Open field system
The open field system was the prevalent agricultural system in Europe from the Dark Ages to as recently as the 20th century in places. From the 12th century onwards it was gradually replaced by Enclosure.
The system originated in feudal society, with peasants allotted strips of land by a landowner in exchange for their military support. The system was perpetuated by the tithe whereby a tenth of a villager's produce would be donated to the landowner (generally the Church).
Each village would be surrounded by several large open fields, usually not physically divided from each other, with each field containing a different crop as part of a three field crop rotation. The fields would be split into a number of furlongs (200 m), each of which would be subdivided into strips covering an area of half an acre (2,000 m²) or less. Each villager was allocated a set number of strips in each field (traditionally about thirty) which they would subsistence farm. The strips were generally allocated in a public meeting at the start of the year. The individual holdings were widely scattered, so that no single farmer would end up with all the good or bad land.
In addition to the three fields, there would be common land where the villagers would graze their livestock, woodland for the pigs, and a communal village green for social events. The ploughed fields could also be used for grazing outside the growing season.
As populations increased, the available land diminished as more strips were required. Slowly, the open field system become unworkable. From the late Middle Ages onwards, a gradual movement towards consolidation took place as small plots were amalgamated into fewer but larger holdings, with a corresponding increase in the power of the landowners.
In England in the 1530s, tithes were reallocated to the Crown as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the land sold off to private owners. The high price of wool at the time led to large areas of land being enclosed for sheep farming. Poor harvests in the late 17th century called for a rethinking of current farming techniques, and the subsequent agricultural revolution sounded the death knell for open field farming in Britain, with new developments in farming practices requiring larger enclosed areas to be workable.
Throughout the 19th century, the developments in Britain were exported across the world, and the various contributions made upon the working population by warfare and increased mechanization finally finished the open field system off.
Uniquely in England, the open field system continues to be used in the village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire. It is thought that its anomalous survival is due to two early 19th century landowners' inability to agree on how the land was to be enclosed, thus resulting in the perpetuation of the status quo.
