Editing Open-field system (section)

==History==
Much of the land in the open-field system during medieval times had been cultivated for hundreds of years earlier on Roman estates or by farmers belonging to one of the ethnic groups of Europe. There are hints of a proto-open-field system going back to AD 98 among the Germanic tribes. Germanic and Anglo-Saxon invaders and settlers possibly brought the open-field system to France and England after the 5th century AD.<ref>Hopcroft, p. 40</ref> The open-field system appears to have developed to maturity between AD 850 and 1150 in England, although documentation is scarce prior to the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086.

The open-field system was never practiced in all regions and countries in Europe. It was most common in heavily populated and productive agricultural regions. In England, the south-east, notably parts of [[Essex]] and [[Kent]], retained a pre-[[Roman Britain|Roman]] system of farming in small, square, enclosed fields. In much of eastern and western England, fields were similarly either never open or were enclosed earlier. The primary area of open fields was in the lowland areas of England in a broad swathe from [[Yorkshire]] and [[Lincolnshire]] diagonally across England to the south, taking in parts of [[Norfolk]] and [[Suffolk]], Cambridgeshire, large areas of the [[English Midlands|Midlands]], and most of south central England. This area was the main grain-growing region (as opposed to [[Animal husbandry|pastoral farming]]) in medieval times.

The population in Europe grew in the early centuries of the open-field system, doubling in Britain between 1086 and 1300, which required increased agricultural production and more intensive cultivation of farmland.<ref>Ault, pp. 15–16, Oosthuizen, p. 165-166</ref> The open-field system was generally not practised in marginal agricultural areas or in hilly and mountainous regions. Open fields were well suited to the dense clay soils common in northwestern Europe. Heavy [[plough]]s were needed to cut through the soil and the ox or horse teams which pulled the ploughs were expensive, and thus both animals and ploughs were often shared by necessity among farm families.<ref>Ault, 20–21</ref>

[[File:Fiddleford Manor House (2) - geograph.org.uk - 1290574.jpg|thumb|[[Fiddleford Manor]] in Dorset, England, a manor house built about 1370. The part of the house in the background was added in the 16th century.]]
[[File:Strip field at Forraby - geograph.org.uk - 1324926.jpg|thumb|Strip field at [[Forrabury]], Cornwall<ref>Whilst the stitches (strips) to the west of track across the open field were arable at the time of this visit (early May 2009), on the east side they are covered in grass. This illustrates the system whereby the stitches were cultivated by their owners during the Summer, but grazed in common during the winter. This grazing adds manure to the soil to keep it fertile.</ref>]]
The [[Black Death]] of 1348–1350 killed 30–60% of Europe's population.<ref>{{Cite book
 |last= Austin Alchon
 |first= Suzanne
 |title= A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective
 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YiHHnV08ebkC&pg=PA21
 |place= Albuquerque, NM
 |publisher= [[University of New Mexico Press]]
 |year= 2003
 |page= 21
 |isbn= 978-0-8263-2871-7}}</ref> As a consequence the surviving population had access to larger tracts of empty farmland and wages increased due to a shortage of labour. Richer farmers began to acquire land and remove it from communal usage. An economic recession and low grain prices in fifteenth century England gave a competitive advantage to the production of wool, meat, and milk. The shift away from grain to livestock accelerated enclosure of fields. The steadily increasing number of formerly open fields converted to enclosed (fenced) fields caused social and economic stress among small farmers who lost their access to communal grazing lands. Many tenants were forced off the lands their families may have cultivated for centuries to work for wages in towns and cities. The number of large and middle-sized estates grew in number while small land-holders decreased in number.<ref>Hopcroft, pp 70–81</ref> In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the practice of enclosure (particularly depopulating enclosure) was denounced by the [[Church of England|Church]] and the government, and legislation was drawn up against it. The dispossession of tenants from their land created an "epidemic of vagrancy" in England in the late 16th and early 17th century.<ref>Gies, p. 196; Kulikoff, pp. 19, 50</ref> The tide of elite opinion began to turn towards support for enclosure, and the rate of enclosure increased in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.<ref>[[Beresford, Maurice]]. ''The Lost Villages of England'' (Revised ed.) London: Sutton, 1998, p. 102 ff</ref>