382 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



messuages were often freeholds leased by them.* Fully half 

 the township lay in closes, usually pasture land, and many ten- 

 ants had parcels in the common marsh. Over and above the 

 pasture and marsh there was considerable unenclosed arable di- 

 vided into many fields, in most of which three or four tenants had 

 parcels. These fields, numbering about a dozen, seldom con- 

 tained more than twenty acres apiece. Typical of them were 

 Langhedge, Okefeld, Hegfeeld, Dedfeeld, all of which appear in 

 the holdings reproduced in Appendix VI. Only one open-field 

 area, that called " le Hyde," was large and shared in by many 

 tenants. It was quite normal for a tenant to have, along with 

 his enclosed pasture, arable acres in le Hyde and in perhaps one 

 other area, an irregular arrangement which was of course in- 

 compatible with a two- or three-field system. 



This being the situation in eastern Middlesex, it only remains to 

 inquire whether conditions were similar in the rest of the county. 

 In the west the nearest approach to a three-field arrangement 

 appears at Feltham. This township, situated in the plain of the 

 Thames, on the highway from Staines to Hampton, is described 

 in a survey of 2 James I.- At that time the fields were three, 

 with names reminiscent of the midlands (Further field, Middle 

 field. Home field), and the copyholds were divided with more or 

 less equality among them. It may well be that this was a town- 

 ship cultivated in the midland manner.' 



Elsewhere the evidence tells against the creeping of midland 

 habits down the Thames. Cold Kennington, the village that 

 gave its name to the manor which embraced Feltham, had not 

 three fields but two, and in the holdings that are specifically de- 

 scribed (four of the six are not) the division of acres between these 



* A dozen of the copyholds have been summarized in Appendix VI. 



2 Summaries of the most important copyholds are given in Appendix VI. 



' Slater's intimation that three fields were enclosed by the Cowley and Hilling- 

 don enclosure act {English Peasantry, p. 287) should not mislead us. The peti- 

 tion for this act asks that " certain Common Fields called Cowley Field, Church 

 Adcroft, and Sudcrofts " be divided between the two parishes as well as apportioned 

 anew to the tenants and enclosed. These fields were, therefore, not those of a 

 three-field towTiship, but fields that chanced to be common to two townships. 

 Nor are their names the usual ones for three important fields. Cf. Journal of 

 the House of Commons, 21 Jan., 35 Geo. III. 



