CELTIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 257 



and two crofts " cum ii landis et ii buttis in le hedfeld." ^ At 

 Bromborough, Abbot Radulphus (1141-c. 11 57) exchanged on 

 different occasions " unam sellionem et unam Buttam ... in 

 Ranesfeld . . . pro una sellione iacenti in campo qui vocatur 

 le Churchcroft; duas dimidias selliones que vocantur suchacre- 

 sendes . . . pro una sellione et dimidia iacentibus in le chirche- 

 croft . . . ; unam dimidiam sellionem in manislawefeld . . . pro 

 una sellione et dimidia iacenti in le chirchecroft." ^ Sometimes 

 it is evident that the exchanges looked toward consohdation for 

 both parties. The same abbot exchanged with " Henricus filius 

 heyle," at Weston, " pro iii seHonibus in tachemedwe . . . sub 

 crofto dicti Henrici ... iii seHones in cHues . . . iuxta cultu- 

 ram abbatis et unam foreram super morshul et dimidiam rodam 

 super pastmeslande in territorio de Aston. . . . " ^ 



Exchanges Uke these indicate a field system which was not 

 rigid but which easily inclined to consohdation and enclosure. 

 At Lawton a holding given to the abbey in the thirteenth cen- 

 tury was already a compact area, comprising a messuage and 

 garden " cum iiii buttis ex una parte dicti gardini et aUis iiii ex 

 altera iacentibus." * There is no reason why the open-field strips 

 of a tenement, inconsiderable at best, should not have under- 

 gone a process of consohdation; they were inclined toward it 

 both by their small number and by the absence of any grouping 

 of the seHons by fields. Since consohdation was so brief a 

 process and was opposed by no inflexible field arrangements, one 

 need not be surprised that it was initiated before the end of the 

 Middle Ages. 



Chester thus aUies itself more closely with Wales than with 

 the territory to the east. It appears as a county largely en- 

 closed in the sixteenth century and almost entirely so in the 

 eighteenth. Vestiges of open common field in Tudor surveys, 

 however, suggest that at an earHer time most hamlets probably 

 had a certain amount of it, and the thirteenth-century testimony, 

 particularly that from the region near Chester, supports such a 

 behef. This evidence reveals holdings that seldom comprised 



1 Harl. MS. 2062, f. 22^. ' Ibid., f. 8. 



2 Ibid., f. 206. * Ibid., f. 24. 



