CHAPTER IV.

_THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM TRACED IN SAXON TIMES--THE SCATTERING OF THE STRIPS ORIGINATED IN THE METHODS OF CO-ARATION._

I. THE VILLAGE FIELDS UNDER SAXON RULE WERE OPEN FIELDS.

«Traces of the open field in Saxon times.»

We have learned from a long line of evidence, leading backwards to the date of the Domesday Survey, that the community in villenage fitted into the open field system as a snail fits into a shell. Let us now, following the same method, and beginning again with the shell, inquire whether its distinctive features can be traced on English fields in early Saxon times from the date of the Domesday Survey, and of Edward the Confessor, backwards.

And first it will be convenient to find out whether traces can be found of the 'strips,' and the 'furlongs,' 'headlands,' 'linches,' 'gored acres,' 'butts,' and odds and ends of 'no-man's-land,' the remains of which are still to be seen wherever the open fields are unenclosed.

It will be remembered that the strips upon examination were found to be _acres_ laid out for ploughing [p106] on the open fields. They were, in fact, the original actual divisions, from the general dimensions of which the statute acre, with its four roods, was derived.

«In the Saxon translation of the Gospels.»

Bearing this in mind, the Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospels may be quoted in proof that the fields round a Saxon village were open fields, and generally divided into acre strips in the tenth century, just as the vision of _Piers Plowman_ was quoted in proof that it was so in the fourteenth century.

The Saxon translator of the story of the disciples walking through the corn-fields describes them as walking over the '_æceras_.'

Obviously the translator's notion of the corn-fields round a village was that of the open fields of his own country. They were divided into 'acres,' and he who walked over them walked over the 'acres.'

«In Saxon charters.»

But by far the best evidence occurs in the multitudes of charters, from the eighth century downwards, so many of which are contained in the cartularies of the various abbeys, and more than 1,300 of which are collected in Kemble's _Codex Diplomaticus_.

These charters are generally in Latin. They most often relate to the grant of a whole manor or estate with the village upon it. And to the charters is generally added in Saxon a description of the boundaries as known to the inhabitants. These descriptions are in precisely the same form as the description of the boundaries on the Hitchin manor rolls as presented by the homage in 1819.[130]

«In the boundaries.»

The boundary is always described as starting at [p107] some well-known point--perhaps a road or stream--as passing on from it to some other, and so on, from point to point, till the starting-place is reached again. The chance of finding out from these boundaries whether they contained within them open fields lies simply in the possibility that some one or another of the distinctive features of the system may happen to occur at the edge of the estate or township, and so to be mentioned among the links in the chain of objects making up the boundary.

The fact is that this happens very often.

«Example of _Hordwell_.»

By way of example, the boundaries of _Hordwell_ in Hampshire may be taken. They are appended to a charter[131] by which King Edward, the son of King Alfred, gave the estate to the Abbey of Abingdon, and they are as follows:--

_Metæ de Hordwella._

An Swinbroc ærest, thæt up of Swinebroce in on riscslæd, of thæs riscslædes byge foran ongean Hordwylles weg, thæt andlang thæs weges oth hit cymth to Iecenhilde wege, thonne of thæm wege, up on thone ealdan wude weg, thonne of thæn wude waga be eastan Tellesbyrg on ænne garan, thonne of thæm garan on næne garæcer, thæt andlangs thære furh to anum andheafdum to anre forierthe, and sio forierth gæth in to tham lande, thanne on gerihte to tham stane on hricg weg, thanon west on anne goran, andlanges thære furh to anum anheafdum, thanon of dune on fearnhylles slæd, thæt thanon on ane furh an æcer near thæm hlince, thonne on thæt hlinc æt fearnhylles slæde suthewearde, of thæm hlince on anon heafde, forth thær on ane furh, on ane stanræwe, thanon on gerihte on hricgweg thæt thanone on ane garæcer on anon heafde, and se garæcer in on thæt land, thanone andlanges anre furh oth hitcymth to anum byg, thanone of thæm byge forth on ane furh oth hit cymth to anre forierthe, and sio forierth into tham lande, thonne on Icenhilde weg be Tellesburh westan, thanone north ofer Icenhilde weg on sican wylle, thæt hthweres ofer an furlang on gerihte on an ælrbed on hæghylles broces byge, anlang thæs broces oth hit cymth to twam garæcer, and than garæceras in on thæt land, thanon on ane forierthe on anon heafde, thanon on gerihte on readan clif on Swinbroc, thonne andlang thæs broces on thæt riscslæd.

