2 20 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Two fields are here, but the chronic irregularity of division is 

 also present, especially so far as the lands of Syuuardus and 

 Robert are concerned. Thus the early two-field evidence for 

 the county is hardly more satisfactory than the three-field 

 evidence has proved. 



From all the Northumberland testimony relative to fields only 

 one item points clearly to three-field husbandry. This occurs in 

 an account, written in or about the year 1596, of the expulsion 

 by Robert Delavale, Esq., of the tenants of Hartley and Seaton 

 Delaval, two townships near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. ^ In both, 

 it is stated, each dispossessed tenant had been able to till " 60 

 acres of arable land, 20 in every feild." Such even division of 

 holdings among three fields is something hitherto not met with 

 in the Northumberland evidence, and seems at first sight to con- 

 stitute straightforward and convincing testimony that a three- 

 field system existed in the county. Before this conclusion is 

 admitted, however, the seemingly decisive passage should be 

 more closely examined to see whether it admits of any other 

 interpretation. 



In the first place, the assignment to these townships of hus- 

 bandlands precisely similar in size and divided in precisely the 

 same manner suggests that the writer, whose subject was in no 

 way related to field systems, was mentioning the tenants' hold- 

 ings only incidentally and in a very general manner. Even in 

 the most typical of midland townships the acres of the copyholds 

 were not di\ided with this precision among the fields. If we 

 ask for more specific evidence about the subdivision of a copy- 

 hold at Hartley or at Seaton Delaval, we find that the editor of 

 the county history has been obliged to make inferences in the 

 one terrier of which he gives an account. At Hartley, William 

 Taylor had, it appears, 105 acres which lay in three groups of 

 shots or furlongs. One group was assigned to the South field 

 and one to the North field, but either the third group was not 

 assigned to any field or the attribution is missing through injury 

 to the manuscript.^ Although the editor conjectures that a 

 West field was in question, he gives no reason for his belief, nor 



1 History of Northumberland, ix. 124, 201. ^ Ibid., 122, 



