[1] The following extract from a sixteenth century writer throws some light upon this point:
“Another disorder of oppression aduerte this wone wiche is muche odyous, A lord geauyn to private affection lettinge the pooareman an olde rotten howse, which hathe (to the same) profyttes commodious its Cloase, and Common, with Lande in the feelde but noate well heere howe the pooareman is peelde.
“The howse shall hee haue and A gardeyne plott, but stonde he must to the reperation: Close, Comon or Londe fallithe none to his lott; that beste might helpe to his sustentation. the whoale Rente payethe hee for his habitation, as though hee dyd thappertenauncis possesse Such soare oppression neadethe speadye redresse.” “The Pleasaunt Poesye of Princelie Practise” (1548) WILLIAM FORREST, Chapter III., 21 & 22 E.E.T.S. Extra Series, XXXII.
We have here the practice of divorcing the cottage from its common right described as a novelty. The Act of 31 Elizabeth, c. 7, by prohibiting the letting of cottages without 4 acres of land, in effect prohibited the letting of a cottage without a common right, as the 4 acres _would_ not be the highly valued Close, and _could_ not, unless the rights of other villagers were infringed, be waste or common pasture. Four acres in the common arable field was implied, and this of course carried a right of common.
The exercise of this right, which appears to be most keenly valued, as it is found to persist in many parishes after all other traces of the common field system have died away, obviously opens the door to quarrels. It is not to be expected that all farmers should finish carrying their crops on the same day; and the position of the man who is behind all his neighbours, and so is standing between the commoners and their right of pasture, is not an enviable one. But a constitutional system of government exists for the purpose of dealing with these and other difficulties. A “Foreman of the Fields” and a “Field Jury” are elected: the field jury settles all disputes between individuals, while the duties of the foreman include that of issuing notices to declare when the fields are open for pasturing; on which day all the gates, by which, as I have previously mentioned, the parish is entered, must be closed, while all the gates of the farmyards are thrown open, and a varied crowd of animals winds along the drifts and spreads over the fields.