24 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 



During these seven centuries a more scientific rotation was in some 

 districts adopted. Thus at Aston Boges, in Oxfordshire, a fourth 

 course was interposed. But, speaking generally, open-field hus- 

 bandry rather retrograded than advanced, as the discipline of 

 manorial officials relaxed. 



Each of the three arable fields was subdivided into a number 

 of shots, furlongs, or flats, separated from one another by unploughed 

 bush-grown turf balks, varying in width from two to sixteen feet. 1 

 These flats were in turn cut up into parallel acre, half-acre, or 

 quarter-acre, strips coinciding with the arrangement of a ploughed 

 field into ridges and furrows. If the strips were acre strips, they 

 were a furlong in length (220 yards) and 4 rods (22 yards) in breadth. 

 Ploughmen still measure the acre in the same way as the open- 

 field strip. Theoretically each flat was square, with sides of 40 

 poles, containing 10 acres ; in practice every variety of shape and 

 admeasurement was found. But, though the pole from which the 

 acre was raised varied from the 13J feet of Hampshire to the 24 

 feet of Cheshire, two sides of the flats always ran parallel. Thus 

 each of the three arable fields resembled several sheets of paper, 

 cut into various shapes, stitched together like patch-work, and 

 ruled with margins and lines. The separate sheets are the flats ; 

 the margins are the headlands running down the flats at right angles 

 to, and across the ends of, the parallel strips which are represented 

 by the spaces between the lines. The lines themselves are the 

 " balks " of unploughed turf, by which the strips were divided 

 from each other. The strips appear under different names. For 

 instance, in Scotland and Northumberland they were called " rigs " ; 

 in Lincolnshire " selions " ; in Nottinghamshire " lands " ; in 

 Dorsetshire " lawns " ; in North Wales " loons " ; in Westmor- 

 land " dales," and their occupiers " dalesmen " ; in Cambridgeshire 

 " balks " ; in Somersetshire " raps " ; in Sussex " pauls " ; else- 

 where in southern counties " stitches." When the strips were 

 stunted by encountering some obstacle, such as a road or river, 

 they were called " butts." 2 Stray odd corners which did not fit 

 in with the parallel arrangement of the flats were " crustse," 3 that 



1 The balks appear under a variety of names, such as " raines," "reins," 

 "walls," "meres," "lynches," " lantchetts," " landshares," "launchers," 

 or " edges." 



2 As in Newington Butts. 



3 Registry of Worcester Priory (Camden Society), 1865, p. ISA. 



