10 Jan., 1918.] Fanning in EngJand in Earli/ Times. 27 



Professor Gonner distinguishes common " appendant " from 

 common " appurtenant." The former being the right to common on 

 the part of the possessor of a freehold created before the Statute of 

 Quia Eniptores. It was limited to pasture for the animals necessary to 

 plough and manure the soil, was proved by mere possession of such an 

 estate, and would be proportioned to the holding. Common " appur- 

 tenant " consisted of rights attached by grant or prescription to a 

 freehold or coipyhold, including pasture for beasts other than those for 

 ploughing and manure, also estover and turbary, and of this proof 

 might be required. This latter shows that times were changing — new 

 holdings had been erected and a variation of methods of cultivation had 

 arisen, the proportion of arable to stock being no longer constant. 

 Common was no longer regarded merely as a means of maintaining 

 arable land in efficiency, but some part of it existed for immediate 

 profit by pasturage. 



At first common right was a necessary complement to the rural 

 economy, then it became a source of special profit, then by some a 

 system of common was valuable as a means of chance gains. In the 

 nineteenth century the idea of a public interest or right appears. 



To put it shortly, the holding of arable lands gave a right over 

 some part of the yield of other lands, and generally, too, over the lord's 

 waste. Later the poor came to enjoy minor rights of common, and 

 turned out ,pigs and geese, gathered fuel, and even pastured a cow, but 

 these privileges began on sufferance and were really a trespass. 



On some manors the lord exercised the right of feeding sheep over 

 the lands of the tenants during certain seasons of the year, and even 

 of having the tenants' sheep folded on the demesne fields for the sake 

 of the manure. Then in time we find the grantingr of rights over land 

 attached to a house or cottage without aral3le land ; and the next step 

 will be a grant to men who hold no land on the manor, though these 

 might be restricted during hay-time. 



In copyholds we find the right of pasturing beasts other than those 

 used for agriculture, namely, sheep, swine, goats, and geese, in pro- 

 portion to the holding and the capacity of the area, unless a definite 

 iium.ber is mentioned in the document. 



This open field system was usual all over the greater part of England 

 150 years ago, and there are a few survivals even at the present 

 time. Sir J. B. Phear, in the " Transactions of the Devonshire 

 Association " for the year 1889, describes such a field at Braunton. 

 There is found what is called " The Great Field," consisting of about 

 350 acres of level ground made up of small unenclosed plots. 

 There are some sixteen parcels, each divided into strips separated 

 by a balk. Each parcel is marked off by a stone sunk in the ground 

 at the corners. Most of the holdings are small, there being 491 

 strips to about fifty-six owners. Apparently here all the villeins had 

 freed themselves, fo^ their successors are emancipated from all the 

 original " servitudes " and are freeholders. 



Walter of Henley, a farmer and perhaps a bailiff on an estate 

 belonging to Canterbury Cathedral, who wrote in the thirteenth century, 

 shows clearly that the farming at this time was " subsistence " farming, 

 "id only the surplus crops were sold at the local markets or at 

 the annual fairs, after the wants of the village including part payment 

 of labour, had been satisfied. 



Besides the demesne land, there were sometimes estates of free- 

 holders who paid quit-rents to the lord. But most of the land would 