* * * * *

On Swinbroc first, thence up from Swinbroc on to rush-slade, from this rush-slade's corner fore-against Hordwell-way, thence along this way until it comes to the Icknild way, then from these ways upon the old wood-way, then from that wood-way by east Tellesburg to a corner, then from that corner to a _goreacre_, thence along its furrow to the head of a _headland_, and which headland goes into the land, then right on to the stone on ridge way, then on west to a _gore_ along the furrow to its head, then adown to fernhills slade, thence on a furrow in the acre nearer the _lince_, then on that lince at fernhills slade southward from that lince to its head, forward then on a furrow to a stonerow, then right on to the ridge-way, thence thereon to a _goreacre_ at its head, the goreacre being within that land, thence along a furrow till it comes to a corner, thence from that corner forward on a furrow till it comes to a _headland_, which headland is within the land, then on the Ickenild way by Tellesburg west, thence north over the Ickenild way to Sican-well, thence . . . over a _furlong_ right on to an alder-bed at hedgehill's brook corner, along this brook till it comes to two _goreacres_, which goreacres are within that land, thence on a _headland_ to its head, then right on to Redcliffe on Swinbrook, then along this brook on that rush-slade.

In this single instance there is mention of _acres_ or strips, of _gores_ or _gored-acres_, of _headlands_, of _furlongs_, and of _linches_.

«All the marks are found.»

Scores of similar instances might be given from the Abingdon charters, 'Liber de Hyda,' and the 'Codex Diplomaticus,' showing that the boundaries constantly make mention of one or another of the distinctive marks by which the open field system may be recognised.[132] [p109]

«1,000 years ago.»

There can, therefore, be no doubt that the fields of Saxon manors or villages were open fields divided into furlongs and strips, and having their headlands and linches. Even the little odds and ends of '_no mans land_' are incidentally found to have their place in the Saxon open fields 1,000 years ago.

But how far back can these Saxon open fields be traced? The answer is, as far back as the laws of King Ine can be held to reach into the past.

These laws were republished by King Alfred as 'The Dooms of Ine,' who came to the throne in A.D. 688. In their first clause they claim to have been recorded by King Ine with the counsel and teaching of his father _Cenred_, and of _Hedde_, his bishop (who was Bishop of Winchester from A.D. 676 to 705), and of _Eorcenwold_, his bishop (who obtained the see of London in 675); and so, if genuine, they seem to represent what was settled customary law in Wessex during the last half of the seventh century--the century after the conquest of the greater part of Wessex.

In these laws there occurs a section which so clearly refers to open common fields divided into acres, and to common meadows also divided into strips or doles, that it would have been perfectly intelligible and reasonable if it had been included word for word in the record of the customs of the Hitchin manor as regards the three common fields and the green commons and Lammas land:-- [p110]

_Be Ceorles Gærs-tune._[133]

(xlii.) Gif ceorlas gærs-tun hæbben gemænne. oþþe oðer gedál-land to tynanne. ⁊ hæbben sume getyned hiora dæl. sume næbban. ⁊ . . . etten hiora gemænan æceras oþþe gærs, gán þa þonne þe ꝥ geat agan. ⁊ gebete[n] þam oðrum þe hiora dæl getynedne. . . .

_Of a Ceorle's grass-tun (meadow)._

(42) If ceorls have common meadow or other _land divided into strips_[134] to fence, and some have fenced their strip, some have not, and . . . [stray cattle (?)] eat their common acres or grass, let those go who own the gap, and compensate the others who have fenced their strip. . . .

There is here in the smallest possible compass the most complete evidence that in the seventh century the fields of Wessex were common open fields, the arable being divided into _acres_ and the meadows into _doles_[134]; and as the system is incidentally mentioned as a thing existing as a matter of course, it is not likely to have been suddenly or recently introduced. The evidence throws it back, therefore, at least to the earliest period of Saxon rule.

