2;2 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



of some twenty of whom included sclions in difTcrcnt fields near 

 the city.* These selions, which are also called riggs or lands 

 (icrrc), are never rated in acres; they even at times serve as 

 units of measure for the butts. No tenant had more than eleven 

 and one-half of them, the usual holding being five. Since the 

 selion probably contained not more than an acre, the average 

 share in the common field did not exceed five acres and the 

 total extent of common arable cannot have been great. Of the 

 three fields named, one is simply the field of Chester; Spyttel 

 field and Banke field might seem to be subdivisions of this, were 

 it not that in certain instances each is made coordinate with it. 

 Usually the selions of a holding lay in a single field. Only four 

 times are they assigned to two fields, and only once to three, 

 the division of acres in the last case being unequal (2, 2^, 4). 

 There is, therefore, no reason for concluding that a three-field 

 system was known to the common field or fields of Chester in 

 the middle of the sixteenth century. 



A terrier, contemporary with this from Chester and declaring 

 itself a " bylle of the lands of Sir phylyppe Egertons," describes 

 a holding in Tilston, a parish only about three miles across the 

 Dee from the Denbighshire open fields of Issacoed and Pickhill. 

 Most of the butts are assigned to the town field of Horton, 

 itself one of the hamlets of the parish of Tilston; ^ but whether 



^ Rents, and Survs., Portf. 6/24, ff. 6-9. The list is as follows, separation by 

 semicolons indicating different holdings: — 



" In communi campo Cestrie or in campo ( unum pratum; iii seliones; iii seliones; 



Cestrie ' iv seliones; viii seliones; iii seliones 



/ vi terre arabiles in orientali parte; v seliones; 



In Spyttelfelde j xi seliones et dimidia; vi terre arabiles in 



' orientali parte; v seliones 



/iv seliones; quinque butts continentes ii sel- 



In lez Bankefelde ] iones et dimidiam; iv seliones; quinque 



' butts continentes ii seliones et dimidiam 

 pi seliones et iiii seliones; iii seliones et ii 



In Spyttelfelde et J seliones; ii seliones et iiii seliones et ii 



In Chesterfelde 1 seliones terre et dimidia cum uno hadlonde 



I in Bankefeld 



In Bankefelde et ( v seliones et ii seliones; i selio et dimidia 



In Chesterfelde ' et iii seliones." 



2 Rents, and Survs., Portf. 1/4, No. 9. The specifications run as follows: — 

 " In the fylde of humfre hansons there be thow buttys . . . 

 In the same fylde be thow . . . [elsewhere] Another butte . . . 

 a hadlant lyeng in horton towne fylde . . . 

 In the same fylde . . four ... 



