4o6 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



therefore, coincides with the precincts of the two- and three-field 

 system, because in a general way field system and unenclosed 

 arable here stood to each other in the relation of cause to effect. 



Although the midland field system was inherently adverse to 

 enclosure, it should not be inferred that within the large area 

 characterized by it no progress took place between Anglo-Saxon 

 days, when a two-field system was probably in use, and the early 

 nineteenth century, when enclosure was for the most part ac- 

 complished. For it is one of the cardinal theses of this book that, 

 owing to changing field arrangements within the midlands, agricul- 

 ture did develop there during the centuries in question. The first 

 important movement of this sort was a transition from two-field 

 to three-field tillage, a change which, according to our evidence, 

 seems to have been brought about in many parts of the eastern 

 and northern midlands during the thirteenth and fourteenth 

 centuries. The second change was later, occurring apparently 

 between the middle of the sixteenth century and the middle of 

 the eighteenth. In some places it took the form of a subdivision 

 of two fields into four, three of which were tilled annually; else- 

 where it appeared as the transformation of regular fields into 

 irregular ones, a process probably attended by improved tillage 

 and certainly often accompanied by considerable piecemeal 

 enclosure. 



Evidence regarding the second change is the more abundant, 

 and considerable of it has been cited. ^ Several Tudor and Jaco- 

 bean surveys have established the fact that departures from the 

 two- and three-field system were known in certain parts of Eng- 

 land as early as the sixteenth century, especially in the counties 

 of the western midlands from Durham to Somerset, and above all 

 in the valley of the Severn. Typical of the disappearance of open 

 fields in this region is the enclosure history of Herefordshire, 

 which has been examined in some detail. 



The open arable fields of this county had before the days of par- 

 liamentary^ enclosure so shrunken that they constituted not more 

 than two and one-half per cent of its total area. The abandonment 

 of communal tillage, and hence the achievement of enduring agri- 



^ Cf. above, chapters III, IV. 



