The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common FieldsSlater, Gilbert
History
The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields
Slater, Gilbert
Agriculture -- England; Inclosures; Peasants -- England; Village communities -- Great Britain
Area. Common Rights.
A. R. P. Horses. Cows. Sheep.
A 11 0 28 1 2 56
B 12 0 7 1 3 48
C 16 3 7 1 3 60
D 12 3 1 1 2 44
E (two half-places) 19 2 27 2 5 96
(average 12 acres)
The Whole Places.
A 21 1 25 2 5 104
B 21 1 38 2 5 96
C 21 0 19 2 4 96
D 20 2 32 2 5 96
The “whole and a-quarter place” had 26 a. 0 r. 13 p. of land
and rights for three horses, five cows, and 120 sheep, and the
“three-quarter place” 16 a. 1 r. 2 p., with rights for one horse, five
cows, and eighty sheep. If these be added together and divided by two
we arrive at two whole places of 21 a. 0 r. 27 p., with the common
rights for two horses, five cows, and 100 sheep. This may be taken
as the typical whole place, and the half-place is just a little more
than the mathematical half of a whole place. The fact that the common
rights attached to a given unit were more extensive in Grimstone than
in Stratton is the natural consequence of the fact that Grimstone had
244 acres of down and 35 acres of cow-common, Stratton only 190 acres
of down and 26 acres of cow-common.
But when we compare these with the whole places, half-places, and
farthing holds of Fordington, we find rather a puzzling discrepancy. In
the latter parish the fourteen whole places each had, in 1841, the date
of the Tithe Commutation, rights for four horses, three cows, and 120
sheep, except one, which had no common rights at all, but, apparently
by compensation, had 66 acres of arable land, eleven more than any of
the others. The smallest of the others had 42 a. 3 r., the largest 55
a. 0 r. 22 p., the average being about 48 acres; in other words, in
Fordington a whole place had more than twice as much arable land as
in Stratton or Grimstone, and carried a common right for four horses
instead of for two.
Each of the twenty-one half-places in Fordington had common rights
for three horses, two cows, and sixty-six sheep--which more closely
approximates to three-quarters than to a half of the rights of a whole
place. The area of land attached to a half-place is, however, on the
average somewhat less than half that attached to a whole place, the
largest having 25 a. 1 r. 6 p., the smallest 15 a. 1 r. 36 p., the
average being just under 21 acres. It happens curiously that the
largest “farthing holds” had more land than the smallest half-places,
as their areas range from 11 a. 1 r. 7 p. to 17 a. 3 r. 35 p. There
were nineteen of them, and their average area was 14½ acres. Each had a
common right for two horses, two cows, and forty sheep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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