Chapter IV - ARABLE LAND

Summary

From numerous hints in late Anglo-Saxon documents we may suppose that the arable, or much of it at any rate, was arranged in open-field strips. There is, however, only a solitary Domesday entry that seems to refer to scattered strips – that for Garsington in Oxfordshire (156b) which reads: ‘There 1 hide of inland which never paid geld, lying scattered (particulatim) among the king's land.’ For possible variations in field arrangements from district to district in 1086, we have to conjecture from later evidence. But although Domesday Book gives us no information about these matters, it does enable us, in a broad way, to perceive the relative distribution of arable over the face of the countryside.

Entry after entry for most counties states: (a) the amount of land for which there were teams (terra n carucis), and (b) the number of teams (carucae) actually at work. The first statement sounds very straightforward but only seemingly so because its implications are far from clear. The second statement also sounds straightforward, and it may well be so, but it is also not without difficulties and uncertainties. We must therefore consider both these statements before examining the distribution of arable land; and, of course, we can only exclude any possible tillage by the spade or some kind of digging stick.