THE TWO- AND THREE-FIELD SYSTEM 39 



assurance that the three-field system extended up to the Welsh 

 border. 



After this marshalling of typical Tudor and Jacobean surveys 

 from several counties, it should be possible to single out the char- 

 acteristic features of the two- and three-field system; for only by 

 the aid of such data, as has been said above, can the earlier and 

 more fragmentary evidence be interpreted. The history of 

 English open fields reaches far back of the sixteenth century, and 

 testimony in regard to this earlier time is at hand in the docu- 

 ments described in the Introduction. A method of interpreting 

 them remains to be sought. In drawing up our list of charac- 

 teristic features we may treat two- and three-field arrangements 

 as a single system that will in due course have to be contrasted 

 with other systems. What, then, is the minimum of information 

 which an early charter, fine, terrier, or extent must supply in 

 order to give assurance that the township to which it refers was 

 cultivated after the manner of Kington or Handborough ? 



First of all, testimony to the existence of two or three large 

 open fields (campi) is essential. If the open-field area was so 

 small that the total amount of it in the tenants' occupation was 

 less than their enclosures, no need existed for the cultivation of 

 the arable in the manner dictated by two- or three-field hus- 

 bandry. In such cases reliance could be put upon the tillage of 

 the enclosures, and irregularities in the distribution of arable acres 

 among the open fields could thus be corrected. In circumstances 

 like these it is possible that the two- and three-field system may 

 once have been existent but its integrity have been in time im- 

 paired. The tenants had perhaps seen fit to change part of their 

 arable to pasture ; and the holdings of certain tenants who thus 

 converted a part of their open arable field have been noted at 

 South Stoke, Ashton Keynes, and Ingleton. Such conversion is 

 always a sign of the decay of the original system. The preceding 

 illustrations have shown that the normal enclosed area in two- or 

 three-field townships seldom exceeded one-third of the arable, and 

 usually was much less. Suspicion will therefore attach to any 

 terrier in which the ratio tends to be reversed and closes incline 

 to predominate over the open-field arable in any holding. 



