46 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Even when all the specitications just insisted upon are met, and 

 we are told that one-half or one-third of the demesne lay fallow 

 and common throughout the entire year and for this reason was 

 of no value to the lord, there remains an element of doubt. Did 

 the fraction in question lie in one of two or three large fields ? 

 There is no guarantee that such was the case. Even if, as rarely 

 happens, it be said to lie " in communi campo," the distribution 

 may have been irregular throughout the commonable area. We 

 have seen it so at Salford, Bedfordshire, in the sixteenth century, 

 and yet the preceding specitications could probably have been met 

 in a description of the demesne there. For our present purpose, 

 which is the determination of those two- and three-field charac- 

 teristics that will enable us to interpret the early evidence, it is 

 sufficient to accept the following working hypvothesis: If the 

 arable of the demesne be described in an inquisition-extent as 

 lying one-half or one-third fallow each year, with the fallow acres 

 of no value because commonable, this may be taken as evidence 

 that a two- or three-field system was employed in the township, 

 provided that other testimony shows the system to have been 

 characteristic of the region in question; but if other testimony be 

 against the existence of the two- or three-field system in the 

 county or district in which the township lies, the evidence of the 

 extent will have to be weighed against this other testimony and 

 an independent conclusion reached. Such balancing of evidence 

 must be undertaken in examining the field systems of certain 

 counties of the southeast. In those counties in which there can 

 be no doubt about the general prevalence of the two- and three- 

 field system, the phrases of the extents may be quoted without 

 further discussion. They have been extracted from the inquisi- 

 tions post mortem for a period of ten years (7-16 Edward III), 

 certain others have been added, and in Appendix II all have been 

 placed last in the collection of early evidence relative to each 



III). In contrast with this vague phrase the account of six hundred acres at 

 Lidgate in the same county is entirely specific. Two hundred of them " iacent 

 quolibet tertio anno ad warectam et in communi per totum annum et tunc nihil 

 valent "; the remaining four hundred " iace[n]t in communi a tempore asporta- 

 tionis bladorum usque festum Annunciationis beate Marie [i. e., from September 

 till March] " (ibid., F. 41 (19), 9 Edw. III). 



