INTRODUCTION 1 3 



field systems, since no studies have followed those of Nasse and 

 Seebohm, described above, it has for the most part been assumed 

 that either the two-field or the three-field system, or the two 

 side by side, prevailed from the earhest times. ^ Not the least 

 of the aims of the following discussion, therefore, will be an en- 

 deavor to show that the field systems of England were by no 

 means uniform, — that no fewer than three distinct t3^es arose, 

 presumably corresponding to as many different influences exerted 

 by the peoples who early occupied the country. No examination 

 whatever of primitive units of measurement will here be at- 

 tempted, and types of settlement will receive consideration only 

 in so far as they influenced the size of township fields. The 

 structure of villages, a subject which may yet contribute to the 

 writing of early English history, is worthy of an independent 

 monograph. 



If we ask what data are available for a description of the types 

 of English field systems, we find that these vary from century to 

 century. The meagre references in the charters of the Anglo- 

 Saxon period barely indicate the existence of open arable fields, 

 without telling the form which they assumed. Only from the 

 end of the twelfth century is the evidence, still brief, at all definite 

 on this point. At that time charters and feet of fines begin, 

 though rarely,^ to describe in detail the lands which they transfer 

 by mentioning areas of parcels and locations in fields {canipi) 

 and furlongs (culturae). After the middle of the thirteenth 

 century the fines cease to be specific, thenceforth reciting 

 simply the acres of arable (terra), meadow, and pasture with 

 which they are concerned; the charters continue to give detailed 

 descriptions until the middle of the fourteenth century, when 

 they too for the most part become formal and jejune. 



(Cambridge Antiq. Soc, Octavo Publications, no. xxxvii, Cambridge, 1913), Intro- 

 duction. Cf. below, p. 409. 



1 From this view Meitzen {Siedelung und Agrarwesen, ii. 122) vaguely dissents, 

 on the ground that the type of settlement in Kent and elsewhere was Celtic. Gay 

 (" Inclosures in England," pp. 593-594) suggests that differing forms of agricultural 

 practice characterized England from an early period, and Conner {Common Land 

 and Inclosure, p. 125) mentions the possibility. 



* Perhaps once in a hundred times. 



