LATER HISTORY OF THE MIDLAND SYSTEM II9 



These illustrations may serve to explain how certain town- 

 ships were getting enclosed during the century which preceded 

 parHamentary activity. No other deeds than those just de- 

 scribed are available, but we are not without clue as to what 

 townships made similar changes. The numerous glebe terriers 

 of the seventeenth century/ usually dated between 1634 and 

 1689/ show that certain parishes for which there are no parHa- 

 mentary awards were still open when the terriers were drawn up. 

 Of such there are fourteen instances.^ Unless awards have been 

 lost, the fourteen townships were enclosed by voluntary agree- 

 ment, in most cases probably during the century which elapsed 

 between the date of the terrier and the beginning of parliamentary 

 enclosure. Since the series of glebe terriers is incomplete and 

 gives no information about several townships which are later 

 found enclosed, still other enclosures than these fourteen and the 

 six described above may have been effected in the same way. 



Several of these seventeenth-century terriers, however, picture 

 the glebe as already enclosed, a circumstance which brings us to 

 a consideration of those Oxfordshire townships in which enclosure 

 occurred before 1634. We are here in a realm of conjecture, but 

 a few surmises are permissible. In the first place, it will be 

 remembered that certain of the townships which in the parlia- 

 mentary awards had less than one-fourth of their tillable ground 

 in open field lay in the Chiltern region.* In no Chiltern township 

 was there much open-field arable,^ and some of them we shall 

 be prepared to find without indication of any whatever. Such 

 is the case with eight townships on the summits and eastern 

 slopes of the hills.® These were upland wooded areas, without 



^ Cf. below, p. 134. ^ That for Waterstock is dated 1609. 



* Ardley, Broughton Poggs, Cornwell, Cuxham (still open in 1767), Elsfield, 

 Emmington, Glympton, Hardwick (near Bicester), Kiddington, Newton Purcell, 

 Rousham, Steeple Barton, Waterstock, Wood Eaton. 



* Chakenden, Goring, Ipsden, Rotherfield Greys. 



* Four other townships that extend from the Chiltems well into the plain — 

 Shirburn, South Stoke, Watlington, and Whitchurch — had between one-fourth 

 and one-half of their improved grounds in open field. No other Chiltern town- 

 ship than the eight mentioned had any open field. 



« Bix, Kidmore, Nettlebed, Nufifield, Pishill, Rotherfield Peppard, Swyncombe, 

 Stonor. 



