1 6 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



In the following chapters the plan has been to seek first the 

 characteristics of the field system of a region in those descrip- 

 tions which, though relatively late, are most nearly complete. 

 Such are the enclosure awards and maps of the eighteenth and 

 nineteenth centuries, and particularly the surveys of Tudor and 

 Stuart times. Earlier evidence is then adduced to discover 

 whether the thirteenth-century situation was a protot>pe of that 

 of the eighteenth century, or whether there had been change. 

 Before the thirteenth century we shall be on conjectural ground, 

 but some guesses may be hazarded. 



This method of trying to ascertain early conditions largely 

 through the use of late evidence is not without danger, and from 

 its ill effects neither Seebohm's nor Meitzen's works are free. 

 Yet there seems to be no other way of approaching clearly the 

 subject in hand, while it is often only by the aid of late survivals 

 that the earlier phenomena can be interpreted at all. The method 

 is therefore adopted with full consciousness of its shortcomings, 

 particularly of the restriction which demands that the projection 

 of any situation into the past be accompanied with provisos. In 

 particular we must not forget that the testimony which survives 

 is only a small fraction of what once existed and what would alone 

 insure certainty. As we approach earlier times our account of 

 the situation must tend to become less of an exposition and more 

 of an argument. We can no longer say, " The evidence tells us 

 thus and so "; we are forced to plead, " Since this was true at a 

 later time and the scanty earlier testimony is in accord with it, 

 may not the known facts be projected into the unknown and 

 unrecorded past ? " Constructive argument and fragmentary 

 testimony thus to a large extent become the basis for a description 

 of early agrarian conditions; but the validity of argument and 

 conclusion may at any moment be tested by the reader who has 

 the known facts before him. 



