Chapter V - GRASSLAND, MARSH AND LIVESTOCK

Summary

Meadow and pasture were important elements in village economy in an age when root crops and the so-called artificial grasses were not available. The distinction between them was clear. Meadow was land bordering a stream liable to flood, producing hay, and afterwards used for grazing. Pasture was land available for grazing all the year round. The two varieties of grassland were used to supplement grazing upon the arable fields in their fallow years. Meadow, in particular, was of great value, and thirteenth-century evidence shows that an acre of meadow was frequently two or three times as valuable as an acre of the best arable. Domesday Book records meadow for by far the great majority of villages, except that none appears in the Shropshire folios and none for what is now Lancashire. Pasture, on the other hand, is entered irregularly and not at all for some counties. Marsh is recorded mainly for the Fenland.

MEADOW

Variety of entries

For one circuit, that comprising the five counties of Bedford, Buckingham, Cambridge, Hertford and Middlesex, meadow is for the most part recorded in terms of the teams or the oxen which it could support (Fig. 46). The usual formula is pratum n carucis or pratum n bobus. The amount is usually equal to or less than the number of ploughlands on a holding; this means that it is sometimes in excess of the number of teams actually at work.