EARLY HISTORY OF TWO AND THREE FIELDS 65 



ever, states that in i Edward III 150 of the demesne acres lay 

 in Tuffenhull field, 140 in Breshull field, and 125 in Wondersback 

 field, a description which seems indicative of a three-field town- 

 ship.^ 



A similar situation may be perceived in a charter of 1273 

 which transfers the " quartam partem unius virgate terre de 

 Luda que iacet inter agros de Mortuna." ^ This quarter- virgate 

 of Lyde, which lay within the fields of the neighboring hamlet of 

 Morton, had its acres equally divided among three fields: — 



" viii acre sunt in cultura que dicitur parve spire ager [the 

 following re-grant adding] quarum v sunt ultra Waribroc, tres 

 vero citra in cultura que dicitur Preostecroft 



et vii acre sunt in cultura que dicitur West field 



et vii acre sunt in cultura que dicitur Sudfeld quarum iii sunt 

 sub Dodenhulle et iii apud pontem de Ludebroc. " 



lyck good as the more parte therof is and for that the same arable lands, by all 

 marks as the[y] severally lye, every thyrd year lye fallow, we in consyderatyn 

 therof have valued all the same arable lands togethers in grose al on' hole com- 

 munibus annis. . . . There be in severall fylds of the sayd demeains of arable 

 lands ccccxx acres valued communibus annis at iiii li " (Rents, and Survs., Ro. 225, 

 32 Hen. VIII). 



^ John Price, An Historical and Topographical Account of Leominster and its 

 Vicinity (Ludlow, 1795), pp. 151 sq. In the priory's other townships two- or three- 

 field arrangements are not suggested. At Hope the demesne consisted of 150 acres 

 in Hhenhope and 120 in Brounesfield, improbable names for township fields. At 

 Stockton, in the parish of Kimbolton, the fields were three (or five), but the division 

 of acres among them was unequal. In Whitebroc field were 1 25 acres, in the field 

 of Conemers and in Alvedon 192, in the field of Redweye and in Stalling 208. 

 Ivington seems at first glance to have had three fields, since the deriiesne arable 

 comprised 144 acres in West field, 132 in the " field against the Par," and 146 acres 

 in Merrell. It chances, however, that the fields of Ivington are again met with 

 in a fifteenth-century Leominster cartulary, where transfers of six acres and four 

 acres give specific locations (Cott. MS., Domit. A III, ff. 231, 2316). Of the six 

 acres, two lay " in campo qui vocatur le merele," two " iuxta parcum de Ivynton," 

 and two " in campo de Brereley qui dicitur Westefeld " in two parcels. Of the 

 four, two were " in campo qui vocatur le Wortheyn " and two " in campo qui 

 vocatur le Stockyng." The fields of the first grant are those in which, according 

 to the earlier document, the demesne was situated. Hence it is disconcerting to 

 learn that West field is a field of Brierley, an adjacent hamlet. When further we 

 find two new fields appearing in the second grant, the three-field character of 

 Ivington, suggested at first, becomes problematical. 



2 W..W. Capes, Charters and Records of Hereford Cathedral (Hereford, 1908), 



P- 23. 



