14 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Of far less value than the charters are the manorial extents. 

 Drawn up in considerable numbers in the late thirteenth and early- 

 fourteenth centuries, and for the most part embedded in inqui- 

 sitions post mortem, these documents do not locate the acres of 

 the tenants' holdings in the fields. Occasionally the demesne 

 arable is so described as to show that it lay in a two-field or a 

 three-tield township, or was consolidated; but more often it is 

 said to lie " in " several culturae, a phrase which leaves us un- 

 certain whether the culturae were open-field furlongs composed of 

 strips or were block-like subdivisions of a consolidated demesne;. 

 At times the extents refer to the manner of tilling the demesne; 

 but the implication of such evidence for the history of field sys- 

 tems is uncertain and the interpretation of it difficult.^ 



More serviceable than the extents are the terriers, which ap- 

 pear in increasing numbers from the fifteenth century to the end 

 of the seventeenth. These detailed descriptions of one or more 

 holdings in a township continue the tradition of the most valua- 

 ble of the fines and charters in tending, like them, to describe 

 freeholds and copyholds rather than demesne. Especially in the 

 seventeenth century are they useful in telHng us whether a town- 

 ship was open or enclosed and, if open, what sort of field system 

 it employed. 



The obvious defect of all the above-mentioned documents lies 

 in the fragmentary nature of the information which they contain: 

 nowhere do they furnish a complete and specific description of 

 the fields of an entire township. Complete descriptions are to be 

 had, it seems, in only three classes of documents. Two of these 

 are late — the enclosure awards of the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 centuries and the tithe maps posterior to 1836. The awards 

 themselves, though dealing with entire townships, often omit 

 much through their indifference to old enclosures, and frequently 

 they contain no more than casual references to the condition of 

 that open field the disappearance of which they record. They 

 are intent upon becoming authorities for the future rather than 

 sources of information about the past. With the tithe maps and 

 accompanying schedules, which also deal with entire townships, 



1 Cf. below, pp. 43-46, 321. 



