RESULTS AND CONJECTURES 417 



agrarian influence. Nor, as a matter of fact, was its field system 

 of such a character as to tell against a belief that it did so. To 

 be sure, the villein units in Essex were virgates, as they were not 

 to the north or the south; but the virgates in a large part of the 

 county tended to be compact areas which may well have been 

 related to the Kentish iuga. Similarities of nomenclature, too, 

 especially the employment of the term " day's work," emphasize 

 the connection with Kent. 



Like pecuHarities tempt us to extend the Kentish system to 

 Surrey. " Iuga " and " day's works " were once known at Ewell, 

 and what we learn about the later field arrangements of the 

 county is not prohibitive of an early prevalence of the Kentish 

 system within its borders. Division of holdings among three 

 arable fields seems never to have prevailed there; nor can the 

 aspect of a villein holding have differed greatly from that of one 

 in East Anglia, or from the appearance of one in Kent after the 

 disintegration of the iuga had set in. In view of these circimi- 

 stances, the most credible hypothesis relative to Surrey is the 

 assumption that, like East Anglia and Essex, it was originally 

 within the Roman sphere of agrarian influence; that, like these 

 three counties, it diverged somewhat more from the norm than 

 did Kent; and finally that, like East Anglia, it reorganized the 

 disintegrating iugum, adopting for the new unit the name of the 

 midland virgate, a name likewise favored in Essex. 



Whether the same hypothesis should be applied to the region 

 which constitutes Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and the Chilterns is 

 uncertain. This is an area which, with the exception of its north- 

 ern fringe and possibly the flat plain west from London, seems not 

 to have known the three-field system. On the other hand, its 

 field nomenclature and the absence of consolidation which the 

 parcels of its holdings reveal apparently leave it without the 

 sphere of Kentish or Roman influence. A factor that enters into 

 the situation is the hilly character of the district, which was 

 doubtless once heavily forested. Probably much of it was set- 

 tled later than the plains round about, and a large part of the 

 arable was undoubtedly improved from the forest state. Whether 

 the tiny settlements which thus extended their tillage organized 



