90 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Combe, Lytclcombe, Stony ticld, North field, and Duwhill field, 

 at least three usually appear in each of the holdings, which were 

 rated in fractional virgates. Several times, too, the same three 

 recur together, and the distribution of acres among them is 

 not very unequal. It is, therefore, possible that Oxlynch was a 

 three-field township with two groups of three fields. If so, it 

 was somewhat unusual in a neighborhood given over to two-field 

 and irregular-field arrangements. About one-third of each 

 holding was enclosed. 



In tJie southern part of the county on the edge of the Cots- 

 wolds, neighbor on the east to townships once clearly in two 

 fields,^ lies Horton. A survey of i Edward VI shows the tenants 

 in possession of 980 acres, of which 302, nearly one-third, were 

 enclosed. There is some uncertainty about the number and 

 names of the open fields. Mershe field and Yarlinge field are 

 clear enough, but there is an " Infeld et ahus campus vocatus 

 Ynfeld." Careless spelling may be responsible for the separa- 

 tion of '' Endfeld " from the latter. Whatever the identifications, 

 there is no trace of a three-field arrangement in the virgate 

 holdings, and a two-field one is problematical. Three virgates 

 divide their open field between Yarlinge field and Mershe field, 

 disregarding other fields. If In field be joined with Mershe 

 field and the "' great felde " with Yarlinge field, other virgates 

 can be subdivided according to a two-field system ; but still others 

 cannot, one lying entirely in Mershe field. If Horton had ever 

 been or still in the sixteenth century was a two-field township, it 

 could at least then be convicted of deviations from the norm. 



Three or four miles southwest of Horton and distinctly in the 

 flat plain of the Severn is Yate, surveyed at the same time. The 

 proportions of open field and enclosed land were here exactly 

 reversed, two-thirds of the tenants' acres being enclosed, one- 

 third lying in open field. In consequence there was much greater 

 irregularity in distribution among fields than at Horton. Apart 

 from scattering areas, three fields stood out, West field, North 

 field, and Up field, the last necessarily an east or a south field. 

 Although these names suggest an early three-field arrangement, 



^ E. g., Hawkesbury and Badminton. Cf. Appendix II, pp. 464, 465. 



