THE TWO- AND THREE-FIELD SYSTEM 47 



county.^ By this device their somewhat questionable testimony 

 need not be confused with other authority. 



A final characteristic of the two- and three-field system is im- 

 plicit in these statements made by the extents relative to the 

 demesne. This feature is the existence of common rights of 

 pasturage throughout the year over the field which lay fallow, 

 and, when the other field or fields were not under crops, over 

 them as well. The meadows, too, we know, were thrown open 

 after the hay was removed. Only slight traces of these usages 

 appear in the sixteenth-century surveys. At times after each 

 copyhold entry we are told what were the tenant's rights of pas- 

 ture,2 but more often the rights over the arable fields and meadows 

 were assumed to be inherent in the system and were not men- 

 tioned. Pasturage rights in the fell, the marsh, or the moor re- 

 ceived more attention, especially if such waste land had to be 

 stinted; earher legal documents, too, especially cases before the 

 courts and agreements between neighboring lords, tell something 

 about these rights of pasture. All this, however, is of no immedi- 

 ate interest in discriminating between field systems. Practically 

 all townships at an early time had their waste, in which tenants 

 had common of pasture. One influence only the waste had upon 

 the tillage of the arable fields, and this arose from the relative size 

 of the two areas. If in any township the waste was extensive in 

 comparison with the open-field arable, utilization of the latter for 

 pasturage might be a matter of little moment, the former sufficing 

 for the cattle and sheep. In consequence, deviation from a strict 

 two- or three-field system in the cultivation of the arable and in 

 the rotation of crops became relatively easy. This aspect of 

 things will claim attention in the counties of the northwest, 

 where for -the most part the waste did predominate over the 

 arable. It may also have had much to do with the irregularities 

 which we shall discover in the arable fields of townships situated 

 within forest areas.^ 



Though seldom specifically noticed in the manorial documents, 

 the right of pasturage over the arable fallow was so bound up with 



' The phraseology of each extent is noted in the transcripts. 

 2 Cf. Appendix II. ' cf. pp. 84-88, below. 



