EARLY IRREGULAR FIELDS IN THE MIDLANDS I03 



Isle of Wight without serious diminution of tenants.^ Since the 

 copyholders themselves presumably desired such change, the 

 process may be looked upon as a natural one. 



Leaving the irregularities of the south and west, we may now 

 inquire whether similar phenomena were to be found at the end 

 of the sixteenth century within the northern part of the midland 

 area. Most important of the river valleys here are those of the 

 Trent and Humber. Just removed from the banks of the latter 

 river in Yorkshire lies Willerby, where nominally the fields were 

 six, though two were small and another very small. If the two be 

 combined, and the smallest be annexed to any one of the others, 

 we shall have in each holding four nearly equal areas. The 

 combination of the two is further permissible, since it is Toffin- 

 dale, not called a field, which is thus annexed to West field. All 

 the other large areas are designated fields — Lowe field, Kirke- 

 gate field, Langland field — while even the diminutive tract is 

 dubbed Ellerylund field. If this grouping be correct, there was 

 here a four-field arrangement like that characteristic of the plain 

 of the lower Avon. 



Before proceeding up the valley of the Trent we may turn aside 

 for a moment to another Yorkshire township, that of Breighton 

 on the Derwent. Here the Jacobean survey records five fields 

 of importance — Longland, Borne, South, Car, and Hallmore. 

 Sometimes a tenant had acres in three of them, sometimes in 

 four, sometimes in the five, yet without uniform distribution 

 and in accordance with no system which is apparent by tentative 

 grouping. Some tenants had several acres of enclosed land, but 

 the assumption that these had been taken from the fields does 

 not clear up the subject. Although a four-field arrangement is 

 a Httle more plausible than any other, so incongruous at times is 

 the distribution of acres that the kind of system employed must 

 remain in doubt. 



Passing now from the Humber to the Trent, we straightway 

 reach the fertile Isle of Axholme, where lies the township of 



1 One of the first anti-enclosure acts (4 Hen. VII, c. 16) refers to the Isle of 

 Wight as a region suffering from depopulation. Cf. Gay, " Inquisitions of De- 

 population in 1517," p. 232. 



