EARLY HISTORY OF TWO AND THREE FIELDS 55 



two hides can scarcely be referred to a single township of forty 

 hides. Since, however, the agrarian unit within which arable 

 acres were intermixed was the township rather than the com- 

 posite manor, these charters tell us nothing about a usage such 

 as Nasse argues for. To be convincing, he should have pointed 

 to a small number of hides (less than ten) bounded with the 

 boundaries of the township within which they are supposed to 

 have lain. 



Inasmuch as neither he nor Seebohm cites instances of this 

 sort which are not self-explanatory, it does not seem safe, in 

 cases where we cannot compare the boundaries of fractional and 

 entire townships, to infer that the boundaries of small grants 

 were frequently those of townships. Without this inference it 

 is not possible to argue that the general character of Anglo- 

 Saxon charter boundaries goes to prove the early prevalence of 

 intermixed arable acres in England. 



Another aspect of the boundaries, however, better endures 

 examination. This Seebohm pointed out,^ and this Vinogradoff 

 has emphasized.2 They remark that in some enumerations are 

 found words and phrases drawn from the open-field vocabulary, 

 phrases which must naturally have occurred wherever the bound- 

 ary of a township ran for a space along an open arable field. The 

 appearance of these expressions in the description of metae, they 

 argue, goes to prove the existence of arable common fields. 



Prominent among phrases of this kind is forierthe or heafod- 

 aecer.^ It was the term appHed to the long headland upon which 

 the strips of a furlong abutted, and would scarcely have been 

 used in a region not characterized by intermixed strips. Garae- 

 cer, or gore acre, the small irregular triangle in the corners of 

 furlongs, also appears.^ This term was less essentially bound up 

 with an open-field system than was "headland," being applicable 

 to any parcel of land thus shaped; still, it was one of the phrases 

 of the open-field vocabulary, and its use as a landmark may be 

 significant. Relative to Mine, so often found and so strongly 



' Op. cit., p. 107. 



^ English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 278. 



^ For early instances, see Cod. Dip., 437, 1080. * e. g., ibid., 1080. 



