THE TWO- AND THREE-FIELD SYSTEM 43 



and Lower; in a three-field township the third field might be- 

 come Middle field. Other topographical features sometimes 

 gave the hint. At Salford, for example, Wood field was near the 

 wood and Brook field along the stream. Names like these are 

 what may be called the obvious and usual field names. Accord- 

 ingly, if in an early charter we discover two acres in three or four 

 parcels lying in the West field of a township and two other acres 

 similarly subdivided in the East field, the probabiHty is that the 

 grant points to a two-field township. In these cases it is always 

 desirable to find a series of such grants (frequently met with in 

 monastic cartularies), and the evidence is mere or less convinc- 

 ing as the region is otherwise known to be or not to be one of two 

 fields. Testimony of this sort has been noted in Appendix II, 

 and may be accepted for what it is worth. If the field names 

 appear fanciful, the grant either has been omitted, or has been 

 included only because it is in keeping with what is otherwise 

 known about the region. 



Thus far attention has been given only to testimony drawn 

 from descriptions of freeholds or of copyholds (sometimes chang- 

 ing into leaseholds). The third constituent of the manor, the 

 demesne, has not been noticed. It is, in fact, less important 

 than copyholds in helping us determine field systems, since it so 

 often lay without the open fields. Even if it was largely within 

 them it might be irregularly apportioned, as at Salford. If we can 

 be sure, however, that it lay with the tenants' holdings in the 

 open common fields, the even distribution of its arable between 

 two or three fields is as significant a fact as the like distribution 

 of copyholds. Only occasionally do the extents make this point 

 clear. Often they tell us in what field divisions the demesne lay, 

 but frequently these appear to have been numerous. In such cases 

 either the demesne acres were consolidated and the field names 

 refer to large plats, perhaps closes; or, if the acres were not con- 

 sohdated, we have no clue to the relation existing between the 

 numerous areas named and the field system employed. Such 

 non-committal descriptions have to be disregarded. Sometimes 

 in the extents, however, the demesne arable is said to lie equally 

 divided between only two or three fields, and these bear the usual 



