CELTIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 24 1 



field. It is not merely that the absence of an equal division of 

 the acres of a holding among such fields leads to a distrust of 

 the agrarian significance of the latter, as in Northumberland, but 

 it seems clear that symmetrical fields seldom or never existed. 

 Nor is the infrequent appearance of fields due to paucity of 

 documents; for Cumberland surveys and terriers are not less 

 numerous than those usually available from a midland county. 

 Instead of adopting the midland arrangement, the acres of a 

 holding seem even to have manifested a tendency to concen- 

 trate within one part of the arable area of a township. If we 

 have insufficient evidence to prove that this was usual, its 

 occasional occurrence is none the less contributory to a disbelief 

 in the extension of the midland system to the county. 



Apart from the intractabihty in Cumberland and probably in 

 Northumberland, of the acres of a holding relative to a systematic 

 field arrangement, we have from both counties positive proof of 

 Scottish affiliations. Briefly stated, it is that, in both, portions 

 of the waste were after the Scottish manner temporarily tilled and 

 then allowed to revert to pasture. For Northumberland the 

 evidence of this practice consists of certain descriptive state- 

 ments, for Cumberland of inferences drawn from sixteenth- 

 century surveys. But whether the Scottish division between 

 compact outfield and infield was maintained in Northumberland 

 there is reason to doubt. In Cumberland, on the contrary, it 

 was perhaps more persistent, if one may judge from the phrases 

 of the Fingland terrier. ^ Such a persistence, were we assured 

 of it, would constitute a second point of difference between 

 Cumberland and Scottish agrarian arrangements on the one 

 hand and those of the midlands and Northumberland on the 

 other. 



We are better informed, however, regarding a third dissimi- 

 larity — that, namely, which inheres in the size of the townships. 

 As has been pointed out, Northumberland townships were large, 

 those of Cumberland small, as were also those of Scotland. 

 Often the total area of these small townships was not more than 

 one-fourth of what was usual in the midlands or in Northumber- 



^ Cf. above, p. 232. 



