26 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 



to Midsummer Day ; from July to February, or later, they were 

 open, common pasturage. Sometimes the plots, which varied in 

 size from a half-acre downwards, went with the arable holdings, so 

 that the same man annually received the same portion of meadow. 

 Sometimes the plots were balloted for every year. Each lot was 

 distinguished by a name, such as the cross, crane's foot, or peel, i.e. 

 baker's shovel, which will often explain puzzling field-names. 

 Corresponding marks were thrown into a hat or bag and drawn by 

 a boy. This balloting continued up to the last century in Somerset- 

 shire, and still continues at Yarnton in Oxfordshire. 1 After the 

 hay had been cut and carried, the meadows reverted to common 

 occupation, and were grazed indiscriminately by the live-stock of 

 the village, till they were again fenced off, allotted, and put up 

 for hay. 



On the outskirts of the arable fields nearest to the village lay 

 one or more " hams " or stinted pastures, in which a regulated 

 number of live-stock might graze, and therefore supplying superior 

 feed. Brandersham, Smithsham, Wontnersham, Herdsham, Con- 

 stable's Field, Dog Whipper's Land, Barber's Furlong, Tinker's 

 Field, Sexton's Mead, suggest that sometimes special allotments 

 were made to those who practised trades of such general utility 

 as the stock-brander, the blacksmith, the mole-catcher, the cow- 

 herd, the constable, the barber, the tinker, and the sexton. The 

 dog-whipper's usefulness is less obvious ; but possibly he was 

 employed to prevent the live-stock from being harried by dogs. 

 Even the spiritual wants of the village were sometimes supplied in 

 the same way. Parson's Close and Parson's Acre are not uncommon. 

 It is significant that no schoolmasters seem to have been provided 

 for by allotments of land. 



Besides the open arable fields, the meadows, and the stinted 

 hams, there were the common pastures, fringed by the untilled 

 wastes which were left in their native wildness. These wastes pro- 

 vided fern and heather for litter, bedding, or thatching ; small 

 wood for hurdles ; tree-loppings for winter browse of live-stock ; 

 fuzre and turves for fuel ; larger timber for fencing, implements, 

 and building ; mast, acorns, and other food for the swine. Most 

 of these smaller rights were made the subject of fixed annual pay- 

 ments to the manorial lord ; but the right of cutting fuel was 

 generally attached to the occupation, not only of arable land, but 



1 As described by R. H. Gretton in The Economic Journal for March, 1912. 



