THE KENTISH SYSTEM 303 



was no system of two or three open fields, agriculture appears to 

 have advanced more rapidly than elsewhere in England. 



We are at length in a position to summarize the characteristics 

 of the Kentish field system. In part they are negative. The 

 arable fields of a township were not divided into two or three 

 large areas in each of which all virgate or bovate holders had 

 strips and one of which was usually left fallow. On the contrary, 

 all the improved land of the township was marked off into more 

 or less rectangular areas called iuga, dolae, or tenementa, all 

 serving as units for the assessment of rents and services. If an 

 actual fifteenth-century holding be considered, it appears that 

 the constituent parcels did not He consolidated within any iugum. 

 Instead, they were likely to be scattered throughout several 

 iuga, but through those which lay mainly in one section of the 

 township. This situation seems not to have been the original 

 one, but to have arisen from the subdivision of a once compact 

 holding among co-heirs or co-lessees. The acquisition by many 

 of these new tenants of parcels in other iuga gave rise to the dis- 

 creteness which the fifteenth century knew. The parcels at that 

 time were arable, meadow, or pasture; and so far as they were 

 arable and were ploughed by a large cooperative plough they may 

 well have been strips like those of the midlands. On the downs in 

 the southeastern part of the county such have been discerned. 

 The rotation of crops was variable, sometimes resembhng that 

 of the midlands, but frequently tending toward an unbroken 

 succession. The absence of a three-course rotation, and espe- 

 cially of a large compact fallow field, made easily possible the 

 reconsolidation of scattered parcels as soon as the tide turned in 

 that direction. It apparently did so turn from the fifteenth 

 century, and hence Kent early became characterized by the con- 

 solidation and enclosure of its farms. ^ Toward this enclosure 

 the flexible field system contributed in no negligible degree. 



How ancient was the custom of subdividing holdings among 

 heirs is not altogether clear. It was observed at Wye in the time 



^ The persistence of a heavy four-horse plough did not prevent enclosure, since 

 Boys in his report to the Board of Agriculture notes both phenomena {General 

 View of the Agriculture of the County of Kent, pp. 21, 41, 44, 70). 



