26 Journal of Af/riciilttu-e. Victoria. [10 Jan., 1918. 



legal and other differences between the Saxon village and the Norman 

 manor, so let us at once try to picture to ourselves what this agricultural 

 unit was like. The system seems to have been the outcome of a very 

 early method of annual re-allotment of arable, which expressed the 

 old sense of kinship, linked with a determination to secure some kind 

 of equality. With its concentration of huts and barns and the close 

 proximity of its arable and pasture, it was a very suitable arrangement 

 for a time when all able-bodied men were liable to be called off for 

 n-urposes of fighting. 



At the head of the village was the lord, with rights and duties 

 pertaining to hi& holding. He would have his manor house of stone, 

 containing at least a hall, a dormitory and a solar. The dairy would 

 be attached to the manor house. There would also be a grange for 

 storing corn, and probably a garden and an orchard. The ground 

 would be ciiltivated right up to the doors of the house, for a park or 

 pleasure-ground is a modern development. The church would probably 

 be far larger than was needful for the religious services of the com- 

 munity ; but it had many uses, besides that of divine service, and in 

 some cases we find it used for storing corn. The village mill would 

 belong to the lord, who would rent it to a miller, and the villagers were 

 compelled to have their corn ground at it. The mud or wooden cottages 

 of the inhabitants would lie along the highway, each with its enclosea 

 croft or close. The arable land lay in open fields, and was worked on 

 what is called the " Two-", or else the " Three-Field " system. Under 

 the latter system the whole of the arable land of the village would be 

 divided into three great fields. On one of these was a crop of wheat, 

 on the second a crop of barley or oats, while the third field lay fallow. 

 Each field was divided into long narrow strips, separated from one 

 another by balks of grass, and the tenants would occupy scattered 

 strips in different parts of these open fields, some holding many separate 

 strips and some only a few. The lord also would have his portion, 

 which he farmed for himself through his bailiff. His was called the 

 "demesne land," and it was sometimes held in strips and sometimes 

 held in severalty. In addition to the three arable fields, there were the 

 meadow for hay, the pasture ground and the waste, and in time an 

 enclosed pasture which was very valuable ; and every man who had 

 strips in the arable had a proportionate share of the hay meadow, 

 and certain rights of pasturage, and (unless they were definitely 

 asisigned to others) over the waste and over the fallow and gleaned land, 

 for the oxen, horses, or sheep required on the arable for work or manure. 



In Tudor times pasture in common was of three kinds: (1) common 

 close, where each man was stinted ; (2) tended common where cattle 

 went before the herdsman, and where stints prevailed; (3) the lord's 

 outwoods, where the lord was not stinted but the tenant was. This 

 " shackage," as it was called, is considered by Professor Conner to be 

 a species of common custom, originating in mutual forbearance as to 

 trespass. 



But this is far in advance of the early village economy. However, 

 as time went on enclosed pasturage increased, and we note such names 

 as " Cow Down," " Sheep Down," " Pig Marsh." These divisions 

 mark the growing importance attached to live-stock. 



These rigjhts over the land were su]:>plemented by common of 

 e&tover and common of turbary, the former being the right of taking 

 wood for repairs and for fuel, and the latter the right of cutting peat 

 for fuel. 