II. THE HOLDINGS WERE COMPOSED OF SCATTERED STRIPS.

«The holdings were _hides_ and _yard-lands_.»

Let us next ask whether there are traces of the _scattered ownership_--the scattering all over the open fields of the strips included in the holdings--which was so essential a characteristic of the system; and, further, whether in tracing it back into early Saxon [p111] times any clue to its original meaning and intention can be found.

First, it may be stated generally that, when the nature and incidents of the holdings are examined hereafter, it will be found that throughout the period of Saxon rule, from the time of Edward the Confessor backward to the date of the laws of King Ine, 300 years earlier, the holdings were mainly the same as those with which we have become familiar, viz. _hides_, _half-hides_, and _yard-lands_, and that, generally speaking, there were no other kinds of holdings the names of which are mentioned.

«Holdings composed of scattered strips.»

That these Saxon hides and yard-lands were composed of scattered strips in the open fields, as they were afterwards, might well be inferred from the mere fact that they bore the same names as those used after the Conquest. It would be strange indeed if the same names at the two dates meant entirely different things--if the virgate or yard-land before the Conquest was a thing wholly different from what it was after it.

But there is other evidence than the mere names of the holdings.

There is a general characteristic of the numerous Saxon charters of all periods, which, when carefully considered, can hardly have any other explanation than the fact that the holdings were composed not of contiguous blocks of land, but of scattered strips.

«The boundaries were of whole manors,»

It is this--that whatever be the subject of the grant made by the charter, _i.e._ whether it be a whole manor or township that is granted, or only some of the holdings in it, the boundaries appended are the boundaries of the _whole_ manor or township. No doubt the royal gifts to the monastic houses generally [p112] did consist of whole manors, and thus the boundaries in most cases naturally were the boundaries of the whole, and could not be otherwise. But it was not always so. Thus, among the Abingdon charters there are two of Edward the Martyr, one of vii. hides (cassatos), in 'Cingestune,' and another of xiii. 'mansas' in 'Cyngestun,' one to the Church of St. Mary at Abingdon, the other to a person named _Ælfstan_;[135] and to both charters are appended _the same boundaries_ in substantially the same words. And these are the boundaries of the _whole township_.[136]

There can hardly be any other explanation of this peculiarity than the fact that the holdings were not blocks of land, the boundaries of which could be easily given, but, in fact, like the hides and virgates after the Conquest, bundles of strips scattered over the open fields, and intermixed with strips belonging to other holdings. Indeed, there is in a charter of King Ethelred (A.D. 982) among the Abingdon series relating to five hides at '_Cheorletun_,' a direct confession of the reason why in this case all boundaries are omitted. Instead of the usual boundaries of the whole township there is the statement that the estate is 'the less distinctly defined by boundaries, _quia jugera altrinsecus copulata adjacent_'--because the acres are intermixed.[137]

«of which they were shares.»

On the hypothesis already suggested that the hides, half-hides, virgates, and bovates were the shares in the results of the ploughing of the village plough [p113] teams--in other words, the number of strips allotted to each holder in respect of the oxen contributed by him to the plough team of eight oxen--it is perfectly natural that in a grant of _some_ only of the holdings the boundaries given should be those of the whole township, viz. of the whole area, an intermixed share in which constituted the holding.

«Other evidence.»

There is another fact, which has, perhaps, never yet been explained, but which is nevertheless perfectly intelligible on the same hypothesis.

It will be remembered that there was observed in the Winslow example of a virgate a certain regular turn or rotation in the order of the strips in the virgates--that John Moldeson's strips almost always came next after the strips of one, and were followed by those of another, particular neighbour. Now this fact strongly suggests that originally the holdings had not always and permanently consisted of the same actual strips, but that once upon a time the strips were perhaps allotted afresh each year in the ploughing according to a certain order of rotation, the turn of the contributor of two oxen coming twice as often as that of the contributor of one ox, and so making the virgate contain twice as many strips as the bovate. This, and this alone, would give the requisite elasticity to the system so as to allow, if necessary, of the admission of new-comers into the village community, and new virgates into the village fields.

