Part 15 (1/2)
The state of things exhibited in the previous chapter is essentially transitional. What we have there seen is the town emerging out of the country, or, to put it another way, the country merging, through the principle of attraction, into the focus of the town. This method of viewing the subject is necessarily partial and incomplete. The existence of a common in a.s.sociation with a town or village or group of villages is not a self-evident proposition, to be taken for granted. It is clearly part of a system which it now becomes our business to investigate.
To all appearances many of the arrangements found in the course of, and to the close of, the Middle Ages, and even (in a decaying and disappearing form) almost to our own generation, were descended from that well-nigh immemorial antiquity, in which our forefathers were colonists in what was to them a new world--a world of forest and of fen, of man-eating beasts, and alien foemen as fierce or fiercer than they.
These conditions determined the course of action of the men who lived under them. For safety, men of one blood dwelt together in a stockaded village or tun. They and their stock, however, had to subsist on their labour and the bounty of the earth; and therefore around the village a tract of cultivable land was appropriated to the use of the community.
Until some degree of security was attained it was futile to dream too much of individual rights; the inhabitants would have been only too glad of the co-operation of their neighbours, and whilst some worked others no doubt stood to arms. Within this area seem to have lain fenced fields for the shelter of calves and other young animals, but this was probably the only exception. Beyond the arable land lay a ring of meadow land; beyond that the stinted pasture; and beyond that again the forest or waste.
By the term ”common” is generally understood common of pasture; it is not unusual to meet with the phrase ”cow commons,” as though cows were the princ.i.p.al, if not the sole, objects which rendered commons of service. This may well have been the case in later times. In early days however, there went along with it common tillage, examples of which are still to be found on the Continent. Traces of the open-field system exist also in various parts of England, notably between Hitchin and Cambridge, where there are huge turf balks dividing the fields. It is said that within the last century the country lying between Royston and Newmarket was entirely unenclosed, and till quite late in the century parishes like Lexton, in Northamptons.h.i.+re, retained this characteristic.
Other examples occur at Swanage in Dorset and Stogursey in West Somerset.
BOROUGH ENGLISH
Before proceeding to describe the methods of cultivation employed, it is desirable to glance at a custom which, there is reason to suppose, is connected with that remote period when the English were not _de jure_ masters of the soil, but occupied the position of colonists, who either expropriated the original inhabitants or entered upon possession of land as _res nullius_, to which they had established no solid claim by prescription. We have already referred to that valuable repertoire of national customs, so judiciously edited as to merit the higher praise _in_valuable--the Year-Books. The reports of the pleas in the Common Bench for 1293 include the following:
”One A. brought a writ of entry against B., saying, 'Into which he had not entry except by such an one who had tortiously, &c, disseised his father Robert.' And he laid the descent thus: 'From Robert descended the right, &c, to Adam the present demandant, as his youngest son and heir, according to the custom of such a place, &c.'
”_a.s.seby_: 'Sir, we tell you that Adam has an elder brother named N., who is legitimate and is alive, and whom they have omitted. Judgment of the omission.'
”_Sutton_: 'Sir, even if he had made a quit-claim to him, yet that could not be a bar to us, because by the custom of the country the youngest shall have his inheritance, wherefore there is no need to make mention of him.'
”_a.s.seby_: 'Sir, he has brought a writ at common law; judgment if he ought not to be answered at common law, and if he (the demandant) can allege the custom.'
”_Sutton_: 'In many places in England a woman demands her dower by the writ ”Unde nihil habet,” which is a writ at common law, and yet, according to the custom of the country, she will recover for her dower a moiety of the tenements which belonged to her husband, where by common law she would have only the third part, and also in the case of tenements in some countries which are holden by knight-service the lord can avow the taking as good for cornage according to the law of the country; and yet the writ is at common law. And also in Gavelkind according to the custom [of Kent] the younger brother shall have as much as the elder; and yet one brother shall recover against the other brother by right ”De rationabile parte,” and by the ”Nuper obiit,” which are writs at common law. So in the present case.'
