Two field and three

field systems.

among nomadic or migratory tribes, which are able to wander at will over an unlimited area. In process of time men come inevitably to acquire more settled habits, and the roving instinct is then superseded by a feeling of attachment to their homesteads. Moreover, the growth of population, and the gradual restriction of territory owing to the encroachment of neighbouring tribes, rendered it impossible "to change the ploughed fields every year". The change to settled agriculture would be facilitated by the growing experience of the cultivators, who would find that by means of manuring and the concentration of their efforts on the same piece of land they could greatly improve the quality of its crops.

The adoption of intensive methods of cultivation was necessarily accompanied by new methods of laying out the land. The arable fields of the village were now held in permanent occupation, but it was scarcely possible to cultivate them year after year without affecting the quality of the crops, and impairing the condition of the soil. The land needed periods of rest to recuperate its natural fertility. Accordingly it was divided into large tracts, of which each was cultivated in turn. This gave rise to what are known as the two field and the three field systems, which commonly replaced the one field system, or "whole-year lands"1, where the entire acreage was brought under cultivation at the same moment. Under the two field system the whole arable area was arranged in two fields, and each was tilled one year and lay fallow the next. The field under cultivation was either sown entirely with wheat, or one half of it was sown in autumn with winter corn, wheat or rye, and the other half in the early part of the year with spring crops, barley or oats 2. The field that lay fallow was ploughed twice over at the beginning of summer, though

1 The one field system survived in Norfolk and part of Suffolk: Slater, The English Peasantry, 179.

2 Walter of Henley, Husbandry, 7, 9, 67. Fitzherbert advises that (i.) barley and oats should be sown in March; (ii.) the best time to fallow was the latter end of March and April; (iii.) the second stirring' should be in August and the beginning of September; (iv.) wheat and rye should be sown about Michaelmas: Book of Husbandry (ed. W. Skeat), 23, 25, 39.

apparently in more remote times 1 there was only one stirring' of the fallow. Under the three field system the land was divided into three fields, of which two were cultivated every year, one with winter crops and the other with spring crops, while the third field lay fallow and was ploughed twice. The merit of the three years' rotation of crops was that it produced more crops for the same amount of ploughing. This is shown by Walter of Henley who wrote a treatise on Husbandry in the thirteenth century 2. If 160 acres were ploughed on the two course system, the plough would cover in a single year 240 acres, since the field under crop containing 80 acres was ploughed once, and the other field equal in extent was ploughed twice; but the amount of crop would only be that of 80 acres. If again 180 acres were tilled on a three course system, the plough would still traverse 240 acres, each of the two fields under crop accounting for 60 acres, and the fallow field for 120; but this time the crop would be that of 120 acres. Walter of Henley's programme of cultivation was apparently ideal, rather than an expression of what the plough could actually accomplish in a year. Still it is clear that where the three field system was in vogue, a larger extent of land could be cultivated at no greater cost than was required to cultivate a smaller area on the alternative plan. In like manner, to obtain a fixed return of so many crops, the expense of ploughing was less under the system of three courses than under that of two. On the other hand, it could be argued in favour of the two field system that since the land received more regular fallowing, every other year instead of one in three, the quality of the crops would be better. It is uncertain which system prevailed more generally in England. The three course rotation appears to have been regarded in some places as advanced farming even as late as the fourteenth century, and this would suggest that in earlier times it was less common.

1 C. M. Andrews, The Old English Manor (1892), p. 260.

2 Husbandry, (n. 1).

L

Ultimately it was probably more general, at any rate in the south 1.

Intermixed Whatever the form of open field husbandry, whether the ownership. extensive or the intensive system of cultivation prevailed, the distribution of land among the village community was governed by the same principles of allotment. We are accustomed nowadays to the idea of a ring-fenced farm with a compact area of land lying together in one block, and separated by hawthorn hedges from neighbouring farms. But the mediaeval tenement was composed of small strips scattered in every direction over the open fields and lying intermixed among the other holdings. The whole arable land of the village was parcelled out in a multitude of strips, divided by narrow pieces of unploughed turf, termed balks. The size of the strips varied; some were acre strips, a furlong in length-the drive of the plough before it turned and four rods in width; others were half acre strips, where the length was similar but the width was halved. Each cultivator owned a number of strips, but not in a compact bundle. This practice of splitting up a farm into tiny plots, and dispersing them among the numberless plots of other owners, was the most striking and fundamental feature of the open field system. The large stretches of arable fields, strewn everywhere with countless patches, presented a most chequered and variegated appearance with their mosaic of strips and maze of proprietary claims. The system of intermixed ownership is brought home vividly in the fact that many title-deeds conferring a grant of land give the boundaries of the whole village, the individual enumeration of all the scattered strips being a tedious process. Hence the same boundary might be repeated in two or more title-deeds having reference to entirely different holdings 3.