So long as the limits of the land were not reached a fresh tenant would rob no one by adding his oxen to the village plough teams, and receiving in regular turn the strips allotted in the ploughing to his oxen. In the working of the system the strips of a new holding [p114] would be intermixed with the others by a perfectly natural process.

Now, that something like this process did actually happen in Saxon times is clear from the way in which the Church was provided for under the Saxon laws.

«The mode in which _tithes_ were taken.»

In the light which is given by the knowledge of what the open field system really was, there is nothing intrinsically impossible even in the alleged but doubtful donation by King Ethelwulf of one-tenth of the whole land of England by one stroke of the pen to the Church. It has been said that he could not do it except on the royal domains without robbing the landowners and their tenants of their holdings. It would be so if the holdings were blocks. But there is nothing impossible in the supposition that a Saxon king should enact a law that every tenth strip ploughed by the common ploughs throughout the villages of England should be devoted to the Church. It would create no confusion or dislocation anywhere. And it would have meant just the same thing if Ethelwulf had enacted that every tenth virgate, or every tenth holding, should be devoted to the Church. For the sum of every tenth strip ploughed by the villagers, when the strips were tied, as it were, together into the bundles called virgates or hides, would amount to every tenth virgate, or hide, as the case might be. Nor would there be anything strange in his freeing the strips thus granted to the Church from all secular services.[138]

The alleged donation may be spurious, the documents relating to it may be forgeries, but there is [p115] nothing impossible or unlikely in the thing itself. And the very fact of the forgery of such a grant is evidence of its intrinsic possibility. And, whatever may be said as to the donation of Ethelwulf, whether it be spurious or not, there are other proofs that something of the kind was afterwards effected.

«Priests often have yard-lands.»

In No. XXV.[139] of the 'Excerptiones' of Archbishop Egbert (A.D. 735–766) it is ordained that 'to every church shall be allotted one complete holding (mansa), and that this shall be free from all but ecclesiastical services.' This was simply putting the priest in the position of a recognised village official, like the _præpositus_ or the _faber_. They held their virgates free of service, and perhaps their strips were ploughed by the common ploughs in return for their services without their contributing oxen to the manorial plough team. The Domesday Survey proves that, in a great number of instances at least, room had in fact been made in the village community for the priest and his _virgate_.[140]

«Tithe taken in acres, _i.e. every tenth strip_.»

The following passages in the Saxon laws also show that for some time, at all events, the tithes were actually taken, not in the shape of every tenth sheaf, but exactly in accordance with the plan suggested by the spurious grant of Ethelwulf, by every tenth strip being set aside for the Church in the ploughing.

In the laws of King Ethelred[141] (A.D. 978–1016) [p116] there is a command that every Christian man shall 'pay his tithe justly, _always as the plough traverses the tenth "æcer."_'

VII. And pite cristenra manna gehpilc. ꝥ he his Drihtene his teoðunge. á spa seo sulh þone teoðan æcer gegá. rihtlice gelǽste. be Godes miltse.[142]

And be it known to every Christian man that he pay to his lord his tithe rightly always _as the plough traverses the tenth acre_, on peril of God's mercy.

Further, in a Latin law of King Ethelred there is the following direction:-

Et præcipimus, ut omnis homo . . . det cyricsceattum, et rectam decimam suam, . . . hoc est, sicut aratrum peragrabit decimam acram.[143]

And we command, that every man . . . give his _churchshot_, and just _tithe_, . . . that is, _as the plough traverses the tenth acre_.

And that this applied to land in villenage as well as to land in demesne is clear from a still earlier law of King Edgar (A.D. 959, 975): 'That every tithe be rendered to the old minster to which the district belongs, and that it be then so paid both from a _thane's in-land and from geneat-land, so as the plough traverses it_.'

