6o ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



altrinsecus copulata adiaccnt." Clearest was the description at 

 Avon. " acres scattered here and there intermixedly in the 

 common arable field." 



At Upthrop we can see the acres getting intermixed. Two 

 brothers so divided two hides there that in all places the elder 

 had three acres, the younger the fourth. The division would 

 scarcely have been described in this way had it looked to the 

 creation of two compact holdings. Instead of this, we may 

 assume that each plot of the two hides was divided and two 

 holdings of scattered parcels created. 



Only two of the passages suggest what kind of field system was 

 in use, and these Maitland has already quoted. At Cuddingley 

 in Gloucestershire there were thirty acres of "[gejdalland " in the 

 two fields, a pretty clear reference to a two-field system. Some- 

 what more questionable is the other passage. Appended to the 

 grant of a parcel of land within the city of Worcester were sixty 

 acres of arable to the south of " Beferburnan " and sixty to 

 the north. If Beferburnan (Barbourn) was then a hamlet, as it 

 is today, the description would be not unlike many later ones 

 which indicate the presence of two fields by the statement that 

 a certain number of acres lay on one side of a village and the 

 same number on the other side.^ In the charter of 904, however, 

 the name Barbourn may have designated merely a stream. If 

 so, there is no particular significance in the passage, since land 

 divided by a brook may have been consolidated. 



It chances that this Barbourn charter is earlier by fifty years 

 than any other of the list. Indeed, most of our citations date 

 from the second half of the tenth century. If, then, the Bar- 

 bourn reference be excluded, our first reliable charter testimony 

 touching open fields in England dates from these decades. That 

 we have nothing earlier is perhaps due to the comparative rarity 

 of genuine charters before 950, and to the very brief references to 

 boundaries which the genuine ones contain. 



One other feature of the passages quoted is of interest. All 

 refer to townships located within seven counties, and these are 

 counties of the southern midlands. Berkshire, Hampshire, Wilt- 



^ Cf. Appendix II. 



