THE OPEN ARABLE FIELDS 23 



the serf might occupy land, own cattle, and labour for himself. 

 Thus, out of these various classes, free and unfree, sprang small 

 landowners, tenant farmers, copyholders, 1 and wage-earning 

 labourers. 



Round the village, or " town," in which were gathered the home- 

 steads of the inhabitants, lay the open arable fields, which were 

 cultivated in common by the associated partners. Here were 

 grown the crops which Shakespeare enumerates. These were the 



lands " of Ceres " : 



" thy rich leas 

 " Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas." * 



Here, at harvest time, the yellow of the corn crops alternated with 

 the dark and light greens of beans or peas and the brown of the 

 bare fallows. This cultivated area, which included the driest and 

 soundest of the land, was hedgeless, open, and unenclosed, divided 

 by turf-grown balks into fields two, three, or, rarely, four in 

 number. If the former, one field lay fallow, while the other was 

 under tillage for corn, or beans, or peas. This dual system still 

 prevailed near Gloucester in the nineteenth century, and existed 

 at Stogursey in Somersetshire in 1879. But from the Norman 

 Conquest onward the three-field system was the most prevalent. 

 Down to the middle of the reign of George III. the arable land 

 received the unvarying triennial succession of wheat or rye, of 

 spring crops such as barley, oats, beans, or peas, and of fallow. 



1 The term " copyholder " belongs to a later date. In the thirteenth 

 century, practically all land held in villeinage, or in bondage, was held 

 " according to the custom of the manor " (secundum conauetudinem manerii). 

 The title was the sworn testimony of those who knew the custom. Land 

 was said to be held not only " according to the custom of the manor," but 

 " at the will of the lord " (ad voluntatem domini). By the thirteenth century, 

 however, the will of the lord was no longer arbitrary, but could only be exer- 

 cised according to manorial custom. 



Towards the end of the fourteenth century, another expression was added. 

 Tenants were said to hold land " according to the custom of the manor by 

 a copy of the entry on the court roll " (per copiam rotuli curice). Probably 

 it had been found that, owing to the increased mobility of the rural popula- 

 tion, oral testimony was not always available. Hence it became the practice 

 to enter the incidents of the tenure of customary land on the rolls of the 

 manorial court, and tenants were called copyholders, because the copy of the 

 entry was the evidence of their title. The words " at the will of the lord " 

 were still retained, and it has been suggested (The End of Villainage in England, 

 by T. W. Page, American Economic Association, May, 1900, pp. 84-5) that 

 the use of the words indicated an increased power on the part of the lord to 

 abolish or alter the custom. 



2 Tempest, Act iv. Sc. i. 60-1. 



