46 THE MANOR
attaching to the term at Thorner in I365-1 The survival of this
term centuries later, and in another part of the British Isles,
strongly suggests that the practice was persistent and widespread.
If this can be maintained, then we are forced to imagine that co-
operation was often left to individuals, and was not so universally
a village or manorial matter as has generally been believed. Such
a belief received encouragement from the undoubted fact that
the peasants were forced to yoke their animals side by side with
those of their neighbours so as to make up the teams they had to
supply when the lord's demesne lands required ploughing. This,
and other activities, such as mowing the lord's hay, or reaping his
corn, they discharged as a body, and because of this it was easy
(though unjustifiable) to think of them doing likewise on their
own acres. On the contrary, it would seem that individual enter-
prise was not at all uncommon. The fact that a man could en-
croach upon his neighbour's strips, or that he is at times found
reaping another man's corn suggests individual labour, and en-
courages the belief that co-operation was local, sporadic and a
matter for individual arrangement.
Perhaps the strongest argument against individual enterprise
is its absurdly wasteful character. But medieval agriculture was
absurdly wasteful, and there can be no doubt that the common-
field system exacted a heavy toll from its workers. This is abun-
dantly shown, both from contemporary records and from the
more scientific and detailed accounts of common-field conditions
given by investigators of more modern times who have inspected
those areas where the old conditions have survived from the past.
Waste of time and effort was caused by the piecemeal nature of
the normal holding. A man with thirty acres would find these
spread out in twice that number of strips which were distributed
over the east, south and west fields of his village. As time went
on, in some parts of England further subdivisions of these original
holdings made matters more complicated, and increased the
amount of time wasted.2 Again, one or two careless or lazy
1 In Germany the same practice was still observed in 1870* See Land
Tenure Reports, 406.
2 See, for example, the fields of Rampton (Cambs) where in a part of one of
the fields the strips are held by the following: M, D, H, B, N, G, B, G, D, C,
F, C, E, K, F, B, K, E, C, D, P, C, F, E, H, E, E, D, C, G, etc. The plan
is reproduced on p. 8 of J. A. Venn's Foundations of Agricultural Economics.
For evidence of subdivision, see also below, p. 50.