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 principal, 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 Northamptonshire, retained this characteristic.
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