16 HISTORY OF COMMONS. 
of user was very strong, have felt that they were bound 
to find a legal origin for the custom or user, and have 
gone so far as to presume that there must have been a 
charter from the Crown in early times, though subse- 
quently lost, and by this ingenious device have admitted 
the rights of inhabitants in some instances. But these 
cases have been few in number compared with the vast 
number where, by virtue of the above decision, the 
inhabitants of villages and Manors have been refused 
legal recognition of customs and rights, which they 
undoubtedly enjoyed from time immemorial, and 
which were of the greatest importance to them. The 
settlement of the law on this point enabled Lords of 
Manors to inclose under the Statute of Merton, or 
with the consent of the recognised tenants of their 
Manors, without any consideration for the interests of 
the inhabitants generally, no matter how much they 
had actually benefited in the past from the practical 
user of common rights. 
So long, however, as a Common remained open and 
uninclosed, the decision in Gateward’s case did not 
practically affect the position of the inhabitants, for as 
residents in cottages belonging to the lord and other 
persons, they continued to exercise the customary rights 
of turbary or pasture. It was only when inclosure took 
place that they suffered from the rule laid down, which 
refused to them any legal claim to that which they had 
practically always enjoyed. 
The extent of Commons and open land in early 
times was so great that it is probable they suffered 