1. Dæt syndyon þonne ærest. ꝥ Godes cyrican syn ælces rihtes þyrðe. ⁊ man agífe ælce teoðunge to þam ealdan mynstre þe seo hyrnes to-hyrð. ⁊ ꝥ sy þonne spa gelæst. ægðer ge of þegnes in-lande ge of geneatlande. spa spa hit seo sulh gegange.[144]

1. These then are first: that God's churches be entitled to every right; and that every tithe be rendered to the old minster to which the district belongs; and that it be then so paid, both from a thane's _in-land_, and from _geneat-land_, so _as the plough traverses it_.

«_Acres_ of tithe in Domesday Survey.»

There is very little reference in the Domesday Survey to the churches and their tithes, but there happens to be one entry at least in which there seems [p117] to be a clear reference to this practice of the tithes being taken in actual strips and acres. It relates to the church at _Wallop_, in Hampshire (the place from which the family name of the Earls of Portsmouth is derived), and it states that 'to the church there pertains one hide, also half of the tithes of the manor, also the whole kirkshot. And of the tithes of the villani xlvi. pence and _half of the acres_. There is in addition a little church to which pertain _viii. acres of the tithes_.'[145]

It may be taken then as certain that the holdings in villenage in the open fields of the Saxon 'hams' and 'tuns' were composed, like the virgate of John Moldeson, in the manor of Winslow, centuries afterwards, of strips scattered, one in this furlong and another in that, all over the village fields; and it may be taken as already almost certain that the scattering of the strips was in some way connected with the order in which the strips were allotted in respect of the oxen contributed to the village plough teams.

III. THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM OF CO-ARATION DESCRIBED IN THE ANCIENT LAWS OF WALES.

«Strips taken in an order of rotation,»

The law that every tenth strip as it was traversed by the plough was to be set apart for the tithe is certainly the clearest hint that has yet been discovered of the perhaps annual redistribution of the strips among the holdings in a certain order of rotation, [p118] though it is possible of course that a redistribution being once made, to make room for the acres set apart for the tithe, the same strips might always thereafter be assigned to the tithe and to each particular yard-land year after year without alteration.

«according to the oxen contributed.»

What is still wanted to lift the explanation already offered of the connexion of the grades of holdings in the open fields and the scattering of the strips in each holding, with the team of 8 oxen, out of the region of hypothesis into that of ascertained fact is the discovery if possible somewhere actually at work of the system of common ploughing with eight oxen, and the assignment of the strips in respect of the oxen to their several owners. Were it possible to watch such an example of the actual process going on, there probably would be disclosed by some little detail of its working the reason and method of the scattering of the strips, and of the order of rotation in which they seem to have been allotted.

«The system at work under the ancient laws of Wales.»

Now it happens that such an instance is at hand, affording every opportunity for examination under the most favourable circumstances possible. We find it in the ancient Welsh laws, representing to a large extent ancient Welsh traditions collected and codified in the tenth century, but somewhat modified afterwards, and coming down to us in a text of the fourteenth century. In these laws is much trustworthy evidence from which might be drawn a very graphic picture of the social and economic condition of the unconquered Welsh people, at a time parallel to the centuries of Saxon rule in England. And amongst other things fortunately there is an almost perfect picture of the method of ploughing. Nor is it too [p119] much to say that in this picture we have a key which completely fits the lock, and explains the riddle of the English open field system.

For the ancient Welsh laws describe a simple form of the open field system at an earlier stage than that in which we have yet seen it--at a time, in fact, when it was a living system at work, and everything about it had a present and obvious meaning, and its details were consistent and intelligible.

Let us examine this Welsh evidence.

«The Welsh erws, or acre strips.»

«Divided by turf balks.»

Precisely as the modern statute acre had its origin in the Saxon _æcer_, which was an actual division of the fields, so that the Saxon _æceras_ were the strips divided by balks--the _seliones_--of the open field system; so the modern Welsh word for _acre_ as a quantity of land is '_erw_,' and the same word in its ancient meaning in the Welsh laws was the actual strip in the open fields. This is placed beyond a doubt by the fact that its measurements are carefully given over and over again, and that it was divided from its neighbours by an unploughed balk of turf two furrows wide.[146]

«Measured by a rod.»

