EARLY HISTORY OF TWO AND THREE FIELDS 5 I 



grants of land first become specific and descriptive, we have 

 acceptable information; but between the Conquest and the reign 

 of Richard I the charters disdain field detail. So, too, for 

 the most part do those of the Anglo-Saxon period. Since it is 

 very desirable, however, to have some conception about field 

 arrangements at this time, fragmentary evidence may well be 

 attended to. 



The testimony of the charters and laws of Anglo-Saxon England 

 relative to open arable fields has been noticed by Nasse 

 and Seebohm.i These writers point out that certain suggestive 

 phrases and a few definite statements estabhsh the existence of 

 common arable fields in England long before the Conquest; but 

 neither writer adduces any evidence which shows that the system 

 employed was a two- or three-field one.^ 



Since the charters are more remunerative in information than 

 the laws, we may turn first to them. Such pertinent matter as 

 they contain is usually found in the boundaries of the land which 

 they convey. These boundaries, which follow the Latin body 

 of the charter, are nearly always in Anglo-Saxon. Often they 

 are later than the charter itself, but by how much it is seldom 

 possible to determine. Except for a few brief early ones, they 

 date from the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. Since for 

 the most part they bound large parcels of land — the five, ten, 

 or twenty hides conveyed — they often coincide with the bound- 

 aries of a township. Usually, too, they refer to striking features 

 of the landscape — roads, hills, ditches, streams, groves, trees, 

 barrows, and the hke; and in so far as this is the case they give 

 no information relevant to our subject. 



Certain grants, however, were less extensive than a township, 

 and it might be expected that the boundaries of these would 



^ Nasse, Agricultural Community, pp. 18-26; Seebohm, English Village Com- 

 munity, pp. 105-117. 



2 Nasse (op. cit., p. 25) was inclined to see a three-field arrangement in King 

 Eadwig's grant of twenty hides to Abingdon monastery (Kemble, Codex Diplomati- 

 cus, 1 216). The specification runs, " Dissindon 6a landgemaero Saesse burlandes 

 to Abbendune, tSaet is gadertang on freo genamod, Saet is Hengestes ig and Seofo- 

 canwyr^S and Wihtham." Unfortunately for Nasse's interpretation, it turns out 

 that Hinksey and Witham are two townships just west of Oxford. 



