many districts, the farm-work is earlier than in others. . . . Let him who holds such office take heed that he guard and further every work according as is best for it. . . . He ought prudently to consider and diligently to look into all the things that may be for his lord's advantage. . . He must know both the less and the more, both the greater and the less important matters that concern a homestead, both in the farm-yard and on the down, both in wood and in water, both in field and fold, both indoors and out". There follows an enumeration of matters that concern a homestead" so detailed that the writer at length exclaims: "It is toilsome to recount all that he who holds this office ought to think of. . . . Many things are needed for a faithful reeve of a household and for a temperate guardian of men "1.

ministerial

The servants of the manor formed a very large body, Importgenerally drawn from the inhabitants of the village whose ance of the surplus population found employment upon the demesne. body. Their services were rewarded in different ways. Land was often attached to the office of reeve 2, and at other times he

was allowed a partial or even complete remission of the rents and services due from his tenement 3. This was doubtless a common provision, while those permanently employed would receive food and drink and clothing. The importance of this administrative staff in the economic organization of the manor can scarcely be over-estimated 5. "It mediated between lord and subject, between military order and industrial order". It linked up the various estates belonging to the lord and constituted the channel of intercourse between different parts of the country. Within the manor itself it acted as the brain of the community, directing its affairs and administering its concerns; in a word, regulating and controlling all the varied economic activities of mediaeval rural life.

Hitherto we have dealt only with one aspect of the

1 The Gerefa, printed in Liebermann, Gesetze, i. 453-455 (trans. in W Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1910), i. App. B.). 2 Charter Rolls, ii. 194; charter speaking of land pertaining to the office of reeve. 3 E.g. Custumals of Battle Abbey, 27, 54, 66. • Vinogradoff, Villainage, 320; Growth of the Manor, 359. 5 Ibid.

The

agrarian 'shell'.

Stages in

the history of agriculture.

The open field system.

mediaeval rural community, the structure of the manor and the economic rights and obligations of the various classes comprised within it. We have now to speak of the agrarian 'shell' into which the manorial population fitted, the forms and methods of husbandry and the more important features of agricultural organization.

In the history of English agriculture two important stages are clearly marked, and the contrast between them forms the natural starting-point for investigation. The first stage is that of the open field system which lasted throughout the Middle Ages, and survived in some parts of the country to the opening of the nineteenth century. The second stage is that of enclosures which began in the fifteenth century or even earlier 1, and in our own day 2 have completely superseded all other systems of tillage. The history of mediaeval husbandry is therefore the story of the open field system and the passage to the methods of cultivation now in vogue.

The open field system took its name from one of its most striking features, the wide and extensive tracts of arable land which stretched away from the village on every side, and throughout the year or during a great part of it remained open to the trespass of man and beast. In accordance with modern principles of farm-management, land set apart for purposes of tillage is enclosed all the year round by hedges which usually are never removed. But in mediaeval husbandry there was no permanent separation of arable and waste. Between seed-time and harvest, while the corn was growing, the land under crop was protected against trespassing by temporary enclosures rudely constructed to serve an immediate end. Once, however, the harvest was reaped and the corn gathered into the barn, the hedges were removed and the fields then lay open; the village cattle could stray in and graze upon the stubble, and the land was treated as common pasture. The meadow also was only enclosed during part of the year while the hay was growing, 1 Infra, p. 119.

* For some modern survivals of open fields, see G. Slater, The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields (1907), 8; Vict. County Hist. Gloucestershire, ii. 166. The two field system existed at Stogursey in Somersetshire in 1879: R. E. Prothero, English Farming Past and Present (1912), 23.

and when the hay was cut it reverted to the condition of waste. The land of a mediaeval village can thus be regarded as primarily waste, of which portions were temporarily enclosed and ploughed up in order to provide the villagers with corn.

husbandry.

- There were two forms of open field husbandry, extensive Forms of and intensive, and each corresponds to a different phase of open field economic growth; the former to the tribal stage, the latter to the stage of the settled community 1. In the case of extensive cultivation, or as it is sometimes termed 'the co-aration of the waste' or 'wild field-grass' husbandry, there were no permanent arable fields, but every year a different piece of land was tilled and after the removal of the crop was abandoned in favour of other soil. Each year fresh ground was broken up by the plough and then was left to return again into grass. This system of agriculture was natural to primitive races and may still be found among the more backward peoples of the earth. Under the intensive system, on the other hand, the same land remained permanently under cultivation, and instead of an annual change of fields a definite part of the village was retained for arable purposes. It is scarcely possible to determine with certainty when intensive methods of cultivation replaced extensive. Among the ancient Germans described by Caesar and Tacitus the more primitive system was in vogue. When Caesar wrote (c. 50 B.C.) they were still in the pastoral stage and passed their lives in fighting and hunting, though occasionally they sowed a crop and reaped it 2. A century and a half later agriculture had become their main pursuit, but Tacitus expressly tells us that "they change the ploughed fields annually and there is land to spare " 3.

writers.

