2o8 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



enclosed. After explaining that it had been " divided at the 

 greate suite of the Bradfords, who, havinge the moste parte of the 

 towTie in ther hands, wolde not agree with the other tennants in 

 ther ancyent orders but with thretnings overpoUed and trobled 

 the said tennants in th' occupacion of ther grounde," he proceeds 

 to consider measures " that his lordship may have also the said 

 towne planted in the anncyent orders with the same number of 

 tenant cottigers, smithe and cotterells, to have ther groundes 

 severallie enclosed by themselves, wherfor they dyd lye in com- 

 mon, as well to the great strengthe of the towne as comodetie to 

 them all." ^ Thus cautiously were proposals for enclosure ad- 

 vanced in the days of Elizabeth. 



Perhaps the best conception of the earlier condition of North- 

 umberland open fields and of the changes in progress at the end 

 of the sixteenth century can be got from documents relative to 

 Long Houghton. In this township, which lay on the coast and 

 was the property of the duke of Northumberland, a survey was 

 undertaken in 1567 to rectify mistakes made in the rearrange- 

 ment of a few years earlier. The introduction to the survey 

 explains what had been the state of affairs before the rearrange- 

 ment. " The arable lande ... [of Houghton Magna] lyeth for 

 the moste parte nighe [the] sea syde, and is donged with the sea 

 wracke . . . and, because of the greatnes of the said towne, the 

 towne is now dividit in two partes, for that they were xxvii 

 tenants besyde cotteagers, havynge alwayes and in every place 

 every one tenant one rige by [him]sellfe, and so consequentlye, 

 from ryge to ryge, that every tenant had one rige, then the first 

 did begyn to have his a ryge for his lot agayne, and so by rygge 

 and ryge it was in every place devidit amonge them to the great 

 chardge and laboure of everye one of the said tenants: althoughe 

 the same partition did geve to every tenant like quantite of all 

 sortes of lande, yet it was so paynefeule to them and ther cattell 

 that for the moste parte the said tennants did never manure ther 



1 Farther on he notes that "at the late partic[i]on . . . the churche landes nowe 

 in the tennure of Rolland Foster were layed altogether," and that certain crofts 

 contained " xii rigges before the particion of the towne " (History of Northumber- 

 land, i. 351, 353). 



