The AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

a journal of agricultural and rural history

Volume Contents

Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 1 (2004), pp. 20–37

Fields, farms and sun-division in a moorland region, 1100-1400

Richard Britnell

Earlier work combining the pre-Black Death charter evidence and post-medieval maps for county Durham has shown how extensive areas of waste survived in the county until the early modern period. This paper begins by considering the enclosed arable land of townships within the larger waste, showing how it was normally held in furlongs which often show evidence of subdivision according to the principles of sun-division. The right to graze the remaining waste is discussed. The Bishops of Durham were in the habit of granting enclosures from the waste by charter: the arable of these enclosed farms might also be divided by sun-division. 
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