THE EAST ANGLIAN SYSTEM 333 



Suffolk townships are less numerous/ they occur often enough 

 to show that a three-course rotation upon open-field demesne 

 could at this time be found throughout East Anglia.^ 



Testimony like this, if from midland counties, has been 

 cited as quasi evidence for the existence of a three-field system 

 there. ^ Without doubt the presumption is that arable land 

 which was fallow and common every third year lay in three (or 

 six) common fields. Where other evidence, therefore, points to 

 the prevalence of the three-field system, as it does in the mid- 

 lands, a statement hke that quoted above may be looked upon as 

 credible testimony that a particular township had three compact 

 open fields. With East Anglia, however, the case is different. 

 There we have seen in the sixteenth century a three-course 

 rotation of crops upon open fields divorced from a three-field 

 system, and a similar situation in the fourteenth century is 

 not improbable. The implication of the phrases in the extents 

 will therefore depend upon other contemporary evidence touch- 

 ing the location of holdings in the open fields. To interpret 

 such evidence we shall have to determine the nature of East 

 Anghan units of villein tenure. Inasmuch as no reference to a 

 virgate, the unit prevalent in the midlands and the north, has 

 thus far been found here, it may be that the omission points 

 to peculiarities of field arrangements, just as the character of 

 the Kentish iugum lay at the base of a unique field system. If 

 so, the nature of the early unit of villein tenure in East Anglia 

 assumes increased importance and demands attention. 



During the sixteenth century and even at a much later period 

 certain parcels of an East Anghan holding were often said to 



^ C. Inq. p. Mort., Edw. Ill, F. 41 (i), Thurston; 41 (19), Monewden, Badmon- 

 disfield, and Lidgate, the last two on the Cambridgeshire border. 



2 But it was not universal. At Kettleburgh, in Suffolk, the soil was of poor 

 quality {dehilis), " et quolibet anno medietas iacet frisca et iacet in communi per 

 totum annum " (ibid., 51 (2)). More noteworthy was the case of a tenement of 

 sixty acres at Wymondham: " Sunt ibidem Ix acre terre arabilis . . . unde 

 seminabantur hoc anno semine yemali ante mortem predicte Alicie [inquisition, 

 2 June, 15 Edw. Ill] xx acre et semine quadragesimali xxx acre. ... Et x acre 

 terre predicte iacent in communi per totum annum quum non seminantur " 

 (ibid., 65 (13)). Thus it was sometimes customary to fallow only one-sixth of 

 the arable. ^ Cf. above, p. 46. 



