THE TWO- AND THREE-FIELD SYSTEM 25 



and the personal distinction of certain of the freeholders are char- 

 acteristics that will recur. 



The customary tenants, or copyholders, on the contrary, were 

 numerous and their holdings were considerable. Six were pos- 

 sessed each of two virgates or " half-hides," seventeen of one 

 virgate, twelve of one-half virgate, and there were two cottagers, 

 each with three or four acres. Besides the two cotlands, six 

 typical holdings have been transcribed, ^ all showing similar 

 characteristics. To each copyholder was assigned a messuage, a 

 yard, a garden, and sometimes an orchard, together with a few 

 closes held in severalty. At Kington the enclosures were larger 

 than in most townships, comprising in general from five to ten 

 acres. After an account of these, we reach in each case the bulk 

 of the holding. This was arable, and for the virgatarius (the 

 tenant of a virgate) contained about twenty acres. The dimidii 

 hidarii (tenants of two virgates) had some forty acres each, the 

 dimidii virgatarii about ten. The arable of each holding, except 

 the last half-virgate, lay in two fields, usually called the North 

 field and the West field, such being the situation of the two rela- 

 tive to the village.2 Between the two fields the arable of the vir- 

 gates was pretty equally divided (e. g., 10 acres vs. 9I acres) ; in 

 some of the larger holdings, however, the hon's share went to the 

 North field (26I acres vs. 20 acres, 24 acres vs. 19^ acres) .^ The 

 parcels ranged in size from one-fourth acre (perticata) to two 

 acres, most of them being either half-acres or quarter-acres. A 

 virgate comprised from forty to sixty such parcels. Often more 

 than one parcel of a holding lay in the same furlong. The re- 

 currence of furlong names in the various holdings shows inter- 

 mixed ownership. There is in the survey nothing about the 

 shape of the parcels, but it is safe to assume that where several 

 acre and half-acre parcels lay in the same furlong they were long 

 and narrow. 



1 In Appendix I. The first two or three of each size have been selected. 



2 In the first holding East field replaces North field; but, as certain of the 

 furlong names are those of North-field furlongs, the East and North fields can- 

 not have been distinct. 



' The last half-virgater held, along with his half-virgate, some twenty acres of 

 demesne, which lay mainly in the East field. 



