24 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



For these reasons it seems desirable to print in exlenso ex- 

 tracts from two surveys, typical respectively of two-field and 

 three-field townships, and to follow these with pertinent field 

 matter abstracted from other surveys. Such is the content of 

 Appendix I. 



If there was a difference in the antiquity of two-field and three- 

 field townships, no one will doubt that the former were the earlier. 

 Apart from any question of age, however, the simpler system calls 

 logically for prior treatment. In an excellent series of surveys of 

 the Glastonbury manors in Wiltshire we find pictured the condi- 

 tion of several two-field townships as they were in 9 Henry VIII. ^ 

 The descriptions are particularly minute, the location and area 

 of open-field parcels being always stated. The survey of South 

 Damerham, one of the longest, has been printed by R. C. Hoare 

 in his History oj Modern Wiltshire; ^ but so inaccessible is this 

 bulky work that it will not be amiss to transcribe a part of the 

 survey of Kington, another of the Wiltshire manors.^ 



After the introduction, the rubric for metes and bounds, and 

 the description of the demesne, this survey makes note of one 

 of the important features of an old English township. It is the 

 common. That of Kington, called Langley Heath, embraced 

 310 acres, and over it lord and tenants had common of pasture for 

 all cattle throughout the year. In this there was nothing pecu- 

 liar to a two- or a three-field village. Quite apart from the char- 

 acter of its early fields, nearly every township had such a common 

 and the tenants had rights therein. It would have been more 

 pertinent had we been told about pasturage rights over the com- 

 mon fields; but on that point this survey, like many others, is 

 silent. 



The free tenants at Kington were four and most of their hold- 

 ings were small. Only one held a virgate and paid so much as 

 five shilhngs rent. One of them was Malmesbury Abbey and an- 

 other the Prioress of Kington, each answerable for a messuage or 

 two. Similarly John Saunders held in fee a tenement, rendering 

 therefor two geese yearly. The insignificance of the freeholds 



* Harl. MS. 3961. ' Cf. Appendix I, below. 



* (6 vols., London, 1822-44), Api>endix II, pp. 40-64. 



