320 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



" Messylen sowen at michelmes 1584 



The u]iper end of i" di. in Burnhowe bothome 



i"^ di. in howlond furlong 



di. acra ex austro dc le wyndmill 



the V small lands in HuUonge furlong ii» i' 



Summa messilen iv* ii' di. 

 [Total winter corn and " messylen," 615 acres.] " ' 



This account, it will be seen, begins with an itemization of 405 

 acres, which in the autumn of 1584 were winter-corn stubble. 

 Since alone they did not suffice for the barley crop of the next 

 year, some 14 acres of " oUands " were broken up before Christ- 

 mas to be added to them. These ollands were parcels which for 

 a longer or shorter period (" old olland," or " oUand very la telle 

 layd ") had been in grass, the term being applied to land enclosed, 

 but particularly to strips in open field. Most of the 14 acres 

 were of the latter character, and nearly one-half of them lay in 

 Langmere furlong near the wheat stubble. Similar strips of 

 open-field arable under grass have been met with in Leicester- 

 shire and in Durham in the early seventeenth century,^ where 

 in a measure their presence betokened the decay of the open 

 field. Here in Norfolk they were a reserve upon which the 

 tenant could draw at any time to increase his allotment for a 

 particular crop. In 1588 Elmdon was tenant of some 27 acres 

 in Ildemere furlong and Westlongland furlong, but he ploughed 

 only 14 of them; the rest were probably in ollands. To judge 

 from the divergence between his total open-field arable in that 

 year and the portion which he ploughed, his ollands must have 

 amounted to about one-fifth of his open field (38 acres out of 199). 



What further appears from the enumeration is that practically 

 the same areas of open field were set apart for winter corn, for 

 spring corn, and for " somerlie " or fallow; and this is true not 

 only for the year 1584 but for 1583 and 1588, as the following 

 summary shows : — 



" 1583. Acres 



Sowen wynter corne at Michaelmas 41^ 



Wheat Stubble at Michaelmas 415 



Pease and Barlie Stubble at Michaelmas [38 -|-] 



^ Holkham Deeds, 2d series, 231. * Cf. above, pp. 35, 106. 



