832 High Buston. By J. C. Hodgson. 



The inhabitants of Overbuston, with those of other townships 

 named, were all " throwne to grynde ther come" at the two 

 'mylnes,' which the lord owned within the Park of Warkworth. 



The life-like picture here presented to us of the 16th century 

 village community, leads us to examine the system or customs 

 under which they tilled their lands. 



Mr Kemble says"^ that the Hide of Land was the estate of one 

 family : it is clear this could not be an invariable quantity if 

 the households were to be subsisted on an equal scale, it must 

 depend on the original quality and condition of the soil, etc. . . . 

 30 acres, giving 10 to each course of a threefold system of 

 husbandry, seems a near approximation to the value of the 



Hide of land it must be borne in mind that the Hide 



comprised only arable land, the meadow and pasture was in the 

 common lands and forest, and was attached to the Hide as of 

 common right, under these circumstances, if the calculation of 

 30, 32, or 33 acres be correct, we shall see that ample provision 

 was made for the family. And Sir Henry Maine says^** "Each 

 family in the village was governed by its own free head, pater 

 familias. The precinct of the family dwelling house could be 

 entered by no body except himself, and those under his patria 



potestas The cultivated land in the Teutonic village 



community [originally cut out of the common mark, which, 

 indeed, can only be described as the portion of the village 

 domain, not appropriated to tillage] appears almost invariably 

 to have been divided into three great fields. A rude rotation of 

 crops was the object of this threefold division; and it was 

 intended that each should lie fallow once in three years. The 

 fields under tillage were not, however, cultivated by labour in 

 common. Each householder has his own family lot in each of 

 these three fields, and this he tills by his own labour and that 



of his sons and his slaves Nor can it be seriously 



doubted upon the evidence that the proprietary equality of the 

 families composing the group was at first still further secured by 

 a periodical redistribution of the several assignments.'* 



Both the writers whose words are quoted above, speak rather 

 of the free village community ; but without entering upon the 

 question of its conversion into the feudal manor, in which form 

 it is presented to us in Clarkson's Survey, we may take it that 



'^ Saxons in England, vol. i., p. 92. 

 19 Village Community, p. 78-79. 



