40 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Closely bound up with this first characteristic of the two- and 

 three-field system is the further one that the arable acres of a hold- 

 ing were divided with approximate equality between the two or 

 three fields. This is unquestionably the fundamental trait of the 

 system under consideration. It depends, of course, upon the fact 

 that a fixed ratio had to be maintained year after year between 

 tilled land and fallow. Under the two-field system the ratio was 

 one to one, under the three-field system two to one. Any de- 

 parture from an equal division of the acres of a holding between 

 fields involved shortage for the tenant during the year in which 

 his largest group of acres lay fallow. Increased abundance the 

 ensuing year could scarcely repair the loss to a peasantry which 

 probably lived close to the margin of subsistence. The difficulty 

 would be greater in a two-field than in a three-field township, 

 since a shortage of acres would there be more frequently and more 

 acutely felt. The approximately equal distribution of the acres 

 of a holding between two or three fields must therefore be em- 

 ployed as a crucial test. A single terrier which evinces it consti- 

 tutes strong testimony to the existence of the system. If, on the 

 other hand, not one but nearly all of the tenant-holdings fail to 

 observe it, the township can scarcely be looked upon as lying in 

 two or three fields. An arrangement of six fields by twos, like 

 that at Rolleston, was only an unimportant modification of the 

 three-field system. 



The phrase " tenant-holdings," which has just been used, needs 

 restricting. As the Kington and Handborough surveys show, 

 and as many other surveys would emphasize if they were to 

 be analyzed in full, freeholds are likely to throw little light 

 upon field systems. At least, this is true with regard to town- 

 ships in which they did not constitute the majority of the holdings. 

 In certain manors, especially in the eastern counties, freeholds 

 assumed such an agrarian importance that they can be relied 

 upon. Elsewhere they were generally small, not largely com- 

 posed of open-field arable, liable to be without messuage, and 

 frequently in the possession of an absentee proprietor, who was 

 often a corporation or a person of importance. For these reasons 

 they have been seldom cited in the preceding abstracts. Nor can 



