no ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



enclosure of holdings, abandonment of fallowing, and the em- 

 plo\Tnent of convertible husbandry. Together these innovations 

 bring the subject of field systems into immediate touch with the 

 subject of enclosures, a topic, of course, too comprehensive to 

 be treated adequately except in an independent monograph.^ 

 It can be discussed here only in relation to the linaL transforma- 

 tion of midland open fields and the accompanying improvements 

 in agriculture. 



An understanding of the situation can perhaps best be attained 

 by an examination of typical districts. We should, for example, 

 like to know how the midland system fared in a county where it 

 once prevailed and where open fields longest remained. We 

 should, again, like to know what happened in counties where it 

 once prevailed but where open fields early tended to evince irregu- 

 larities and decay. In order to approach the subject in this 

 manner, it will be advantageous to examine somewhat in detail 

 the later open-field history of Oxfordshire, a county in which 

 open fields long persisted. An accurate picture of the progress 

 of events there will make clear what went on in most of the 

 counties characterized by the two- and three-field system. A 

 proper corrective will then be introduced by an examination of 

 the earlier decline of the system in Herefordshire, a western 

 county tx'pical in this respect. 



An account of the midland system in Oxfordshire between the 

 sixteenth and nineteenth centuries is without doubt best begun 

 by a description of its condition at the time when it disappeared. 

 How long and how extensively, one may ask, did it resist attack, 

 and what innovations had it meanwhile adopted ? Such ques- 

 tions are in a measure answered by the parliamentary enclosure 

 awards, few of which, it will be remembered, are earlier than 

 1755 and few later than 1870. During this century, however, 

 the journals of the commons and the lords are distended with 

 the records of acts authorizing the enclosures which the awards 

 describe. 



These acts have been conveniently catalogued by Slater, who 

 has also constructed maps which indicate roughly the areas 



1 Cf. above, pp. lo-ii. 