The Welsh laws describe the primitive way in which the erw was to be measured. In one province this was to be done by a man holding a rod of a certain length and stretching it on both sides of him to fix the width, while the length is to be a certain multiple of its breadth.[147] In other provinces of Wales the width was to be fixed by a rod equal in length to the [p120] _long yoke_ used in ploughing with four oxen abreast.[148] The erw thus ascertained closely resembled in shape the English strips, though it varied in size in different districts, and was less than the modern acre in its contents.

Next there was, according to the Welsh laws, a certain regulated rotation of ownership in the erws '_as they were traversed by the plough_,' resulting from a well-ordered system of co-operative ploughing. In the _Venedotian_ Code especially are elaborate rules as to the '_cyvar_' or _co-aration_, and these expose the system in its ancient form actually at work, with great vividness of detail.

«Team of eight oxen in the co-aration.»

The chief of these rules are given below,[149] from [p121] which it will be seen that in the co-tillage the team, as in England and Scotland, was assumed to be of eight oxen. And those who join in co-ploughing must bring a proper contribution, whether oxen or plough irons, handing them over during the common ploughing to the charge of the common ploughman and the driver, who together are bound to keep and use everything as well as they would do their own, till, the co-ploughing being done, the owners take their own property away.

«Rotation in 'erws' according to the oxen.»

So the common ploughing was arranged. But how was the produce of the partnership to be divided? This, too, is settled by the law, representing no doubt immemorial custom. The first erw ploughed was to go to the ploughman, the second to the irons, the third to the outside sod ox, the fourth to the outside sward ox, the fifth to the driver, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh to the other six oxen in order of worth; and lastly, the twelfth was the plough erw, for ploughbote, _i.e._ for the maintenance of the woodwork of the plough; and so, it is stated, 'the tie of 12 erws was completed.' Further, [p122] if any dispute should arise between the co-tillers as to the fairness of the ploughing, the common-sense rule was to be followed that the erw which fell to the ploughman should be examined as to the depth, length, and breadth of the furrows and every one's erw must be ploughed equally well.

Here, then, in the Welsh laws is the clearest evidence not only of the division of the common fields by turf balks two furrows wide into the long narrow strips called _erws_, or acres, and roughly corresponding in shape, though not in area, with those on English fields, but also of the very rules and methods by which their size and shape, as well as the order of their ownership, were fixed in Wales.

«It is the method of division of the results of co-tillage.»

And this order in the allotment of the erws turns out to be an ingenious system for equitably dividing year by year the produce of the co-operative ploughing between the contributors to it.

Now, without entering at present into the question of its connexion with the tribal system in Wales, which will require careful consideration hereafter, several interesting and useful flashes of light may be drawn from this glimpse into the methods and rules of the ancient Welsh system of co-operative ploughing.

«The size of the team necessitates co-operation,»

In the first place, ancient Welsh ploughing was evidently not like the classical ploughing of the sunny south, a mere scratching of the ground with a light plough, which one or two horses or oxen could draw. In the Welsh laws a team of eight oxen, as already said, is assumed to be necessary. And hence the necessity of co-operative ploughing. The plough was evidently heavy and the ploughing deep, just as was the case in [p123] the twelfth century, and probably from still earlier to quite modern times in Scotland, where, as we have seen, the plough was of the same heavy kind, and the team of eight or of twelve oxen. And it is curious to observe that the Welsh, like the Scotch oxen in modern times, were driven four abreast, _i.e._ yoked four to a yoke. So that, as already suggested, the plough was aptly described by the monks in their mediæval Latin as a 'caruca,' and the ploughed land as a 'carucate.'

«and the strips go with the oxen.»

But the most interesting point about the ancient Welsh co-operative ploughing was the fact that the key to a share in the produce was the contribution of one or more oxen to the team. He who contributed one ox was entitled to one erw in the twelve. He who contributed two oxen was entitled to two erws. He who contributed a whole yoke of four oxen would receive four erws, while only the _owner_ of the full team of eight oxen could possibly do without the co-operation of others in ploughing. Surely this Welsh evidence satisfactorily verifies the hypothesis already suggested by the term _bovate_, and by the allotment of two oxen as outfit to the yard-land or virgate, and by the taking of tithes in the shape of every tenth strip as it was traversed by the plough, and lastly by the order of rotation in the strips disclosed by the Winslow example.

