in
large tracts divided into compartments or fields, usually three in
number, to receive in constant rotation the triennial succession of
wheat (or rye), spring crops (such as barley, oats, beans or peas), and
fallow. Low-lying lands were used as meadows, and there were sometimes
pastures fed according to fixed rules. The poorest land of the township
was left waste--to supply feed for the cattle of the community, fuel,
wood for repairs, and any other commodity of a renewable or practically
inexhaustible character.[2] This waste land is the common of our own
days.

It would seem likely that at one time there was no division, as between
individual inhabitants or householders, of any of the lands of the
township, but only of the products. But so far back as accurate
information extends the arable land is found to be parcelled out, each
householder owning strips in each field. These strips are always long
and narrow, and lie in sets parallel with one another. The plough for
cultivating the fields was maintained at the common expense of the
village, and the draught oxen were furnished by the householders. From
the time when the crop was carried till the next sowing, the field lay
open to the cattle of the whole vill, which also had the free run of the
fallow field throughout the year. But when two of the three fields were
under crops, and the meadows laid up for hay, it is obvious that the
cattle of the township required some other resort for pasturage. This
was supplied by the waste or common. Upon it the householder turned out
the oxen and horses which he contributed to the plough, and the cows and
sheep, which were useful in manuring the common fields,--in the words of
an old law case: "horses and oxen to plough the land, and cows and sheep
to compester it." Thus the use of the common by each householder was
naturally measured by the stock which he kept for the service of the
common fields; and when, at a later period, questions arose as to the
extent of the rights on the common, the necessary practice furnished the
rule, that the commoner could turn out as many head of cattle as he
could keep by means of the lands which were parcelled out to him,--the
rule of levancy and couchancy, which has come down to the present day.

Status of township.

In the earliest post-conquest times the vill or township is found to be
associated with an over-lord. There has been much controversy on the
question, whether the vill origin