314 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



thus subdivided into five precincts; ^ Burnham Sutton had three, 

 one being considerably smaller than the others;'^ Weasenham 

 was cut by the Massingham road into a North and a South pre- 

 cinct, the two being approximately equal in extent.' When 

 " fields " do occur in the surveys they are as inconsequent as the 

 precincts, being determined by the topography of the parish, the 

 relative position of its highways, or the points of the compass. 

 In the same region there thus arose two, three, four, or five 

 fields. Castle Acre had three, West, Middle, and East, divided 

 by highways and of approximately the same size; ^ not far away, 

 Warham had five unequal fields.* 



Among such haphazard fields or precincts we should hardly 

 expect to find an equal distribution of the parcels of the various 

 holdings. From the accompanying tabulation of a few of those 

 at Castle Acre, which has most the semblance of a three-field 

 parish, it can be seen how indifferent to the '* fields " was the 

 distribution of acres. ^ In the first holding nearly three-fourths of 

 the acres lay in West field, in contrast with one- twelfth of them in 

 Middle field; in the second holding three-fourths, again, lay in 

 West field, with the remainder in Middle field and none whatever 

 in East field. The third holding redresses the balance by assign- 

 ing to East field nearly 70 per cent of its acres and to West field 

 less than 10 per cent. Still other holdings lay largely in Middle 

 field, like that of Domina Bell, 80 per cent of whose land 

 was there. Such arrangements are, of course, inconsistent with 

 the midland adaptation of fields to a three-course rotation of 

 crops. 



At West Lexham the departure from the midland system took 

 another form. As a map of 1575 shows,^ there was no division 



1 Stowe MS. 870 (field-book of 13 Eliz.). 

 « Rawl. MS., B 390 (field-book of 38 Eliz.). 



' Holkham Records, field-book of 42 Eliz., and map of the same date (c£. 

 below, p. 327). 



* Holkham Maps, No. 18. The fields lay to the north of the village, whence two 

 highways extend to the north and northwest. Middle field lay between these high- 

 ways, the other fields to the west and east respectively. 



* Holkham Deeds 182, 30 Eliz. 



^ Holkham Deeds 57 (field-book of 25 Eliz.). 



^ It is among the Holkham Records and is sketched in the accompanjdng cut. 