It explains how the possession of the oxen came to be in Saxon, as probably in still earlier British or Roman times, the key to the position of the holder, and his rank in the hierarchy of the village community. And it points to the Saxon system of hides and yard-lands having possibly sprung naturally out [p124] of pre-existing British or Roman arrangements, rather than as having been a purely Saxon importation.

«Hence the yard-land became a bundle of scattered strips.»

It also suggests a ready explanation of how when the common tillage died out, and the strips included in a hide, yard-land, or virgate, instead of varying with each year's arrangements of the plough teams, became occupied by the villein tenant year after year in permanent possession, there would naturally be left, as a survival of the ancient system, that now meaningless and inconvenient scattering of the strips forming a holding all over the open fields which in modern times so incensed Arthur Young, and made the Enclosure Acts necessary.

«The strip the day's ploughing.»

There is, lastly, another point in which the Welsh laws of co-aration suggest a clue to the reason and origin of a widely spread trait of the open field system. Why were the strips in the open field system uniformly so small? The acre or _erw_ was obviously a furrow-long for the convenience of the ploughing. But what fixed its breadth and its area? This, too, is explained. According to the Welsh laws it was the measure of a _day's co-ploughing_. This is clear from two passages in the laws where it is called a '_cyvar_,' or a 'co-ploughing.'[150] And it would seem that a day's ploughing ended at midday, because in the legal description of a complete ox it is required to plough only to midday.[151] The Gallic word for the acre or strip, '_journel_,' in the Latin of the monks '_jurnalis_,' and [p125] sometimes _diurnalis_,[152] also points to a day's ploughing; while the German word 'morgen' for the same strips in the German open fields still more clearly points to a day's work which ended, like the Welsh 'cyvar,' at noon.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] The boundaries of the charters contained in first two volumes of the Codex Div. are collected in the Appendix to vol. iii. After this they are given with the charters.

[131] _Hist. Monasterii de Abingdon_, vol. i. p. 57.

[132] _Codex Dip._ cclxxii. '_grenan hlinc_,' cccliii. '_hlinces_,' ccclxxvii. 'ealde gare quod indigenæ _nane monnes land_ vocant.' (See also dlxx. '_nane mannes land_'), cccxcix. '_furlang_,' ccccvii. '_forlang_,' '_heued lande_,' ccccxiii. '_furlang_,' '_hlinces_,' ccccxiv. '_mær hlinces_,' ccccxvii. '_forerth akere_,' ccccxviii. '_furlanges_,' ccccxix. and xx. '_foryrthe_,' '_greatan hlinces_,' and so on. Instances are equally numerous in the Abingdon charters and those of the _Liber de Hyda_. For linces, see _Hist. Abingdon_, i. pp. 111, 147, 158, 188, 259, 284, 315, 341, 404. _Liber de Hyda_, pp. 86, 103, 107, 176, 235, 239.

[133] Laws of King Ine. _Ancient Laws, &c., of England_, Thorpe, p. 55.

[134] It will be remembered that Lammas land is divided into strips for the hay crop. In the Winslow Rolls, in the list of strips included in the virgate of John Moldeson were some strips or _doles_ of meadow--hence _dǽl_ and _gedál-land_. That gedal-land = open fields divided into strips, see _Hist. Abingdon_ (p. 304), where there is a charter, A.D. 961, making a grant of '9 mansas' and 'thas nigon hida lieggead on gemang othran _gedal-lande_, feldes gemane and mæda gemane and yrthland gemane.'

[135] Vol. i. pp. 349–352.

[136] So also see _Codex Diplomaticus_, dii. and dxvi., and cccclxvii. and cccxxxv.

[137] Vol. i. p. 384. Compare also the boundaries of Draitune, '_æcer under æcer_,' p. 248. Also the same expression, pp. 350 and 353.

[138] See, with regard to this donation, Kemble's _Saxons in England_, c. x.; and Stubbs' _Const. Hist._ i. pp. 262–71.

