258 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



so many as a dozen intermixed selions, and township fields in 

 which the strips were so few that at times each of them could 

 attain the dignity of a special designation. Nowhere was there 

 a grouping of strips by fields as in the midlands, and nowhere Is 

 found mention of rights of pasture over a fallow field. The 

 arrangement was like that which in Scotland, Wales, and Ire- 

 land was called runrig. Since in Cheshire there is no trace of 

 continued or recurrent division of holdings among heirs, some 

 early allotment of the common lands before the time of written 

 records must have been final. In the twelfth and thirteenth 

 century exchanges were being made and the first steps toward 

 consoHdation were already taking place. To the flexibility of 

 Celtic open-field arrangements, therefore, is probably to be 

 attributed the early enclosure of the arable in the county, so 

 far as enclosure did not take place directly from the forest 

 state. Such an explanation is further substantiated by the 

 small size of most closes, as seen, for example, in the survey of 

 Macclesfield manor. ^ To some extent, then, the seventeenth- 

 century appearance of the fields of the county is traceable to the 

 early existence of runrig. 



Devon and Cornwall 



There are several Devonshire surveys dating from the late 

 sixteenth or the early seventeenth century, but too frequently 

 they omit exact information about the condition of the fields. 

 A survey of Topsham, for instance, though usually explaining 

 that the " parcelle " were closes and sometimes adding that 

 they were arable, in about one-fourth of the instances leaves 

 them undescribed.^ Since these undescribed parcels were 

 relatively large, we may infer that the usual designation " clausa " 



^ Cf. above, p. 250. 



* Rents, and Survs., Ro. 169(1611). A typical holding is that of Helena Havile, 

 widow, who had a house and stable with garden containing 2 acres; closes of 

 arable called Butt parke and Sandell, containing 5 acres and one acre; other closes 

 called Whittwell, Greenland, and Longland, each containing 2 acres; a parcel 

 called the half-acre; a parcel of marsh containing 8 acres called Idons; and pasture 

 in the marsh for twenty sheep. 



