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
The latter method I was enabled, by the help of Mr. Bridges, to trace
in detail in the case of Yattenden. The Board of Agriculture return,
as we have seen, assigns 252 acres of common field to Yattenden. The
tithe map, dated 1845, on which this is based, shows in one corner
of “Yattenden Great Field” about 20 acres of intermixed ownership
and occupation, forming part of one “furlong,” remaining in the
characteristic common-field arrangement; the rest of the so-called
“Yattenden Great Field” and “Everington Field” were in part divided
into hedged fields, and in part into compact stretches of about 20
acres each, still unhedged, with here and there single acres detached
in the midst of them; many of these single acres being glebe.
An older manorial map, dated 1773, showed that at that date nearly
half the parish was open; the eastern part was already divided into
closes, except for a small stretch of lammas meadow, divided into small
intermixed holdings, by the river Pang; but the western part, Yattenden
and Everington fields, were almost entirely open, and divided in
furlongs, and the furlongs in acre and half-acre strips. These strips
on the map are all marked with the letters of the alphabet, to indicate
whether they are held by the lord of the manor, by his tenants, or by
other owners.
In other words, the process of gradual enclosure, which began before
1773, was continued afterwards, and was nearly complete in 1845. The
end came about the year 1858, when Frilsham Common, in an adjoining
parish, was enclosed. About half of the intermixed strips in Yattenden
Great Field belonged to a yeoman, who was, his brother told me, “a
great man for defining his boundaries.” The enclosure of Frilsham
Common gave the slight stimulus to the mind of Yattenden necessary to
overcome its mental inertia, and make change possible, so the yeoman
in question was able to effect the exchanges he desired, and others
following his example, the lay properties were all separated. But still
the glebe consists in part of an acre here and an acre there in the
midst of lands belonging to laymen. These are let with the lands in
which they lie; they have no mark to distinguish them, nor boundaries
to limit them; the tithe map and award preserve the record of them, and
the vicar receives their rent.
This circumstance of the glebe lying in part in separate unfenced
strips scattered over the parish, let with the lands in which they
lie, and so not influencing the agriculture of the parish, though
testifying to the past system, is by no means uncommon in the parishes
not enclosed by Act of Parliament.[15]
[15] Mr. A. N. Palmer, in “Ancient Tenures of Land in the Marches of
North Wales,” gives a list of parishes in one Hundred containing, or
known to have contained, “quilleted fields,” _i.e._ fields containing
strips of land belonging to a different owner from the rest of the
field, these strips being usually glebe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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