mensuration of this American square mile, the influence of the common field-furrow, and the gad, or rod, or pole, by which the common field acres were marked out can be traced in every corner of the plot. According to Canon Taylor,90 a furlong is the length of the longest furrow that could be conveniently ploughed before the oxen had to stop and rest; whilst the breadth of the acre depended on the number of furrows which formed the daily task of the villan and his oxen. Mr. Pell, in his learned but difficult paper on the Domesday Assessment, disputes this,91 and states that the furlong means not a furrow long, but rather a line 40 rods long, that this line 4 rods broad makes the acre, and that both the acre and the rod are merely convenient fractions of some larger area. However this may be, 8 of these furlongs lie on each side of the square mile shown on this plan. Quarter the area and you get the normal farm of 160 acres, quarter the farm and you get the 40 acres which we have seen to be the usual extent of the part cultivated or enclosed for corn and meadow hay; quarter that cultivated portion and you get the square furlong, or ferdell,92 which contained 10 normal acre strips, each acre strip being 40 rods long and 4 rods broad, in other words, a furlong in length and 4 rods in breadth, the area which, according to the ordinance of Edward I., constituted a legal acre. In fact this American square mile, divided into four farms of 160 acres each, is exactly similar in extent, dimensions, and divisions to the four carucates of arable land, containing in length 8 furlongs, and in breadth 8 furlongs, the gift of Algar, the knight, to the abbey of Croyland, which was confirmed to that abbey by that description by the charter of Wiglaf, king of the Mercians, in the year 833.93

There are two great differences between this modern Kansas farm and the ancient Northumbrian farms which we have been considering. Its homestead is isolated from those of its neighbours and its lands are cultivated in severalty. If, instead of being connected by the power of steam with other parts of the earth, from which it can obtain the supplies of those necessaries which are produced by different industries, its proprietor had had to depend for these on mutual exchange with

90 Domesday Studies, vol. i. p. 60.

91 Ibid. p. 371.

92 Decem acræ terræ faciunt secundum antiquam consuetudinem unam ferdellam. Spelman's Gloss. Title Virgata terræ.

93 Kemble's Anglo-Saxon Charters, vol. I., page 306. See also Ingulph. Bohn's edition, page 15.

BYWELL SURVEY OF 1569.

151

his immediate neighbours, he would probably for convenience have placed his dwelling closer to theirs. If, instead of being protected by the far reaching arm of a strong central government, he and his neighbours had been subject to maraudings similar to those spoken of in the Bywell survey of 156994 as the continual robberies and incursions of the thieves of Tynedale to assault them in the night' he and his neighbours would probably have arranged their dwellings in a single street which could be closed and defended at each end.

6

In that case the land which could be most conveniently cultivated would have been that which lay nearest to the aggregated homesteads, and there must have been, for the sake of peace, some equitable method of arranging that each neighbour had his fair share of good land and bad land, of land which lay conveniently at hand and land which lay awkwardly at a distance. Some have thought that it was such considerations as these which induced the early settlers in our townships to cultivate their land on the common field system ;95 others have thought that its origin was the ancient pastoral right of the community to turn their cattle upon every part of the township, including even the arable fields after the crop was carried;96 others have thought that the obligations of a co-operative system of ploughing and of contributing oxen for that purpose are responsible for these dispersed and scattered holdings;97 whilst some believe that no such consideration would be strong enough to form so elaborate a communal arrangement as that which we have surveyed and that only the dominion of a master over his serfs could bring about the uniformity of the organization.98

An examination of historical documents shows many traces of free institutions, so far as the civic life of these village communities is concerned, but the details of their agricultural organization seem connected in almost every case with incidents of serfdom. It may be that they began to cultivate on a common field system after they lost their freedom, just as that method has been discontinued since they have regained it. But all these views and theories probably contain only some disconnected part of the whole history and truth as to the ancient village community in England.

4 Hall and Humberstone's Survey of the Barony of Bywell, 1569. 95 Vinogradoff, 254.

96

'Systems of Land Tenure in various countries. Morier on German Tenures, 244, note. 97 Seebohm, 117. 98 Ibid. 178.

Epitomising in a tabular form the evidence collected by Mr. Woodman of the existence down to recent times in the parishes and townships of Northumberland of ancient farms, each forming one ascertained aliquot part of the township in which it was situated :

APPENDIX A-THE ANCIENT FARMS OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 153

Farnelaw. 4
Whitton.

Tithe paid per farm Terrier in the registry