48 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



the nature of the two- and three-field system that it would not be 

 altogether incorrect to call it the determining idea of that system. 

 Why divide the arable into two or three (possibly four or six) 

 large unbroken fields ? Convenience would, of course, be served. 

 It was simpler to have the strips which were to be tilled in a par- 

 ticular year gathered within one-half or two-thirds of the arable 

 area than to have them scattered throughout its entire extent. 

 Yet dissemination of strips was by no means abhorrent to the 

 mediaeval peasant mind. What was really gained by keeping 

 the arable furlongs in a compact area was convenience of another 

 sort. It was the possibility of letting the cattle range without 

 hindrance over a large part of the township. Had any furlongs 

 within a large fallow area been subjected to cultivation while the 

 rest of the area was utilized for fallow pasture, it would have 

 been necessary to fence the cultivated portions. Such an incon- 

 venience was obviated by large and simple boundaries, and the 

 easy utilization of the fallow for pasture was what lay behind 

 a system of two or three comprehensive fields. In East Anglia 

 diflferent pasturage provisions deflected the field boundaries, and 

 with them the field system, from the normal type. 



Important as is the relation between common rights of pasture 

 and the two- and three-field system, the records at our disposal 

 seldom enable us to argue from the former to the latter. Since 

 references to common rights of pasture are infrequent even in 

 elaborate sixteenth-century surveys, the less can they be expected 

 in the briefer early documents. It is rather in the direction of 

 disproof that certain items will be of avail. In the East Anglian 

 evidence there are references to pasturage arrangements of a sort 

 not realizable under a two- or three-field system. In consequence 

 of this (and of other circumstances) it will be possible to maintain 

 that the system was not there employed. On the other hand, 

 whenever in the case of two- or three-field townships no informa- 

 tion regarding pasturage rights is to be had and no contradictory 

 indications appear, it may fairly be assumed that the sheep and 

 cattle were each year pastured over a large compact arable field. 



If this characteristic of the two- and three-field system is seldom 

 perceptible in the early documents, such is not the case with the 



