THE WASTES 59
the Fens for inter-commoning, and has shown clearly how far
back in time these arrangements had existed. Any attempt to
partition the wastes, on the theory that the waste was the lord's,*
led to trouble, and to a claim that the vill had inter-commoned
thereon from time out of mind, with the other vills of the group,
and that the waste was held pro indiviso by them.1
One important fact should be emphasised. So far we have
been mainly thinking of the wastes as an auxiliary means of
helping to maintain their stock, but there is also the possibility
that they were far more than that. It may well be that future
detailed investigation will show that a considerable number of
peasants were mainly dependent on these wastes for their means
of livelihood. At Rossendale, in Lancashire, for example, we are
told that "Facilities of common in this district were not so
much the complement of a holding, as an extension of the chief
means the tenement provided of earning a livelihood".2 In
neighbourhoods such as this, where the soil and climate
were unfavourable to arable farming, a more pastoral type of
farming was a necessity. Not only this: every manor had a
number of inhabitants who had but little share in the common
fields (and hence in the commons), and who were therefore
forced to pasture their beasts in the adjoining wastes.3
The waste was much more than extra or even a main pasturage.
To it the peasant looked for a hundred other things essential to
his daily life. To begin with, it provided him with wood—a
primary requisite. His house, his farm implements, and his
household utensils were all mainly made of wood. He relied on it
almost entirely for fuel. Hence his rights of hous-bote, and haye-
bote and of fire-bote were of great importance to him. These
varied in details from manor to manor, but commonly the
peasant was allowed to take what wood he could get "by hook
or by crook "—that is to say, such timber as he could knock off,
or pull down from standing trees. Then again, he was often
allowed to cut so many trees a year for repairs to his house, and
implements and hedges, or to take undergrowth, or loppings, or
1 Terrier of Fleet, p. 1.
2 G. H. Tupling, Econ. Hist. Rossendale, 98.
8 For a full discussion of the position and importance of such people, see
p. 65.