One of the most striking and interesting features of the open field village life is the existence of a self-governing constitution for the settlement of disputes, and the most profitable use of the village lands--the annual meetings of farmers and common-right owners; the institution of field reeves and field juries; the division among commoners of the profits of the common property. One cannot but look upon this as the survival of an ancient village communal life, which must have been much stronger and more vigorous in earlier days, when each village was more of a self-contained and isolated economic unit; and particularly while the co-operative ploughing persisted, from which the intermixture of lands in common field arable is admitted to have originated. Even in its degenerate state, when co-operative ploughing has been extinct for generations, the open field parish involves a certain partnership among the cultivators, necessitating some recognised rules, mutual consultation, and organised combination: how much more binding the necessity must have been in the Middle Ages? Hence from the very necessity of the case, there must have been a bond between the village workers, such as is conveyed by the words “village community,” which probably preceded, and underlay as a foundation, the better known manorial and parochial institutions, the manorial organisation arising from the contact between the village community and the Central Government, or outside enemies, the parochial from its contact with the Church. But while these features of common-field management in general are survivals of “the village community,” it is possible _in any particular village_ that such institutions and customs were the creation of the legislature since the latter part of the eighteenth century. For in the year 1773 a noteworthy Act was passed for the better regulation of the culture of common arable fields. It enacts that “where there are open or common field lands, all the Tillage or Arable lands lying in the said open or Common Fields, shall be ordered, fenced, cultivated or improved, in such manner as three-fourths in number and value of the occupiers shall agree, with consent of the owner and tithe-owner.”