Читать книгу The English Village Community - Frederic Seebohm - Страница 8

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The next fact to be noted is that under the English system the open fields were the common fields—the arable land—of a village community or township under a manorial lordship. This could hardly be more clearly illustrated than by the Hitchin example. [p009]

Periodical presentment of the jurors and the homage of the manor.

The Hitchin manor was, as already stated, a royal manor. The Court Leet and View of Frankpledge were held concurrently with the Court Baron of the manor. Periodically at this joint court a record was made on the presentment of the jurors and homage of various particulars relating to both the manor and township.

The record for the year 1819 will be found at length in Appendix A, and it may be taken as a common form.

The jurors and homage first present that the manor comprises the township of Hitchin and hamlet of Walsworth, and includes within it three lesser manors; also that it extends into other hamlets and parishes.

The boundaries.

They then record the boundaries of the township (including the hamlet of Walsworth) as follows, viz.:—

 'From Orton Head to Burford Ray,

 and from thence to a Water Mill called Hide Mill,

 and from thence to Willberry Hills,

 and from thence to a place called Bossendell,

 and from thence to a Water Mill called Purwell Mill,

 and from thence to a Brook or River called Ippollitt's Brook,

 and from thence to Maydencroft Lane,

 and from thence to a place called Wellhead,

 and from thence to a place called Stubborn Bush,

 and from thence to a place called Offley Cross,

 and from thence to Five Borough Hills [Five Barrows],

 and from thence back to Orton Head, where the boundaries commenced.'

The form in which these boundaries are given is of great antiquity. It is a form used by the Romans two thousand years ago, and almost continuously followed from that time to this.7 Its importance for [p010] the purpose in hand will be manifest as the inquiry proceeds.

The courts.

The jurisdiction of the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge is recorded to extend within the foregoing boundaries, i.e. over the township, that of the Court Baron beyond them over the whole manor, which was more extensive than the township. The Court Leet is therefore the Court of the township, the Court Baron that of the manor.

It is then stated that in the Court Leet at Michaelmas the jurors of the king elect and present to the lord—

The officers.

Two constables,

Six headboroughs (two for each of the three wards),

Two ale-conners,

Two leather-searchers and sealers, and

A bellman, who is also the watchman and crier of the town.

All the foregoing presentments have reference to the township, and are those of 'the jurors of our lord the King (i.e. of the Court Leet), and the homage of the Court' [Baron] of the manor.

Reliefs, fines, &c. Pound and stocks.

Then come presentments of the homage of the Court of the Manor alone, describing the reliefs of freeholders and the fines, &c., of copyholders under the manor, and various particulars as to powers of leasing, [p011] forfeiture, cutting timber, heriots, &c.; the freedom of grain from toll in the market, the provision by the lord of the common pound and the stocks for the use of the tenants of the manor, and the right of the lord with the consent of the homage to grant out portions of the waste by copy of court roll at a rent and the customary services.

Next the commons are described.

Green commons. Lammas meadows.

(1) The portions coloured dark green on the map are described as Green Commons, and those coloured light green as Lammas Meadows;8 and every occupier of an ancient messuage or cottage in the township has certain defined rights of common thereon, the obligation to find the common bull falling upon the rectory, and a common herdsman being elected by the homage at a Court Baron.

Common fields. The three fields and rotation of crops.

(2) The common fields are stated to be—

Purwell field, Welshman's croft,

Burford field, Spital field,

Moremead field, Bury field;

and it is recorded that these common fields have immemorially been, and ought to be, kept and cultivated in three successive seasons of tilth grain, etch grain, and fallow: Purwell field and Welshman's croft being fallow one year; Burford field and Spital field the next year; Moremead field and Bury field the year after, and so on in regular rotation. [p012]

Common rights over the open fields when not under crop.

It is stated that every occupier of unenclosed land in any of the common fields of the township may pasture his sheep over the rest of the field after the corn is cut and carried, and when it is fallow. If he choose to enclose his own portion of the common field he may do so, but he then gives up for ever his right of pasture over the rest. It is under this custom that the strips and balks are gradually disappearing.

Hamlet.

The ancient messuages and cottages in the hamlet of Walsworth had their separate green common and herdsman, but (at this date) no common fields, because they had already been some time ago enclosed.

It will be seen from the map how very small a proportion of the land of the township was in meadow or pasture. The open arable fields occupied nearly the whole of it. The community to which it belonged, and to whose wants it was fitted, was evidently a community occupied mainly in agriculture.

Copyholds and freeholds intermixed.

Another feature requiring notice was the fact that in the open fields freehold and copyhold land were intermixed; some of the strips being freehold, whilst the next strip was copyhold, instead of all the freehold and all the copyhold lying together. And in the same way the lands belonging to the three lesser or sub-manors lay intermixed, and not all apart by themselves. The open field system overrode the whole.

Thus, if the Hitchin example may be taken as a typical one of the English open field system, it may be regarded generally as having belonged to a village or township under a manor. We may assume that the holdings were composed of numbers of strips scattered [p013] over the three open fields: and that the husbandry was controlled by those rules as to rotation of crops and fallow in three seasons which marked the three-field system, and secured uniformity of tillage throughout each field. Lastly, whilst fallow after the crop was gathered, the open fields were probably everywhere subject to the common rights of pasture. The sheep of the whole township wandered and pastured all over the strips and balks of its fields, while the cows of the township were daily driven by a common herdsman to the green commons, or, after Lammas Day, when the hay crop of the owners was secured, to the lammas meadows.