CHAPTER VII 



The Kentish System 



It will be convenient to begin our examination of the field arrange- 

 ments of the southeast of England with a study of Kent. Doubt 

 has been expressed whether this county was ever in open field. 

 Meitzen, with an eye upon its scattered farmhouses, which con- 

 trast with the nucleated villages of open-field districts, suggested 

 a field system of Celtic origin, similar to that which, he thought, 

 prevailed between the Rhine and the Weser and was largely one 

 of enclosures.^ Slater found no parliamentary acts for the en- 

 closure of arable in Kent;^ and in 1794 Boys was able to report 

 to the Board of Agriculture, " There are no common fields in this 

 county, and but few common pastures in this part of it [the 

 east]." 3 



As early as the sixteenth century, indeed, Kent is referred to 

 as one of the counties '' wheare most Inclosures be,"^ a statement 

 that may be verified by several manorial surveys from the end 

 of that century and the beginning of the next. A " measure- 

 ment " of three manors in the parishes of Cranbrook, Goudhurst, 

 and Hawkhurst describes large demesnes and " fermes " appar- 

 ently all enclosed.^ Similarly enclosed were the manors of 

 Nether Bilsington (near Romney Marsh and consisting largely 

 of marsh and woodland), Neates Court (in pasture), and Sond- 

 risshe.'^ Throughout a hundred pages of sixteenth-century sur- 



^ Siedeliing und Agrarwesen, ii. 122, 54. ^ English Peasantry, p. 230. 



' J. Boys, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Kent (London, 1794), 

 p. 44. Eighteenth-century references to open-field parcels are rare, although they 

 do occur. In 1770, for example, a Mr. Holmes at Henhurst owed tithes from 6^ 

 acres of fallow, which was " part of fa] common field " (Archaeologia Cantiana, 

 xxvii. 124). 



* John Hales, A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England 

 (1549, ed. E. Lamond, Cambridge, 1893), p. 49. 



^ Rawl. MS., B 341, ff. 31 sq. (1587). 



* Add. MS. 37019 (1567); Rents, and Survs., Portf. 9/43, 6 Jas. I; Land Rev., 

 M. B. 258, ff. 154-164, I Mary. 



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