It has been commonly assumed from these statements Evidence that the agriculture of North Europe at this period was in of ancient a primitive state, but it must be remembered that the social and economic conditions which prevailed among the tribes known to Caesar and Tacitus were exceptional. They are

1 Seebohm, Customary Acres, 102.

Caesar, De Bello Gallico, iv. 1; vi. 22, 23.

* Tacitus, Germania, 26: "Arva per annos mutant, et superest ager."

Archaic survivals.

1

not typical of the tribes from which the invaders of Britain were drawn centuries later, dwelling in remoter parts away from the frontier of the Roman Empire, and with which Caesar and Tacitus do not appear to have come into contact. The growth of a military spirit 1 may very well be the explanation why tillage here was unprogressive, but in any case the evidence of ancient writers must not lead us into hasty inferences as to the condition of agriculture among the peoples of North Europe. Archaeological discovery has brought to light the fact that cereals were cultivated among the Baltic nations as far back as the Stone Age, while among rock-carvings found at Tegneby in Sweden is a representation of a plough, drawn by two oxen, belonging to the Bronze Age2. It is probable, therefore, that the invaders brought with them an advanced system of agriculture, and we can scarcely suppose that they carried on extensive cultivation in England after their settlement. In some districts local conditions may have prompted a recourse to wild field-grass husbandry, but there is an undue tendency to regard as archaic survivals practices which may be quite modern, despite a certain resemblance to primitive usages. In all ages like conditions have suggested like expedients, and where we find examples of extensive culture we need not regard them as proof that the English invaders practised the system in this country. In the eighteenth century, for instance, Arthur Young found traces of it at Ganton and at Boynton in Yorkshire, where the farmers "plough up the turf and sow barley or more often oats, and then leave the soil to gain of itself a new sward" 3.

But the best known example of extensive cultivation is that of Lauder in Berwickshire, where " the arable shifts periodically "4. According to a description written in 1870, "the lands of the burgh consist of . . . Lauder Common, extending to about 1700 acres, which has from all time of which there is any record been possessed thus. A portion

1 Chadwick, Origin of the English Nation, 306; Cambridge Mediaeval History, i. 387. 2 Ibid.

A. Young, Six Months' Tour (1771), ii. 7, 14. Extensive cultivation also survived at Stoford (Wilts) where the land was denchered: Pembroke Surveys, ii. 543. 4 Sir H. S. Maine, Village Communities (1876), 95.

of it has been set off periodically, say once in five or seven years, to be broken up and ploughed during that time, and at the end of that time fixed has been laid down in grass, and grazed along with other lands; when another portion of the common was in the same way broken up and ploughed, and again laid down in grass. The portion of the common so broken up and ploughed at a time has, of recent years, been about 130 acres in extent". It is tempting to see here an archaic survival of primitive agrarian practices, but in all probability it is nothing more than “a striking instance of the old Scottish system of 'out-field' cultivation applied to common lands" 1. A description of the outfield' system is given by Scott in the opening pages of The Monastery: "The part of the Township, properly arable, and kept as such continually under the plough, was called in-field. Here the use of quantities of manure supplied in some degree the exhaustion of the soil, and the feuars [church vassals] raised tolerable oats and bear, usually sowed on alternate ridges, on which the labour of the whole community was bestowed without distinction, the produce being divided after harvest, agreeably to their respective interests. There was, besides, out-field land, from which it was thought possible to extract a crop now and then, after which it was abandoned to the 'skiey influences' until the exhausted powers of vegetation were restored. These out-field spots were selected by any feuar at his own choice 2, amongst the sheep-walks and hills which were always annexed to the Township, to serve as pasturage to the community. The trouble of cultivating these patches of out-field, and the precarious chance that the crop would pay the labour, were considered as giving a right to any feuar, who chose to undertake the adventure, to the produce which might result from it".

cultivation.

It is not difficult to understand the motives which Intensive prompted the adoption of an intensive system of tillage. The alternative form of husbandry is only possible indeed

1 J. H. Romanes, "The Village Economy of Lauder ", in English Hist. Review, xxix. 536, where Scott's description is also mentioned.

At Lauder the system was more organized: ibid. 535.