the sick 'and the captive among the unfortunates whom she recommended to the daily prayers of pious souls.'[62] Rivers were mainly crossed by ford or ferry, though there were some excellent bridges, a few of which still remain, maintained by the _trinoda necessitas_, by gilds, by 'indulgences' promised to benefactors, and by toll, the right to levy which, called pontage, was often spent otherwise than on the repair of the bridge. A few of the old open fields still exist, and the best surviving example of an open-field parish is that of Laxton in Nottinghamshire.[63] Nearly half the area of the parish remains in the form of two great arable fields, and two smaller ones which are treated as two parts of the third field. The different holdings, freehold and leasehold, consist in part of strips of land scattered all over these fields. The three-course system is rigidly adhered to, first year wheat, second year spring corn, third year fallow. In a corner of the parish is Laxton Heath, a common covered with coarse grass where the sheep are grazed according to a 'stint' recently determined upon, for when it was unstinted the common was overstocked. The commonable meadows which the parish once had were enclosed at a date beyond anyone's recollection, though the neighbouring parish of Eakring still has some. There are other enclosures in the remote parts of the parish which apparently represent the old woodland. The inconvenience of the common-field system was extreme. South Luffenham in Rutland, not enclosed till 1879, consisted of 1,074 acres divided among twenty-two owners into 1,238 pieces. In some places furrows served to divide the lands instead of turf balks, which were of course always being altered. Another difficulty arose from there being no check to high winds, which would sometimes sweep the whole of the crops belonging to different farmers in an inextricable heap against the nearest obstruction. FOOTNOTES: [1] Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 18; Medley, _Constitutional History_, p. 15. [2] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 257. [3] Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 341 et seq. [4] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, Sec.36. [5] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 282, says, 'As a rule it was not subject to redivision.' [6] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 42. [7] Maitland, _op. cit._ p. 368. [8] _Anonymous Treatise on Husbandry_, Royal Historical Society, pp. xli. and 68. About 1230, Smyth, in his _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 113, says, 'At this time lay all lands in common fields, in one acre or ridge, one man's intermixt with another.' [9] See below. [10] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 74. Maitland thinks the two-field system was as common as the three-field, both in early and mediaeval times. _Domesday Book and Beyond_, p. 366.