EARLY HISTORY OF TWO AND THREE FIELDS 79 



acres among the three with rough equality.^ By i Henry IV a 

 new third field seems to be making its appearance in an interest- 

 ing terrier of the lands which the prior of Bicester had in the 

 open fields of his home manor, Market End. According to 

 the enclosure map of 1758 these fields numbered three.^ In the 

 terrier in question they were also three, but, so far as the prior's 

 lands were concerned, of unequal importance. His acres in the 

 North field numbered 153, in the East field 113, and " in aho 

 campo vocato Langefordfeld " 60.^ To all appearances an old 

 South field was separating into two parts, with as yet no equi- 

 table adjustment of areas. If no positive record survives to 

 assure us that the Bicester fields were once two, no such deficiency 

 attaches to the evidence from Kislingbury, Northamptonshire. 

 Here the fields were East and West, according to what is probably 

 a thirteenth-century charter copied into a fourteenth-century 

 cartulary; but a terrier of 14 Edward III refers to ten acres, 

 of which 1 1 lay in the West field, 3! in the East field, and 4! in 

 the South field.^ As at Bicester, the small apportionment of 

 acres to one of the three fields hints at a recent origin. The same 

 situation is perceptible at Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire. A 

 Dunstable cartulary written in a hand of the time of Edward I 

 records the transfer of a half-virgate, eight of whose acres were 

 in an unnamed field and eight in North field. In the same cartu- 

 lary is entered another grant which refers its acres to North field. 

 West field, and South field.* Since the last area receives only 

 one half-acre parcel in contrast with the greater amounts assigned 

 to the other fields (if, 2^ acres), here too a new field seems to be 

 making its appearance. 



The tendency of two-field townships to change into three-field 

 ones during the late thirteenth or the early fourteenth century is 



1 Appendix II, p. 500. 



2 They were called Home, Middle, and Further. The award is at the Shire Hall, 

 Oxford. 



' White Kennett, Parochial Antiquities attempted in the History of Ambrosden, 

 Burcester, and other adjacent parts in the Counties of Oxford and Bucks (new ed., 

 2 vols., Oxford, 1818), ii. 185-199. It is not certain that Kennett has trans- 

 cribed from his original all the furlongs in the East field. His transcript breaks ofiF 

 abruptly and does not record the total here, as it does elsewhere. 



* Cf. below, Appendix II, pp. 479, 483. * Ibid., pp. 450, 451. 



