They also give additional information on the relation [p036] of the holdings to the hide, and reveal more clearly than the Winslow manor rolls the nature of the serfdom under which the villein tenants held their virgates. Before passing from the Hundred Rolls it will be worth while to examine the new facts they give us, and to devote a section to an examination of the services.

IV. THE HUNDRED ROLLS (continued)—RELATION OF THE VIRGATE TO THE HIDE AND CARUCATE.

Before passing to the villein services described in the Hundred Rolls, evidence may be cited from them showing the relation of the virgate or yard-land—which is now known to be the normal holding of the normal tenant in villenage—to the hide and carucate. If to the knowledge of what a virgate was, can be added an equally clear understanding of what a hide was, another valuable step will be gained.

In the rolls for Huntingdonshire a series of entries occurs, describing, contrary to the usual practice of the compilers, the number of acres in a virgate, and the number of virgates in a hide, in several manors.

These entries are given below,[31] and they show clearly—

(1) That the bundle of scattered strips called a virgate did not always contain the same number of acres.

(2) That the hide did not always contain the same number of virgates.

But at the same time it is evident that the hide in [p037] Huntingdonshire most often contained 120 acres or thereabouts. It did so in twelve cases out of nineteen. In one case it contained the double of 120, i.e. 240 acres. In six cases only the contents varied irregularly from the normal amount.

The normal hide four virgates or 120 acres; the double hide of 240 acres: but there are local variations.

Taking the normal hides of 120 acres, five of them were made up of four virgates of thirty acres each, which we may take to have been normal virgates. In one case there were eight virgates of fifteen acres each in the hide. In other places these probably would have been called half-virgates, as at Winslow.

There were occasionally five virgates and sometimes six virgates in the hide, and the fact of these variations will be found to have a meaning hereafter; but in the meantime we may gather from the instances given in the Hundred Rolls for Huntingdonshire, that the normal hide consisted as a rule of four virgates of about thirty acres each. The really important [p038] consequence resulting from this is the recognition of the fact that as the virgate was a bundle of so many scattered strips in the open fields, the hide, so far as it consisted of actual virgates in villenage, was also a bundle—a compound and fourfold bundle—of scattered strips in the open fields.

The ancient hidage or assessment of taxation.

Whilst, however, marking this relation of the virgate to the hide, regarded as actual holdings in villenage, it is necessary to observe also that throughout the Hundred Rolls the assessed value of the manors is generally stated in hides and virgates; and that, in the estimate thus given of the hidage of a manor as a whole, the demesne land as well as the land in villenage is taken into account. In this case the hide and virgate are used as measures of assessment, and it does not follow that all land that was measured or estimated by the hide and virgate was actually divided up by balks into acres, although the demesne land itself was in fact, as we have seen, often in the open fields, and intermixed with the strips in villenage. Distinction must therefore be made between the hide and virgate as actual holdings and the hide and virgate as customary land measures, used for recording the assessed values or the extent of manors, just as in the case of the acre.

The virgate and the hide were probably, like the acre, actual holdings before they were adopted as abstract land measures. It may be even possible to learn or to guess what fact made a particular number of acres the most convenient holding.

The scutage.

In the Hundred Rolls for Oxfordshire there is frequent reference to the payment of the tax called scutage. The normal amount of this is assumed [p039] to be 40s. for each knight's fee, or scutum. And it appears that the knight's fee was assumed to contain four normal hides. There is an entry, 'One hide gives scutage for a fourth part of one scutum.' And as four virgates went usually to each hide, so each virgate should contribute 116 of a scutum. There are several entries which state that when the scutage is 40s. each virgate pays 2s. 6d., which is 1 16 of 40s.[32]

Connexion between acreage of holdings and the coinage.

And these figures seem to lead one step further, and to connect the normal acreage of the hide of 120A., and of the virgate of 30A., with the scutage of 40s. per knight's fee; for when these normal acreages were adhered to in practice the assessment would be one penny per acre, and the double hide of 240 acres would pay one pound. In other words, in choosing the acreage of the standard hide and virgate, a number of acres was probably assumed, corresponding with the monetary system, so that the number of pence in the 'scutum' should correspond with the number of acres assessed to its payment. We shall find this correspondence of acreage with the coinage by no means confined to this single instance.

But there remains the question, why the acreage in the virgate and hide as actual holdings, and the [p040] number of virgates in the hide, were not constant. Their actual contents and relations were evidently ruled by some other reason than the number of pence in a pound.

Carucate, or land of a plough team, used instead of the hide for later taxation,