THE EAST ANGLIAN SYSTEM 349 



At this point our evidence fails, leaving us in the twelfth cen- 

 tury with an East Anglian unit of villein tenure which did not 

 exactly resemble either the midland virgate or the Kentish iugum. 

 It was not, like the former, a group of small arable strips divided 

 evenly between two or three fields; nor is it certain that it was 

 always, like the latter, a compact area. At Wymondham a few 

 tenementa were more or less compact, and at Martham several 

 of the strips of an eriung seem to have been not far distant from 

 one another. Yet, as shown by the thirteenth-century survey 

 of the latter township, the large number of strips in the eriung 

 and the probable disparateness of some of them make us hesitate 

 to beheve that as a rule the eriung assumed the form of an un- 

 divided parcel of land. Probably it was sometimes compact, 

 sometimes a group of not widely-scattered parcels. At times it 

 resembled the Kentish iugum; at other times it was such a hold- 

 ing as a Kentish tenant would have had after the subdivision of 

 iuga had begun, many of his parcels still lying in the ancestral 

 iugum, while others, which had been acquired, were dispersed 

 throughout neighboring iuga. 



In what way can such an aspect of the East Anglian eriung 

 or tenementum be explained ? Was this unit affiliated more 

 with the virgate of the midland system or with the iugum of 

 the Kentish system ? Before answering this question, we must 

 give attention to the intimate connection which existed between 

 the location of the parcels of the tenementum and the pasturage 

 arrangements prevalent in East Angha. The early custumals, 

 we have noticed, usually record whether a tenant had or had not 

 his own fold {sua Jalda) , whether he might or might not pasture 

 his sheep upon his own fallow acres. It may be that the atten- 

 tion which they give to this matter points to a greater develop- 

 ment of sheep-raising in East Angha than elsewhere in England; 

 it is more hkely, however, that it signifies a superiority in agri- 

 culture. Arable fallow was naturally better fertilized when sheep 

 were folded regularly upon it than when the township herd and 

 flock wandered aimlessly over it every second or third year, as 

 they did in the midlands. 



