The Regional Uniqueness of English Field Systems?
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l .... ) The Regional Uniqueness of I English Field Systems? Some Evidence from Eastern Norfolk By B M S CAMPBELL • I [): HE assumption that England possessed a thought that spatial variations in field systems number of regionally distinct field could be attributed to colonization by dif- IE T systems, differentiated from one another ferent ethnic groups but this view has now !. by certain unique attributes, has been implicit been largely discredited. 2 Even Joan Thirsk's i, i in much writing on English field systems. Yet more recent hypothesis, that regional in the present state of knowledge, with the variations in field systems reflect regional full geographical extent and precise mode of variations in population density, in the i l operation of the common-field system relative importance of pastoral and arable imperfectly known, the possibility remains farming, and in soil and terrain, leaves certain i that the different systems which existed facts unexplained. 3 There are several !, I i i transcended regional boundaries and thus exceptions to her observations that 'the classic il- l, were not exclusively regional in character. common-field system represented an intensive Local and regional idiosyncracies of system of farming for corn that was charac- q terminology and tenure certainly existed, but teristic of all well-populated villages in plains by themselves these do not constitute and valleys in all parts of the kingdom', and ['! evidence of unique local or regional field that 'field-systems and the rigour of their ! systems. In fact, an examination of field rules and regulations varied according to the ii systems on strictly functional grounds may type of farming practised, and perhaps i i well demonstrate the contrary, as in the case according to the size of populations'.4 ! 1, i-! of Kent, where A lk H Baker has shown that Conspicuous exceptions are the greater part of there was little peculiarly Kentish about the East Anglia and the extreme south-east of !::i 'so-called "Kentish system"' 1 England. Any further advance in our under- This issue of the regional uniqueness, or standing of the genesis of the common-field otherwise, of English field systems is not only system in England will therefore partly I important in its own right but also bears upon depend upon a fuller knowledge of the dis- our understanding of the origin and develop- tribution, mode of operation, and course of ment of the common-field system. Any development of each of its variant forms. explanation of the origin of the system must Among the most interesting areas for the ,i i account for the fact that field systems became study of field systems are areas which were co-ordinated and systematized in different characterized by intensive arable farming and ways, and to a different extent in different z H L Gray, English Field Systems, Cambridge, Mass, 1915. parts of the country. As yet no convincing See also A Ik H Baker, 'Howard Levi Gray and English reasons for this have been advanced. H L Gray Field Systems: An Evaluation', Agricultural History, 39, 2, 1965, pp 86-91. 31 Thirsk, 'The Common Fidds', Past & Present, 29, 1964, 1A R. H Baker, 'Some Fields and Farms in Medieval Kent', pp 3-25; J Thirsk, 'The Origin of the Common Fields', Archaeologia Cantiana, LXXX, 1965, pp 152-74: B M S Past & Present, 33, 1966, pp 142-7; J Thirsk, 'Preface to Campbell, 'Commonfield Origins: The Regional the Third Edition', pp v-xv in C S and C S Orwin, The i: Dimension', in T R.owley (ed), The Origins of Open Field Open Fields, Oxford, 3rd edn, 1967. i: Agriculture (forthcoming). 4 Ibid, p xi. !¸¸ ;1~ 16 i!iii:, ~L ~ ii~:~!~ ! ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 17 high population densities. In such areas throughout East Anglia. Since this system subdivided fields were often especially well possessed certain highly individual characteris- developed and the problems of reconciling the tics this consideration is of some importance mutually dependent but conflicting demands to the wider issue of regional uniqueness. of pastoral and arable husbandry were parti- The individuality of field systems in cularly acute. One such area was East Anglia. western Norfolk largely derived from a During the middle ages parts of this large and unique fusion of the two opposing elements diverse region (notably eastern and south- of flexibility and control; rights of common eastern Norfolk) supported higher densitie~ of grazing, on the aftermath of the harvest population, and were characterized by higher (harvest shack) and on strips lying fallow levels of assessed lay wealth and more throughout the year, applied to fields charac- intensive methods of farming than any other terized by the utmost irregularity of layout part of the country, s At present, however, and holdings which employed a highly specific knowledge of the field systems which flexible system of cropping. The irregularity operated in East Anglia is confined to western of field layout and flexibility of cropping Norfolk and adjacent portions of Suffolk and posed no great obstacle to the institution of Cambridgeshire, away from the most harvest shack but presented serious problems economically advanced localities. 