CHAPTER II: HISTORICAL CASE STUDY—THE MEDIEVAL BRITISH
2.2 L ITERATURE R EVIEW ON THE M EDIEVAL B RITISH C OMMONS AND C OMMONFIELDS
2.2.2 The Daily Workings
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A third point would be that “[i]nnovations such as substitution for fodder crops for bare fallows, flexible rotations, and the stall-feeding of livestock, would have been incompatible with a fully regularized commonfield system.” Moreover, the increase of production from technology change would exempt the need for restructuring land use.73 Forth, Campbell found that the regular commonfield system generally did not exist in areas with too dense or too scarce a population due to the reason of population pressure on the economy. If the population was too sparse, there was no need for rationalization of land holding and layout; a more consolidated and enclosed land use would be reasonable with a more extensive form of agriculture. On the contrary, if too many people, the resistance of change make restructuring impossible.74
Whatever the reason for the initiation of the commonfield system, either ethnic or for survival, the system remained and stuck on. How it took shape was another myth, either from natural development to respond from population pressures or from order of a higher authority, but are now irrelevant to our main quest for answers. This communal style of living sunk in.
In the next section, I discuss how the commonfield system runs daily as a long lasting socio-economic institution.
2.2.2 The Daily Workings
How did the commonfields operate on a daily basis?
In the communal open field system (or the regular commonfield system),
“communitarianism” was the essential trait of the system. A communal way of socio-economic life was the order:
“Strips of land were cropped individually yet were subject to communal rotations and (typically) communal regulation of cropping….This meant that each farmer was required to
73 Campbell, “Commonfield Origins” 122-123.
74 Campbell, “Commonfield Origins” 123-125.
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follow the same time schedule for planting, harvesting, and fallowing his strips in the open fields (although the choice of crops was not always constrained). In addition…villagers had to allow the village herd to graze on their land at times: on the fallow field and on the arable fields after harvest.”75
It was clear that as a farmer in a township adopting the communal open field system, he would have to follow regulations on communal cropping, fallowing, rotations, and grazing.
But where do the rules come from? Hopcroft writes:
“All of this was regulated by a central body or council of some sort, called the byelaw in England…. This council was responsible for coordinating cropping, harvesting, grazing, and field rotations as well as appointing village shepherds and fence keepers.”76
Bylaws, as afore mentioned by Buck, are rules of the villages. They regulate almost all aspects of the agrarian economy activities. How were they made?
“…evidence points unequivocally to the autonomy of village communities in determining the form of, and the rules governing, their field systems. They made their decisions in the light of their own circumstances and their own requirements. In villages which possessed no more than one manor, matters were agreed in the manorial court, and the decisions sometimes, but not always, recorded on the court roll. Decisions affecting villages which shared the use of commons were taken at the court of the chief lord, at which all the vills were represented. In villages where more than one manor existed, agreement might be reached at a village meeting at which all tenants and lords were present or represented.”77 This account implies that some kind of consent was to be reached at these institutions of gatherings which were attended by the all stakeholders or representative of the stakeholders. What about rule breaching?
“[The byelaw] was also responsible for sanctioning those who violated the rules. If
75 Hopcroft, Regions,17-18.
76 Hopcroft, Regions, 18.
77 Joan Thirsk, “Field of the East Midlands”, in Baker and Butlin, Studies of Field Systems, 232.
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admonishment by the village council was not enough, seigneurial law and the seigneurial court further enforced agricultural rules. Such regulation and enforcement served to maintain the system, because unless all farmers followed the rules the entire field system would break down.”78
Hence, if village bylaws weren’t enough to enforce the norms and punishments, the court of the feudal lord will intervene and defend its authority and order. “Village governance typically worked in conjunction with manorial officials, and vice versa.” In short, byelaws depended on the feudal lordship’s manorial court for deterring and punishing noncompliance of the peasants.79
However, who were the peasants? What was their relationship with the lordship?
Most of the peasants were customary tenants, meaning that they are either personally bound to the lord in some way (as villeins or serfs), or that their farmed land belonged to the manor (hence, they are not freeholders). Customary tenants had to be responsible for both the lord’s land and his own. In addition, there were other obligations of feudal payments and dues in kind, fees, and services. “These often included money rents for using the land, mandatory fees for the usage of manorial facilities—the mills, ponds, ovens, etc.”, as well as taxes of land or goods transfer and others taxes.80 Tenants are also subjected to the manorial courts and limits of mobility and other behavior.81 In sum, lords control the land which tenants live on and are tied to. Hence, the influence of the feudal lord “pervades all aspects of life, economic and social”.82
Therefore, this brings one to ask: “How much freedom of decision were the medieval peasants entitled to?” This is a very fair and insightful question. Peasants at this time are not all a serf or “villain”. In general, they can be separated by the types of relationship they have
78 Hopcroft, Regions, 19.
79 Hopcroft, Regions, 26.
80 Hopcroft, Regions, 26.
81 Hopcroft, Regions, 65.
82 Hopcroft, Regions, 26.
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with the manorial lord. Those who do not own labor service or marriage fines are “free men”.
Free men are not under reign of the manorial lord, so they are mainly not the subject of manorial records in which we draw most of our understanding of the agrarian arrangements of the day. If the rights of a free man are impeded upon, he can bring a lawsuit upon the breacher at the royal court, or appeal to the royal justices who travel around the country.
Those that fall under the manorial court are unfree tenants, including villeins and customary tenants.83 These tenants are presented at the court/village meetings when community matters are discusses in which bylaws are issued on common grazing and cropping affairs.84 When disputes arise, villagers were able to serve as jurors and pledges.85 Hence, these types of participation, gives some extent of legitimacy to the lord’s court and village meetings.