ABSTRACT
Traces of open-field agriculture in the form of earthwork ridge and furrow, soil-marks and crop-marks of ridge and furrow are ubiquitous in central England and surprisingly common in other parts of the country. The dilemma which is created by such striking regional differences and the survival of elements of the open-field system has made medieval agriculture difficult to analyse and a topic of considerable controversy. Open-field maps of the late sixteenth century show a pattern of land ownership and tenancy in which something of the medieval complexity had been simplified in the interest of convenience and economical working. The fields were adapted to the system of convertible husbandry which was prevalent in medieval Devon and which required arable to be broken up into many parts, each at a different stage in the long-term cycle of crops and grass. The medieval farmers were obliged to set out their field systems in the form of large beds on top of prehistoric systems.
