6 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



families. The hay once cut, the land fell back again 

 into common use and the stock fed over it. Usually, 

 a definite day was fixed on which arable or meadow 

 land became open to all. At Yarnton it was St. 

 Bartholomew's Day, but sometimes it appears that it 

 was Lammas Day, the first day of August of the Old 

 Calendar, the I2th of August of the present. * Lammas 

 land/ a field-name common in the country at the 

 present day, is derived from the custom of throwing 

 open the land, whether arable or grass, on Lammas 

 Day. 



As generations passed the village grew. The central 

 part of the valley would then be roughly plotted out, 

 part of the land becoming the village green for the 

 fowls, ducks and geese, and part a cow common. A 

 rough boundary to the tract of country that went with 

 the village would be marked out, and within that 

 boundary would lie stretches of woodland, into which 

 the villagers would drive their pigs and other stock 

 to feed on beech-mast, acorns and nuts. The tract 

 of land within this boundary would be the 'tun,' 1 and 

 the people, the villagers, would be called the ' tunsmen.' 



Undoubtedly some such development created the 

 communities of East and West Meon and the neigh- 

 bouring valley villages, which are of the clustered form 

 characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon settlements. 



Whilst the people on the land were gathering into 



their little communities and creating their 



tafcenbythe own ^ aws anc ^ customs, the governing 



governing class was organizing the kingdoms as a 



whole ; the features of this organization 



that directly affected village life have now to be con- 



1 See Appendix, p. 163. 



