256 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



of course, numerous in midland cartularies. Yet longer enumera- 

 tions are nearly always to be found in them, and the absence 

 of such in the cartulary of St. Werburgh tends once more to show 

 that large holdings in the fields were unusual. 



Not only is it possible to infer from thirteenth-century charters 

 that Cheshire open fields were small, but these documents give 

 no indication that the selions were ever grouped by fields. The 

 nearest approach to such a suggestion is the location of three 

 acres " in campo de Aston quarum una iacet super longum gale- 

 won et alia super le middilfeld et tertia in campo versus trente." ^ 

 The first of these field names, however, together with the small 

 area transferred, does not argue strongly for a three-field arrange- 

 ment. Such fields as occasionally appear in other terriers are 

 likely to be coordinate with furlongs or with areas variously 

 named. Nowhere did two or three larger fields like those of the 

 midlands gather within their bounds the selions which were con- 

 veyed. Chiefly for this reason, as in the case of the counties 

 already discussed in this chapter, we are justified in concluding 

 that the midland system had no hold upon the borderland of the 

 river Dee. 



It is possible, further, to discern in the charters of St. Werburgh 

 that even in the thirteenth century the abbots were busy exchang- 

 ing and consolidating parcels. Sometimes lands newly given to 

 them lay near those which they already held. At Manley, for 

 example, the two and one-half seHons given by Robert Fitz 

 Roger lay " in asponesfurlong, quarum una iacet iuxta sellionem 

 que vocatur Aleyneshevedlond et alia iuxta sellionem quam 

 henricus frater eius dedit dicto abbati aule propinquiorem et 

 dimidia sellio [est] propinquior terre dicti abbatis in eodem 

 campo." 2 



Elsewhere the abbots made exchanges. At Leese, Abbot 

 Simon (i 265-1 289) gave in exchange for " iii acras et i rodam 

 iacentes inter vi landas suas et unum assartum " two messuages 



Landam proximarti Le Ladeway, et duas dimidias Landas extendentes usque . . . 

 Westmere cum una dimidia acra prati " (Add. Char. 50290). 



1 Harl. MS. 2062, f. 66. 



" Ibid., f. 21 (1265-1289). 



