134 ENGLISH FIELD Sl'STEMS 



and two-course rotations also becomes apparent: the old two- 

 tield towTiships had subdivided their fields and had begun to sow 

 one-half the former fallow field with pulse, i. e., with peas, beans, 

 or vetches. This procedure came to be known as " hitching " 

 the field. A township which remained in two fields practiced 

 little or no " hitching," and even in four-field townships certain 

 poorer lands sometimes " fell without the hitching," i. e., were 

 not sown in the pulse year. The particular rotation (wheat, 

 beans, barley, fallow), always recounted by Young, is thus ex- 

 plained. It was the natural outcome of sowing one-half of the 

 fallow field of a two-field township. 



Thus prepared by Plot's account, we may turn to such descrip- 

 tions of seventeenth-century fields in Oxfordshire as are available. 

 Happily, there exists for this county, as for many others, a series 

 of glebe terriers, a single parish often furnishing two or three 

 such documents.* The dates range from 1601 to 1685, with 

 occasionally a terrier for the sixteenth century and many from 

 the early eighteenth. Most frequently they are dated about 

 1634 or 1685. Since some parishes do not appear and many 

 terriers are not easy to interpret, no complete classification for 

 the county can be attempted. Yet even an incomplete series 

 shows in a general way the field usages most in favor in Stuart 

 days.2 



In fourteen parishes, the glebe is said to have consisted of 

 crofts.^ Six of these lay in the Chiltern region, and several of the 

 others were riverside or residential townships. Many terriers, 

 however, picture the original two or three open fields. 



Seventeen townships retained the two-field system, the field 

 names being for the most part such primitive ones as East and 



 1 The Oxfordshire terriers have been gathered into one volume, now in the 

 Bodleian (Oxfordshire Archdeaconry Papers, i). A second volume contains the 

 Berkshire series. Terriers for other counties are usually to be found in the archives 

 of the diocese within which the county lay. 



* In Appendix II, under " Oxfordshire," the description of the glebe as it lay 

 in two-, three-, or four-field townships is siunmarized. 



' Bix, Caversham, Harpsden, Ibston, Rotherfield Greys, Rotherfield Peppard 

 (all in the Chiltems); Begbrook, Bletchingdon, Broughton (near Banbury, the 

 glebe being enclosed c. 1700), Goddington, Lillingston Lovell, Minster Lovell, 

 Pirton, Over Worton. 



