INTRODUCTION. 9 



where the water can be easily crossed, the lands belonging to each 

 manor are partly on one side of the village and partly on the other, 

 whereby the occupation of the open fields was rendered more con- 

 venient. But these instances are comparatively few. 



The introduction of the ancient common-field system of agricul- 

 ture, under which the open fields were the common fields the arable 

 land of a village community, and were practically the same in their 

 general features throughout the country, seems to have been very 

 Blow and gradual. The dispersed situation, and smallness of the 

 strips or bundles of land indicating that the occupiers began tilling 

 with a single acre, being one day's work for a plough, or, perhaps, 

 only half-an-acre each. * But as a want of corn increased they 

 gradually enlarged their tillage, until they had cultivated all that 

 was required for that purpose. Those parts of the lands which 

 were not fit for the plough or were at a distance from home, being 

 left in a constant state of commonage, but by mutual consent the 

 cattle were kept out of the cultivated parts till the harvest was 

 finished. By the same kind of mutual agreement, they shut up, 

 and in some cases inclosed, such parts of their common pastures as 

 were most proper to mow, dividing them into certain specific 

 quantities, either by land mark or by lot, and suffering the common 

 herd of cattle to feed them again, from the time the hay was 

 carried off till they were " hained " t or laid up for a new crop. 

 These mutual arrangements, originally founded in necessity, 

 became, when approved by the lords, and observed for a lengthy 

 time by the tenants, what is called " Customs of Manors," and 

 constituted the very essence of the " Court Baron or Manorial 



The acre was usually considered 40 poles long and 4 rods wide, or a 

 furlong or furrow long in length. The furlong cannot, however, be taken as a 

 fixed measure of area. It was often used for an allotment or section of an 

 open or comiuonable piece of land held in severally, whatever the dimensions. 

 Nor must it be confounded with a " ferling" of land, which in modern court 

 rolls has generally become a "farthing" land. In fact, the acre, although a 

 term now in use, and its extent definitely settled by statute, had not formerly 

 any certain limits, although there was a general and commonly received idea 

 as to its proper size, but as the virgate or yerde both varied as to the number 

 of acres they contained, so did the acre itself vary, much in the same sort of 

 way as a foot did, until an average was agreed upon and definitely settled. 



+ In the interesting case of Uobba v the Corporation of Newbury heard 

 before the Recorder, in February, 1888, in which the writer was the principal 

 witness, he explained to the Court that the word "hayned," or "hained, ia 

 an old English term signifying to lay in ground for hay by the removal of the 

 common herd of cattle from pasture land, and so usea in the ancient records 

 of the Court Baron, which, with the original charter of Queen Elizabeth were 

 produced. It is satisfactory to add that the rights of the townspeople were 

 maintained by the evidence these old documents afforded. 



