32 EXGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



west from each of which an example of the two-field system has 

 been drawn, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Dorset. It will be in- 

 structive to parallel the two-field surveys already examined with 

 those picturing three-field arrangements in these last three 

 counties.' 



In southeastern Somerset, where the hills give way to the great 

 plain, lies the large manor of Martock, surveyed in 1-2 Philip 

 and Mary. Four townships were included, Martock, Hurst, Cote, 

 and Bower Henton, and each of the four had its independent 

 group of three fields. Ten of the twenty-nine copyholds at Bower 

 Henton are summarized in Appendix I. Each comprised a mes- 

 suage, a small close, and an amount of enclosed pasture about 

 equal in area to the arable lying in any one of the three fields. 

 Frequently the survey notes that the enclosure of the pasture 

 was recent. Each copyholder had also from four to six acres of 

 common meadow. The remainder of his holding was arable, 

 divided with little variation among the South, East, and West 

 fields. The recurrence of this characteristic, reproduced as it is 

 in the other townships of the manor, fixes the three-field system 

 upon southeastern Somerset. But the manor was somewhat of 

 an outpost, and we shall not find much similar evidence west of 

 Martock. 



Over the county border in Dorset, however, the survey can be 

 matched by a similar one descriptive of Hinton St. Mary in the 

 reign of Elizabeth. Here the enclosures were even more exten- 

 sive than at Bower Henton, and nearly equalled the area of the 

 open field. Some tenants had enclosures only; but most of them 

 continued to have at least half of their acres in the common arable 

 fields, distributed, though not very evenly, between North field, 

 South field, and West field. 



Not dissimilar is the long Jacobean survey of the W^iltshire 

 manor of Ashton Keynes. In it the holdings are estimated in 

 virgates, a circumstance which assures us that they had a long 

 tradition behind them. About one- third of the total copyhold 

 land was enclosed and was largely pasture. Some closes had re- 

 sulted from encroachments upon the arable fields, the holdings of 



^ Copyholds from all the sun'eys about to be cited are tabulated in Appendix I. 