”_Metingham_ [the judge]: 'a.s.seby, answer.'”
Now what was this custom? It is that known as ”Borough English,” and the reader will have already inferred from the report of the action that, wherever it prevailed, the youngest son claimed to succeed to his father's estate. It is therefore the ant.i.thesis of the right of primogeniture, whereby real estate falls to the eldest son. An old record given to print by the late Mr. Robert Dymond, F.S.A., exhibits in great detail the customs of the Manor of Braunton, in Devons.h.i.+re, and among them is that of Borough English, or, as it is termed in local parlance, ”cradle-land.” This testimony is of peculiar interest, since the doc.u.ment comprises a provision for the a.s.signment of the property in the not wholly improbable event of the family consisting entirely of daughters. The section touching upon Borough English is thus formulated:
”HEIRS OF THE YOUNGEST HOLDING
”_Item_, the Custome ys in every of the sayd manors that if eny manner of person or persons be seased of eny manner of land or tenements, rents or premises of the yonger holdyng liying withyn eny of the seid manors or liberties in fee symple or in fe tayle, in demeane or in usu, and have divers sonnys by dyvers venters, viz. by dyvers wyvys, or women by divers men, and dye, that then the yonger son of them shall inherite the seid lands and tenements with other the premyses in fe symple as in fe tayle that so descendith in the seid yonger holdyng in demeane or in use, except ther be any other estate made & proved to the contrary by wryting & if the[y] have no yssue b.u.t.t all doughters that then the seid inheritance [is] to be parted betwene theym except any lawful wryting or state made to the contrary after the custom.”
Neither of these rules of succession was in any way confined to the West of England. Indeed, the late Mr. T. W. Sh.o.r.e, who appears to have been quite an authority on the subject, affirms that ”in a general way it may be said that the further we go from Kent the less numerous become the instances in any county of England.” This statement is confirmed by a yet greater authority. ”Borough English,” says Elton, ”was most prevalent in the S.E. districts, in Kent, Suss.e.x, and Surrey, in a ring of manors encircling ancient London, and, to a less extent, in Ess.e.x and the East Anglian kingdom.” Mr. E. A. Peac.o.c.k, however, points out that there are in Lincolns.h.i.+re seven places where the custom is still abiding--viz., Hibaldstow, Keadby, Kirton-in-Lindsey, Long Bennington, Norton (Bishops), Th.o.r.esby and Wathall; and he further calls attention to the fact, which is certainly most important, that the custom may be traced over nearly all Europe with the exception of Spain and Italy, and up to the boundaries of China and Arracan. The German name is _jungsten-recht_; and the practice for which it stands existed, amongst other places, at Rettenburg in Westphalia. How then did it become known as Borough _English_? The reason is suggested by the two sorts of tenure--Burgh Engloyes and Burgh Francoyes--which are found in different parts of the town of Nottingham in the reign of Edward III. Borough English was the native custom which had succeeded in holding its ground against the effects of the Norman Conquest.
As has been said, Borough English was in vogue all around London--at Lambeth, Vauxhall, Croydon, Streatham, Leigham Court, Shene or Richmond, Isleworth, Sion, Ealing, Acton, and Earl's Court. In some of these places--Fulham, Wimbledon, Battersea, Wandsworth, Barnes and Richmond--the ”yonger holding” descended not only to males but to females; and at Lambeth (and at Kirton-in-Lindsey, in Lincolns.h.i.+re) there existed the identical arrangement which has been found at Braunton, in Devon. This equal division between daughters Mr. Sh.o.r.e regards as an ”intermediate stage between Borough English and Gavelkind.” The latter is distinctively the ”custom of Kent,” and signifies that the land was ”partible,” and inherited by the sons in equal shares, the youngest son retaining the homestead, and making compensation to his brethren for this addition to his share. Borough English and gavelkind, therefore, though not the same, are near akin; and it is an interesting question which of the two was prior to the other. It may be that gavelkind is the older, and that Borough English is a remnant or distortion of what appears, on the face of it, a more equitable condition of things. On the other hand, gavelkind may have been, so to speak, grafted on a more simple usage which the community, through change of circ.u.mstances, had outgrown, and had ceased to possess the same justification as at first.
