Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval HistoryVinogradoff, Paul
History
Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History
Vinogradoff, Paul
Villeinage -- England -- History -- To 1500
A curious deviation is apparent in the following instance, taken from
the cartulary of Malmesbury. The Abbey makes an exchange with a
neighbour who has rights of common on some of the convent's land, and
therefore does not allow of its being cultivated and inclosed (_inhoc
facere_). In return for certain concessions on the part of the Abbey,
this neighbouring owner agrees that fallow pasture should be turned into
arable on the condition that after the harvest it should return to
common use, as well as the land not actually under seed. Lastly comes a
provision about the villains of the person entering into agreement with
the Abbey: if they do not want to conform to the new arrangement of
cultivation, they will be admitted to their strips for the purpose of
ploughing up or using the fallow[456]. The case is interesting in two
respects: it shows the intimate connexion between the construction of
the inclosure (_inhoc_) and the raising of the crop; the special
paragraph about the villains gives us to understand that something more
than the usual rotation of crops was meant: the 'inhokare' appears in
opposition either to the ordinary ploughing up of the fallow, or in a
general sense to its use for pasture; it seems to indicate
extra-cultivation of such land as ought to have remained uncultivated.
These considerations are borne out by other documents. In a trial of
Edward I's time the 'inheche' is explained in as many words as the
ploughing up of fallow for a crop of wheat, oats, or barley[457]. The
Gloucester Survey, in describing one of the manors belonging to the
Abbey, arranges its land into four fields (_campi_), each consisting of
several parts: the first field is said to contain 174 acres, the second
63, the third 109, the fourth 69 acres. Two-thirds of the whole are
subjected to the usual modes of cultivation under a three-course system,
and one-third remains for pasture. But out of this last third, 40 acres
of the first field (of 174 acres) get inclosed and used for crop in one
year, and 20 acres of the second in another[458]. In this way the
ordinary three-course alternation becomes somewhat more complicated, and
it will be hardly too bold a guess to suppose that such
extra-cultivation implied some manuring of such patches as were deprived
of their usual rest once in three years. In contradiction to the
customary arrangement which did not require any special manuring except
that which was incident to the use of arable as pasture for the cattle
after the harvest, we find plots set apart for more intense
cultivation[459], and it is to be noticed that the reckoning in
connexion with them does not start from the division according to three
parts, but supposes a separate classification in two sections.
[The 'Campus.']
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