SELF-SUFFICING FAEMING 5 



and across the ends of, the parallel acre stiips which 

 are represented by the lines. The strips appear under 

 different names. In Scotland they were called ' rigs,' in 

 the north of England generally ' oxgangs,' in West- 

 moreland ' dales,' and their possessors ' dalesmen,' in 

 Cambridgeshire ' balks,' in Somersetshire ' landshires ' or 

 ' raps.' They generally contained an acre, bvit half-acres 

 and even single poles or rods, called ' butts,' are found. 

 Stray odd corners which did not fit in with the parallel 

 arrangement of the shots were called ' crustae,' ' that is, 

 pieces broken off, pightels,^ ' gores,^ fothers,"* and pykes,' 

 because, as Fitzherbert explains, they were ' often brode 

 in the one ende and a sharpe pyke in the other ende.' 

 These strips, thus scattered over the arable fields, were 

 fenced off for the separate use of individuals from seed- 

 time to harvest. On Lammas Day separate use termi- 

 nated and common rights recommenced ; hence the strips 

 were often called Lammas lands. After harvest the hay- 

 ward removed the fences, and the cattle of the community 

 wandered over the fields before the common herdsman. 

 Sometimes each commoner herded his own flock. Richard 

 Hooker, while he held the country living of Drayton 

 Beaucliamp in Buckinghamshire, was found by two of his 

 former pupils, ' like humble and innocent Abel, tending 

 his small allotment of sheep in a common field.' That no 

 occupier might find all his land fallow in the same year, 

 every one had strips in each of the three arable fields. If 



' Registry of Worcester Priory (Camden Society), p. 18a. 

 - A pightel of land. Cf . Cullran, History of Hawsted, p. 77. 

 ' As in Kensington Gore. 

 * Cf. Chaucer (Prologue, 530),— 



' A ploughman, his brothur, 

 That hadde i-lad of dong ful many a fothur,' 

 where the word is generally taken to mean a load. 



