EARLY IRREGULAR FIELDS IN THE MIDLANDS 89 



names. ^ Longney, too, had four important fields, but only the 

 number of " sellions " in each is given. ^ Since the areas of these 

 are uncertain and the number of them in each field was by no 

 means the same for different holdings, the four-field character of 

 the township cannot be estabhshed. 



Most field arrangements of low-lying Gloucestershire townships 

 were in the sixteenth century not so simple as those just described. 

 No neat four-field grouping is generally apparent. Less than five 

 miles from Marston Sicca was situated Clapton, a member of the 

 manor of Ham. The copyholds of the survey were rated in vir- 

 gates, but nearly always the fields in which the acres of the 

 virgate lay were surprisingly numerous. Usually as many as six, 

 they might increase to twelve. Fields which appeared in one 

 holding dropped out in another. To Lake field and Lypiatt's 

 field most acres were usually assigned, but either of them was 

 liable to be slighted. There were several common " crofts," 

 Redecroft, Baucroft, Litlecroft, Prestcroft, each shared by several 

 tenants. The township proffers a good illustration of the multi- 

 pHcity of small fields, how grouped and cultivated we do not 

 know. 



Six miles out of Gloucester is Frocester, a township of the plain. 

 About one-half of the area of the customary holdings was en- 

 closed meadow and pasture in i Edward VI.^; the other half 

 lay in eight small fields. South field and West field received 

 most of the tenants' arable acres, but with no systematic divi- 

 sion between them. Neither by joining the smaller fields with 

 them nor by combining the latter apart can one simulate a two- 

 or three-field system. For purposes of cultivation it apparently 

 mattered little in what field or fields a tenant's arable acres lay. 



Near Gloucester, too, was Oxlynch, a tithing of Standish, situ- 

 ated on the slopes of the Cotswolds. In the account of its fields 

 nine are named, though four of them seldom. Of the others, Grete 



1 Exch. K. R., M. B. 39, S. 149, 155. The fields of Admington (Warks.) were 

 Humber, Harberill, Midell furlong, and Nett; of Stanton (Gloucs.), Myddle, South, 

 Honiburne, and North. 



2 Ibid., f. 199. They were named Boinpole, Little, Acra, and Suffilde. 



' 369 acres out of 707. The demesne comprised 607 acres, of which 136 were 

 in open field. 



