42 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



the best assurance that there were other similar holdings in the 

 township, and that the acres of all were arranged in the fields 

 much as were the acres about which we are informed. There 

 were, to be sure, unrepresentative virgates.^ Yet when one con- 

 siders how many virgate and bovate descriptions were cast in the 

 same pattern, and that pattern perfectly indicative of the field 

 system of the township, the significance of the copyhold virgate 

 terrier is appreciated. While a single terrier may thus go far to 

 establish the existence of the two- and three-field system, more 

 than the terrier of one virgate is needed to disprove its existence. 

 The virgate in question may have been exceptional. Only by 

 the testimony of several irregular virgates from the same region, 

 and preferably from the same township, can it be made clear that 

 the two- and three-field system was non-existent there. Upon 

 this principle several of the following chapters have been written. 

 In the earlier evidence, however, it seldom happens that we 

 get descriptions of virgates, bovates, or the halves of either. 

 Nor are reasonably large holdings of any sort, whether copyhold, 

 leasehold, or freehold, always described. The acres of early 

 terriers and charters were frequently few in number; and we 

 must ask what confidence is to be put in those grants of land 

 which not only omit an estimate by virgates or bovates, but in 

 addition convey not more than three or four acres ? The answer 

 brings us to a fifth characteristic of the two- and three-field sys- 

 tem which at this point is more or less decisive. We perceive, in 

 short, that much depends upon the names of the fields. It will 

 have been noted that the names of the fields in Tudor and 

 Jacobean surveys were simple, being usually taken from those 

 points of the compass toward which the fields lay with respect to 

 the \dllage — north, east, south, or west. Often in a two-field 

 manor they were named from opposite points, although at King- 

 ton the fields were North and West. The fields again might get 

 their names from the topography of the place, and become Upper 



^ For example, the half-virgate of Richard Weller at Handborough, Oxons., that 

 of Robert Sell at Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxons., that of Joanna Syninge at 

 Ash ton Keynes, Wilts, and that of Theron Symes at Welford, Northants. Cf. 

 Appendix I. 



