36 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



the first holding groups these by twos, an arrangement that will 

 be found to apply pretty well to most of the other holdings, thus 

 reducing the township to one of practically three fields. In several 

 instances the division of acres was not so exact as that to which 

 we have been accustomed (e. g., 45, 6, 7; 3^, 61, 3); yet, if all 

 the holdings be considered, it will be seen that in only about one- 

 fourth of them was there such inequality of division as to make 

 the existence of a three-field system questionable. The remaining 

 three-fourths reassure us on this point, though Rolleston, too, was 

 something of an outpost, for there were not many three-field 

 townships beyond it to the northwest. 



Typical of the fields of southern Yorkshire is the Jacobean de- 

 scription of Elloughton. Here the holdings were rated in ox- 

 gangs, a single one of which comprised, along with some two acres 

 of meadow, two or three acres in each of the three fields (South- 

 east, Middle, and Milne). The township contained many hold- 

 ings of about this size and character, although the oxgangs some- 

 times accumulated in the hands of one tenant to the number of 

 four or more. 



In southern Durham, Jacobean surveys record several three- 

 field townships, of which Ingleton was one. In none was there 

 a rating by bovates, and in all the tenants held by letters patent 

 rather than by copy. Each holding had its two or three acres of 

 common meadow and a few additional acres of enclosed meadow. 

 Some of the latter may have been abstracted from the common 

 fields; for when enclosed meadow appears in a holding there is 

 also some inequahty in the distribution of arable acres among 

 the fields. Although more remains to be said about this tendency 

 in Durham, the Ingleton acres as they lay in 5 James I had not 

 yet departed far from a three-field arrangement. 



From all of the counties which have thus far furnished illustra- 

 tive surveys of the two- and three-field systems it would be easy 

 to increase the amount of similarly indubitable evidence. There 

 remains, however, one region for which the three-field testimony 

 is relatively slight and for that reason deserving of careful con- 

 sideration. It comprises the counties of Herefordshire and Shrop- 

 shire, the greater part of the old Welsh border. As we shall see 



