A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



sums of money are mentioned as parts of the rent of the woodlands, beyond the 

 value of the pannage. At Eaton Socon there was a vineyard ; at Sharnbrook 

 a fish-stew, and the mill-ponds of the numerous water-mills yielded ample 

 supplies of eels. Honey is mentioned, with grain, as included in the dues 

 pertaining to the king's 'ferm,' and hay comes occasionally into notice. 

 Market dues were derived from Luton and Leighton Buzzard. 



Bedfordshire has always been essentially an agricultural county, and in 

 order to grasp the details of its social and economic history it is necessary to 

 bear in mind the agricultural system in vogue throughout the Middle Ages. 

 The economic unit was the manor, which for our purposes may be roughly 

 defined as an estate over which the owner had rights of jurisdiction. The 

 manor normally consisted of two parts, the demesne being that part which 

 the lord retained in his own hands, cultivating it by the labour of the unfree 

 tenants who held the other part — the villein lands. This primitive division 

 was early complicated by the leasing of manorial lands to tenants of free 

 status, who might themselves have servile sub-tenants.^ It must not be 

 supposed that the demesne resembled a modern compact farm which could 

 be inclosed in a ring fence ; on the contrary, it would consist of a large 

 number of small strips scattered confusedly amongst the holdings of the other 

 tenants. This was due to the prevalence of the ' three-field ' system of 

 agriculture,' by which the arable (the larger and most important feature of 

 the mediaeval farm) was divided into three * common fields,' of which only 

 two were under cultivation in one year, the third lying fallow as pasture for 

 the oxen of the plough-teams. The fields under cultivation were divided 

 into rectangular strips, with a normal length of one furlong (220 vds.), and a 

 variable breadth, a number of these strips being assigned to the tenants, both 

 demesne and villein, in accordance with the size of their holdings. Incidental 

 references to the various features of this system are of common occurrence in 

 documents relating to Bedfordshire. Thus in 1 350 in an extent ' of the lands 

 held by Brian SafFrey at Clophill and Cainhoe it is duly noted that only 

 two-thirds of the 73 acres of arable lying in the common fields are valued, as 

 one-third is always lying fallow. Examples of the scattered nature of hold- 

 ings are common ; thus of 36 acres at Gravenhurst granted about 1260 to 

 the abbot of Ramsey, 20 acres were in the fields called ' Armele ' and * the 

 assart,' 5 acres in ' la Hyde ' field, 2 acres and i rood in ' Disenefacres,' 

 3 J acres in ' Wlmefurlunge,' i acre in ' Hecham Dune,' and 2 acres in the 

 same field in a plot {culturd) called ' Seveneacres,' i acre in the great plot 

 called ' Schepehoubrade,' and the remaining acre called ' Mabille Acre ' 

 apparently lay apart.* Coming down still further to the divisions of the 

 separate acres into strips called ' selions,' or when cut short by the configura- 

 tion of the ground, ' buttes,' we have an interesting early example at Segenhoe. 

 Here, owing possibly to the confusion of ' the Anarchy,' no one quite knew 

 which strips belonged to which tenements ; accordingly the whole arable 

 land was measured out and re-divided, and one piece of ground which had 

 been unlawfully appropriated was divided into sixteen ' buttes,' of which two 

 were assigned to each of the eight hides of the villeinage.' 



' Rot. Hund. (Rec. Com.), ii, 332. ' See VinogradofF, Villeinage in Engl. 220-40. 



' Inq. p.m. 24 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, no. 98. * Ramsey Ckartul. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 247. 



' VinogradofF, op. cit. 233-4, and App. xiii. 



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