The English Village Community: Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)Seebohm, Frederic
History
The English Village Community: Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)
Seebohm, Frederic
Village communities -- Great Britain
The northern limit on the Severn is described as _Astege pul_, now,
after a thousand years, known as _Ashwell Grange Pill_, the _puls_
of 1,000 years ago and the present _pills_ being the little streams
which wear away a sort of miniature tidal estuary in the mudbanks as
they empty themselves into the Severn and the Wye. Numbers of pills
are marked in the Ordnance map, and as many 'puls' are mentioned in
the boundaries of Saxon charters and those inserted in the _Liber
Landavensis_.
«_Inland_ and _gesettes_ land.»
After the boundaries, under the heading '_Divisiones et consuetudines
in Dyddanhamme_,'[184] the document proceeds to state that 'at
Dyddanhamme are xxx. hides, ix. of _inland_ and xxi. of _gesettes
land_.' The manor was therefore in the tenth century divided into
demesne land and land in villenage.
Next are stated separately the contents of each hamlet on the manor,
as follows:--
«Yard-lands.»
«_Hæc-_ and _cyt-_ weirs.»
At _Stræt_ are xii. hides--xxvii. gyrda gafollandes, and on the
Severn xxx. cytweras.
At _Middeltun_ are v. hides--xiiii. gyrda gafollandes, xiiii.
cytweras on the Severn, and ii. hæcweras on the Wye.
At the _Cinges túne_ are v. hides--xiii. gyrda gafollandes, and
i. hide above the dyke, which is now also gafolland; and that
outside the hamme is still part inland and part gesett to gafol
to 'scipwealan.' At the Cinges túne on the Severn are xxi.
cytweras, and on the Wye xii.
At the _Bishop's túne_ are iii. hides, and xv. cytweras on the
Wye.
At _Landcawet_ are iii. hides and ii. hæcweras on the Wye, and
ix. cytweras.
«The hamlets.»
Thus this manor, like the Winslow manor, had hamlets or small
dependencies upon it, and these are [p151] still traceable on the
map. _Street_ is still _Stroat_ on the old Roman street--the _Via
Julia_ (?)--from Gloucester to Caerleon. The _Cinges túne_, now
_Sudbury_, lay on the high wedge-shaped southern promontory above the
cliffs, between the Wye and Severn where they join; and it lies as it
did then, part on one side and part on the other side of Offa's Dyke,
as if the dyke had been cut through its open fields. Its fisheries
were naturally some on the Severn and some on the Wye. The '_Bishop's
túne_' is still traceable in _Bishton_ farm. Lastly, _Llancaut_, the
only hamlet on this Saxon manor 900 years ago with a Welsh name,
bears its old name still. This hamlet is surrounded almost entirely
by a bend of the Wye, and its situation backed by its woods (_coit_
= _wood_) may well have protected it from destruction at the time of
the Saxon conquest.
Next, it is clear that the _geset land_ in the open fields round
each 'túne' or hamlet, except at _Llancaut_ and _Bishop's tune_,
was divided, as usual, into yard-lands--_gyrda gafollandes_. These
yard-lands and the open fields have long since been swept away by the
enclosure of the parish.
«The fishing _weirs_.»
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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