PERMANENT SEPARATION OF TILLAGE FROM GRASS 3 



large open-fields of the parish can rarely be traced ; fewer of the 

 inhabitants are collected into villages, more are scattered in single 

 houses or tiny hamlets. Cornwall and parts of Devonshire, like 

 Brittany, are a country of hedges, and of a Celtic race. 



This " wild field-grass " husbandry was displaced in most parts 

 of England by the permanent separation 4 of arable from pasture 

 land. The change indicates an advance towards a more settled 

 state of society, but not necessarily an advance in agricultural 

 practice. The fixed division of tillage and grass may have been 

 introduced into this country by a people accustomed, like the 

 Romans or the Anglo-Saxons, to a drier and less variable climate. 

 If so, it was on this alien system that the agricultural organisation 

 of the mediaeval manor was based. On it also were founded the 

 essential features of those village communities which at one time 

 tilled two-thirds of the cultivated soil of England, survived the 

 criticism of Fitzherbert in the sixteenth century, outlived the 

 onslaught of Arthur Young in the eighteenth century, clung to 

 the land in spite of thousands of enclosure acts, were carried to the 

 New World by the Pilgrim Fathers, and linger to this day in, for 

 instance, the Nottinghamshire village of Lexington, where half 

 the land of the parish is tilled by an agricultural association of 

 partners. 



In the early stages of history, the law itself was powerless to 

 protect individual independence or to safeguard individual rights. 

 Agriculture, like other industries, was therefore organised on prin- 

 ciples of graduated dependence and collective responsibility. 

 Mediaeval manors, in fact, resembled trade guilds, and it would 

 be difficult to frame an organisation which, given the weakness of 

 law and the infancy of agriculture, was better calculated to effect 

 the object of mutual help and protection. Communities grouped 

 together in villages were less liable to attack than detached farm- 

 houses and buildings ; common methods of farming facilitated that 

 continuous cultivation which otherwise might have been interrupted 

 by the frequent absence of the able-bodied men on military expedi- 

 tions ; the observance of common rules of management may have 

 hindered improvement, but, if strictly enforced, it also prevented 

 deterioration. Thus the system was suitable to the times and their 

 conditions. 



The origin of the legal relation of manors to village communities 

 lies outside the scope of the present enquiry. It concerns tenures 