[139] Thorpe, p. 328. 'Item--Ut unicuique æcclesiæ vel una mausa integra absque alio servitio adtribuatur, et presbiteri in eis constituti non de decimis, neque de oblationibus fidelium, nec de domibus, neque de atriis vel ortis juxta æcclesiam positis, neque de præscripta mansa, aliquod servitium faciant præter æcclesiasticum; et si aliquid amplius habuerint, inde senioribus suis secundum patriæ morem, debitum servitium impendant.'

[140] See especially the Survey Middlesex, and _supra_ pp. 92–95.

[141] Thorpe, p. 146.

[142] Thorpe, p. 146.

[143] _Ibid._ p. 144. So also in the Laws of Cnut, 'The tenth acre as the plough traverses it.' Thorpe, p. 156.

[144] _Ibid._ p. 111.

[145] _D._ i. 38_b_. Wallope (Hants). 'Ibi æcclesia cui pertinet una hida et medietas decimæ manerii et totum Cirset, et de decima villanorum XLVI. denarii et medietas agrorum.'

'Ibi est adhuc æcclesiola, ad quam pertinent viii. acræ de decima.'

[146] (5) The breadth of a boundary (_fin_) between two trevs, if it be of _land_, is a fathom and a half. . . .

(7) Between two erws, two furrows (_Ancient Laws, &c., of Wales_, p. 373). 'The boundary (tervyn) between two erws, two furrows, and that is called a _balk_ (synach).' (P. 525.)

[147] _Ancient Laws_: _Venedotian Code_, pp. 81 and 90. _Leges Wallicæ_, p. 831.

[148] _Ancient Laws_, p. 263 (_Dimetian Code_); p. 374 (_Gwentian Code_).

[149] _Ancient Laws_, p. 153. (_Venedotian Code._)

XXIV. _Of Co-tillage this treats._

1. Whoever shall engage in co-tillage with another, it is right for them to give surety for performance, and mutually join hands; and, after they have done that, to keep it until the tye be completed: the tye is twelve erws.

2. The measure of the erw, has it not been before set forth?

3. The first erw belongs to the ploughman; the second to the irons; the third to the exterior sod ox; the fourth to the exterior sward ox, lest the yoke should be broken; and the fifth to the driver: and so the erws are appropriated, from best to best, to the oxen, thence onward, unless the yoke be stopped between them, unto the last; and after that the plough erw, which is called the plough-bote cyvar; and that once in the year

* * * * *

10. Every one is to bring his requisites to the ploughing, whether ox, or irons, or other things pertaining to him; and after everything is brought to them, the ploughman and the driver are to keep the whole safely, and use them as well as they would their own.

The driver is to yoke in the oxen carefully, so that they be not too tight, nor too loose; and drive them so as not to break their hearts: and if damage happen to them on that occasion, he is to make it good; or else swear that he used them not worse than his own.

12. The ploughman is not to pay for the oxen, unless they be bruised by him; and if he bruise either one or the whole, let him pay, or exonerate himself. The ploughman is to assist the driver in yoking the oxen; but he is to loosen only the two short-yoked.

13. After the co-tillage shall be completed, every one is to take his requisites with him home.

* * * * *

16. If there should be a dispute about bad tillage between two co-tillers, let the erw of the ploughman be examined as to the depth, length, and breadth of the furrow, and let every one's be completed alike.

* * * * *

28. Whoever shall own the irons is to keep them in order, that the ploughman and driver be not impeded; and they are to have no assistance.

The driver is to furnish the bows of the yokes with wythes; and, if it be a long team, the small rings, and pegs of the bows.

See also _Gwentian Code_, p. 354; and the _Leges Wallice_, p. 801.

[150] _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 150, _Venedotian Code_. The worth of 'winter tilth of a _cyvar_ two legal pence;' and so p. 286, _Dimetian Code_.

P. 153. 'The plough erw, which is called the ploughbot cyvar.'

P. 354, _Gwentian Code_. 'The worth of one day's ploughing is two legal pence.'

[151] _Ancient Laws, &c._, p. 134.

[152] See Du Cange under '_Diurnalis_,' who quotes a passage of A.D. 704.

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