Why should the youngest son take the inheritance? One explanation is that he was presumed to be least able to provide for himself. This, however, expresses only half the truth. The other half has, we think, been furnished by Mr. Peac.o.c.k:
”The most popular explanation in the last [eighteenth] century was the calumny known as _mercheta mulierum_, now known as a malignant fable popularized by novelists and playwrights. Another suggestion is that it is a custom that has survived from some prehistoric race; a third that it has grown up at different points....” Mr. Peac.o.c.k regards the last as the most likely. ”It is only when the population becomes relatively dense that land, apart from what it produces, is of any value. A time, however, would soon be reached when land would have a value of its own.
The good soil would soon be taken up, and in the days of a primitive mode of culture third-rate land would be valueless. Then the house-father would be forced by circ.u.mstances to make provision, ere his death, for the sons sharing the ancestral domain between them.
”Here we have the origin of gavelkind--a form of devolution more widely spread than even ultimo-geniture or Borough English. Gavelkind, however, could be but a temporary provision. As the population grew, so it would be absolutely necessary that the young men of the household should make new settlements for themselves. This fact accounts in its measure for the vast s.h.i.+fting of the population that took place when the Roman Empire was in its protracted death-agony. The torrents of human beings which poured in on the decaying Empire were considered by the older historians as evidence of nomadic barbarism. We, with our present lights, say rather that they indicate a population too dense for their own homes to support.
”It would be a matter of course that the elder sons should go forth and carve out for themselves new homes in the West; but when the swarm departed, all the sons would not go forth from the shelter of the native roof-tree. One at least, commonly the youngest, would stay behind. On him would devolve the duty of looking after the old folk and his unmarried sisters. On him would devolve in due time the duties of the sacrifices connected with the sacred hearth; and when the father died to him would devolve the paternal dwelling, with its ploughland, its meadow, and its rights of wood and water. Here is, we believe, the key to the origin of Borough English.”
THE OPEN FIELD
We now pa.s.s to the methods of cultivation observed in the open field--the conditions of early agriculture. There is reason to believe that at the time of the English settlement extensive tillage must have existed, at any rate to some degree; but this was soon superseded by intensive culture. Certain fields, that is to say, were allocated for the raising of particular crops, the limits being marked by large balks or banks. Beside these arable fields there was a tract of meadow land, from which the cattle would have been excluded during the time necessary for the growth and carrying of hay. After harvesting operations had been completed, and all through the winter, the cattle were allowed to range at will among the stubble of the arable fields, and over the meadow land, as also over the waste, which was more properly their domain.
As it was impossible to raise crops year after year from the same fields without gravely impoveris.h.i.+ng the soil, this system was exchanged in some places for another--that of cropping one or two fields and allowing the other to lie fallow. This modification was not always judged requisite to prevent the exhaustion or deterioration of the land; and thus there arose a third--what is termed the ”three-field” system, by which out of three arable fields two were under cultivation at the same time, one lying fallow. The third plan was that which ultimately met with most favour. In the early autumn the field that had lain fallow through the summer was ploughed and sown with wheat, rye, or other corn; and in the spring the stubble of the field that had yielded the last crop of wheat was ploughed up, and barley or oats sown in it. The third field, in which the previous crop had been barley, retained the stubble till the early days of June. It was then ploughed up and left in that condition until a fresh crop was sown in the autumn. Professor Cunningham, whose account we here follow, has furnished a convenient chart or diagram which we venture to reproduce as an aid to the comprehension of the subject:
I. II. III.
Wheat (or rye) Stubble of Stubble of +------------------+--------------+--------------+ _Jan_
sown
wheat
barley (or
oats)
Sow
------------------+--------------
_March_