202 History of the English Landed Interest. 



three divisions into whicli the whole infield was plotted out 

 were further subdivided into ten acre " shots," " furlongs," or 

 ' fiats," and again subdivided into one acre strips, locally 

 known either as rigs, ox gangs, dales, balks, landshires, etc., 

 which were fenced off between seed-time and Lammas Day, 

 after which they were thrown open to the community's live 

 stock. 



The system of Lammas lands is only suitable for the most 

 forward soils and localities. Though the Julian Calendar was 

 in use until superseded in 1752 by that of the Gregorian sys- 

 tem, and old Lammas Day was therefore the 12th instead of 

 the 1st of August, we are forced to conclude that the harvest 

 was seldom garnered in the north before, and often delayed in 

 the south to September. 



The date for the resumption of common pasturage rights 

 over the infield was frequently therefore postponed. Thus the 

 records of St, John at Hackney contain entries such as the 

 following : " July 26th 1692. Proprietors of the commonable 

 lands allowed ten days to carry off their crops on account of 

 the wett." Again in the year 1703, memorable for the great 

 storm which reduced all Queen Ann's subjects to the fald stool 

 and fast, a similar postponement of fourteen days' grace after 

 Lammas is noted in the same records. 



Every claimant was allotted strips in each of the three 

 fields, and the very strips were dotted about all over, in order 

 to insure for each not only some fallow ground yearly, but 

 some good as well as indifferent soil. The practice too of 

 allowing the villein either a share of the meadow ha}' crop or 

 pasturage on its aftermath enabled him to fatten his cattle 

 and milk his cows long after that period of the j'-ear when the 

 herbage of the waste had ceased to nourish them. These plots 

 or doles in the meadow pasturage were balloted for as late as 

 the present century in some of the Midland counties. 



The whole system was the best under the circumstances ; 

 but when the introduction of root crops altered the character 

 of English husbandry, the Lammas lands became an intoler- 

 able nuisance. 



Such generally was the life and work of an English manor 