1 J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices (1866), i. 15, holds that the two field system was the prevailing one. Nasse, Agricultural Community, 57, controverts Rogers' view. Walter of Henley describes the two field system as existing in many places, but evidently regards it as more uncommon than the three field; "and if your lands are divided in two, as in many places": Husbandry, 9.

* Seebohm, Village Community, 2. For the different names of the strips, rigs, selions, dales, stitches, etc., see Prothero, English Farming, 24. 3 Nasse, Agricultural Community, 23 et passim.

The antiquity of the system is shown by a law of Ine: "If ceorls have common meadow or other land divided into strips (gedal-land) to fence and some have fenced their strip, some have not, and [cattle stray in and] eat up their common corn or grass, let those go, who own the gap, and compensate the others who have fenced their strip the damage which may have been done "1. In explanation of this passage, it should be observed that every stripholder was responsible for the fencing of those of his strips which met the common boundary of the open fields.

The origin of the system of intermixed ownership must Its origin. remain conjectural. One theory connects it with the practice of co-operative ploughing which, as will be seen, was an important feature of mediaeval husbandry. The evidence of the ancient laws of Wales 2 is employed to solve what has been called "the riddle of the open field system". They reproduce its familiar traits and show us the system of land distribution actually at work. The plough-team was composed of eight oxen, and all who took part in the ploughing were required to bring either oxen or implements, and entrust them to the care of the ploughman. In return they were awarded a share in the produce, and as the land was tilled it was parcelled out among them. Every day a fresh strip was broken up, for an acre strip represented the amount of land which could be ploughed in a single day; and every day a strip was assigned to the different members of the agricultural group in rotation according to the value of their contribution to the co-tillage. One strip went to the ploughman, another to the driver, another to the owner of the plough irons, and one each to the owners of the oxen. In this way every one who was entitled to some part of the produce received a strip of land as his turn came round. From the evidence of the Welsh Code three conclusions would seem to follow. In the first place the strip-system, however inconvenient it no doubt

1 That the term gedal-land='dole' land, i.e. partible land—arable fields cut up into strips-is shown by Seebohm, Village Community, 110 (n. 2). 2 Ibid. c. iv. sec. 3.

3 Walter of Henley assumes that the ploughing ends each day "a noune": Husbandry, 9.

An

alternative

subsequently became, was due originally to the practice of common ploughing. The strips were scattered because they were allotted piecemeal, one by one, as a result of a daily distribution of the soil. Secondly, the small size of the strip would be accounted for by the fact that it represented the extent of land which the plough covered in one day. Finally, it explains the system of graduated holdings which, as already noticed1, was a distinguishing characteristic of the mediaeval village. The position of the peasant in the economic structure of the mediaeval rural community was made to depend upon his possession of the requisite number of oxen. The crofter, who had no oxen at all, had no strips in the open fields or at best was allowed a few scanty acres in consideration of some slight services. The peasant with a single ox received fifteen acres of land, while the virgater, the villager par excellence who held thirty acres, contributed two oxen to the co-aration.

This explanation of the English system of scattered hypothesis. ownership seems to be untenable. It may be admitted that the scale of graduated holdings appears to correspond to the different parts of the plough-team 2; and the size of the strip was undoubtedly the measure of a day's ploughing. But there is no evidence that in England the ploughing was followed by any distribution of strips 3. Moreover, we find the system in Central Russia where only a single horse goes to the plough. In England again, while the heavy plough drawn by eight oxen was usual on the lord's demesne, yet the villagers themselves for their own holdings commonly employed the small four-oxen plough 5. It is clear also that if the principle underlying the allotment was based upon shares in the plough-team, then the owner of a hide, a hundred and twenty acres which corresponded to a full team, would have been independent of his neighbours' assistance and in possession of a compact and separate holding, instead of a scattered tenement as was actually the case. The virgater,

1 Supra, P. 34.

2

* Vinogradoff, English Society, 282; Villainage, 252.

Andrews, Old English Manor, 162; Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 346 (n. 1).

4 Vinogradoff, Villainage, 253-254.

5 Ibid.