IT] A MEDIEVAL FARM 49 



virgin land and the cities where the grain is to be 

 consumed. Thus it is essentially a modern pheno- 

 menon ; it never arose in so acute a form in England 

 because such facilities did not exist till a complex 

 system of agriculture was already established. Wheat 

 has always been grown in this country and records 

 exist of very early exports. Zosimus relates (Hist. 

 Nova, lib. 3, ch. 5) that Julian brought wheat from 

 Britain to feed the inhabitants of some of the Rhine 

 cities whose stores had been destroyed and their 

 harvest ruined by insurgent tribes. But we have 

 no knowledge what the agricultural methods were. 

 When the first definite records of English agriculture 

 appear a system was already in use that kept the soil 

 fertility at a sufficient level for the needs of the time. 

 In medieval England the arable land occurred 

 partly in the lord's demesne and partly in the com- 

 mon cultivated field 1 . The latter was divided into 

 fields, generally three in number, which were again 

 divided into strips so distributed among the tenants 

 that each should have his share of good and bad land. 

 The pasture consisted of the common grazing land, 

 certain outlying lands, and the cultivated common 

 field after the harvest was off; in addition there were 

 certain fields and water meadows not held in common. 

 The live stock thus had a relatively wide area of 

 ground over which to gather their food; and their 



1 Often called "infield" in the North. 



