386 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



apart from a few outlying acres, was disposed within a group of 

 three fields (Demys, Whetershe. Henhams) or, if not in these, 

 within another group of four (Stony, Goswell, Old Orchard, 

 Rudges). Whichever group, however, a yard-land favored, among 

 the fields themselves there was no equal apportionment of acres. 

 If a three-field system employing six fields had ever been in force, 

 here it had fallen into decay, a supposition which the presence of 

 numerous enclosures renders not incredible. The third tithing, 

 the one called by the parish name of Sonning, was not unlike 

 Wynnershe.^ Although at times a holding there was enclosed 

 (e. g. the half yard-land of John Gregory), most of the cultivated 

 land lay in open field. Of the four fields which most often recur, 

 to the one called Bulmershe there was seldom assigned more 

 than an acre, whereas Charfielde frequently received a greater 

 number of acres than did all the remaining fields together. A 

 three-field system can hardly have been constructed on such 

 foundations. 



Across the river from Sonning is Caversham, which the survey 

 of 5 Edward VI pictures as already largely enclosed. The vir- 

 gate holdings in this township show that frequently not m.ore 

 than between one-fifth and one-tenth of a tenant's land lay in the 

 open fields.^ Yet the fields were numerous, a dozen of them 

 being mentioned and a half-dozen often recurring. Usually a 

 holding had its acres in only three or four of them, and then 

 with no regularity. Small fields which, like these, played so 

 slight a part in the economy of a township could easily depart 

 from any systematic cultivation without inconvenience to their 

 tenants, and apparently those at Caversham had done so. If a 

 three-field or a six-field arrangement ever existed there, it had 

 disappeared before the middle of the sixteenth century. 



Passing farther up the Thames, we reach the outposts of the 

 region of irregular fields. These lay in Oxfordshire, either on 

 the northwestern slopes of the Chilterns or in the bottom lands 

 below. Watlington and Ewelm represent the former, Warbor- 

 ough and Bensington the latter. Typical holdings from Jacobean 

 surveys of each of these four townships, which are situated near 



^ Illustrative holdings are given in Appendix VI. 