6 Moreover, to common grazing of the arable at other the excellence of sixteenth and seventeenth times of the year. These problems were century sources has attracted attention away resolved by means of an institution known as from earlier periods so that even in western the foldcourse. Foldcourses comprised two Norfolk little is known of field systems before essential elements; on the one hand the the major agrarian changes of the later middle imposition of irregular cropping shifts to ages. It therefore remains to be proven that rationalize the distribution of unsown strips the field system which is known to have (including the provision of compensation for existed in western Norfolk in the post- cultivators disadvantaged by possessing a dis- medieval period had at one time prevailed proportionate amount of land in the fallow shift), and on the other, the supervised 5 For the distribution of population and wealth in medieval grazing of communal flocks upon the fallow. England see the maps in H C Darby (ed), A New Historical Difficulties of access to the fallow strips and Geography of England, Cambridge, 1973, pp 46, 139, 191. of control and manoeuvrability of livestock For East Anglian agriculture see B M S Campbell, 'Field Systems in Eastern Norfolk during the Middle Ages: A meant that rights of fallow grazing were Study with Particular Reference to the Demographic and confined to sheep. Accordingly, as soon as Agrarian Changes of the Fourteenth Century' (University spring lambing was past, sheep were collected of Cambridge, unpublished PhD thesis, 1975), pp 83-95, 105-17,337-54. into communal flocks which were fed upon th e 6 Studies which have concentrated upon the field systems of heaths and sheepwalks by day and folded upon this area are Gray, op cit, pp 305-54; J Saltmarsh and the fallow arable by night, whose soil they H C Darby, 'The Infield-Outfield System on a Norfolk Manor', Econ Hist Rev, III, 1935, pp 30-44; K J Allison, tathed with their treading, dung and urine. 'The Sheep-Corn Husbandry of Norfolk in the Sixteenth •Within the commonfields the sheep were and Seventeenth Centuries', Ag Hist Rev, V, 1, 1957, pp controlled by means of moveable folds, which 12-30; M R Postgate, 'The Field Systems of Breckland', Ag Hist Rev, X, 2, 1962, pp 80-101; M R Postgate, 'The permitted the grazing of relatively small Open Fields of Cambridgeshire (University of Cambridge, blocks of fallow and also facilitated a more unpublished PhD thesis, 1964); M Spufford, 'A Cam- systematic pattern of grazing and dunging bridgeshire Community, Chippenham from Settlement to Enclosure', Occasional Paper, Dept of English Local Hist, than would otherwise have occurred. In fact, Univ ofLeics, XX, 1965. For the most recent account of the fertilization of the arable appears to have East Anglian field systems see M IK Postgate, 'Field Systems been the principal objective of the system, for m of East Anglia', being Chapter 7 in A IK H Baker and IK A Butlin (eds), Studies of Field Systems in~ the British Isles, the rathe of the sheep fold seems to have been Cambridge, 1973. of greater benefit to the arable fields than was !•!~:., !:~ii¸ b':, 'i. 18 THE AGRICULTURALHISTORY REVIEW ii the meagre pasturage available on the fallow the more fertile and thickly settled locality of to the sheep. eastern Norfolk at their medieval zenith. The use of sheep as walking dung machines, to transfer nutrients from the l:!i permanent pasture (which remained an essential adjunct to the system) to the arable, In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth was a principle common to most areas of centuries manorial records show that extensive sheep-corn husbandry, but only in East common fields dominated the landscape~ of Anglia does it appear to have been codified eastern Norfolk, and that the subdivision of and integrated into the common-field land was intense. Two and a half centuries system. 7 Even more unusual is the fact that later, by which time the common fields had responsibility for this component of the field already been much modified by consolidation system was vested in the manorial lord rather and enclosure, the first topographical than the corporate authority of the entire descriptions of entire townships become commonfield community (especially as in East available and it is possible to assess the relative Anglia there was generally a total lack of disposition of arable and pasture and coiiacidence between manor and vill). In reconstruct the original cadastra of the t common-field villages elsewhere all rights of commonfields.