LATER HISTORY OF THE MIDLAND SYSTEM I 53 



this advantage, patent in all the surveys, was realized only in the 

 west suggests that conversion may for some reason have been 

 easier there than in the midlands. 



Thus we are brought back to the conditions described in the 

 preceding chapter. There were disclosed, especially in the forest 

 areas and the river valleys of western England, deviations from 

 the two- and three-field system. Most noticeable of these were 

 such irregularities in field arrangements as made it uncertain 

 whether either a two-course or a three-course rotation of crops 

 was still practiced. If neither was in force, there can have been 

 little reason for maintaining the integrity of the arable fields — 

 unless, indeed, a four-course system was adopted, as happened 

 on the lower Avon. In general in the river valleys, including 

 those of Herefordshire, and near the moors of Somerset, irregular 

 fields, themselves often indicative of progress, must easily have 

 yielded to enclosure. At Frampton Cotterell in Gloucestershire 

 they had done so completely before the days of James I. 



One other feature of Herefordshire fields must have been favor- 

 able to innovations. This was their relatively small size. As 

 has been noticed, a Herefordshire parish usually consisted of 

 several hamlets,^ each with its group of fields in which seldom so 

 many as ten tenants had holdings of any size. Frequently the 

 tenants numbered less than a half-dozen. Obviously the situa- 

 tion in a township of this nature was very different from that 

 existing in a township of Oxfordshire, where there were nearly 

 always more than ten tenants and sometimes as many as 

 thirty. From so large a group consent for enclosure could be 

 got only with difficulty, whereas by the half-dozen Herefordshire 

 tenants it might readily be conceded. If this conjecture be 

 justifiable, the form of settlement which prevailed in the western 

 counties had its influence upon the open-field history of the 

 region. 



^ The parish of Marden is a good illustration. Reference to the modem map 

 shows six constituent hamlets or townships, — Marden, Wisteston, Vern, Venn, 

 Vauld, and Fromanton. The name of the last hamlet is supplied from the Jaco- 

 bean survey, a document which tells us that the manor of Marden comprised also 

 the township of Sutton with its hamlet Freen (cf. above, p 95, n. 4). 



