right to turn out as many cattle as the
farm or other private land of the commoner can support in winter; for,
as we have seen, the enjoyment of the common, in the village system,
belonged to the householders of the village, and was necessarily
measured by their holdings in the common fields. The cattle thus
commonable are said to be _levant_ and _couchant_, i.e. uprising and
down-lying on the land. But it has now been decided that they need not
in fact be so kept. At the present day a commoner may turn out any
cattle belonging to him, wherever they are kept, provided they do not
exceed in number the head of cattle which can be supported by the stored
summer produce of the land in respect of which the right is claimed,
together with any winter herbage it produces. The animals which a
commoner may usually turn out are those which were employed in the
village system--horses, oxen, cows and sheep. These animals are termed
commonable animals. A right may be claimed for other animals, such as
donkeys, pigs and geese; but they are termed non-commonable, and the
right can only be established on proof of special usage. A right of
pasture attached to land in the way we have described is said to be
_appendant_ or _appurtenant_ to such land. Common of pasture appendant
to land can only be claimed for commonable cattle; and it is held to
have been originally attached only to arable land, though in claiming
the right no proof that the land was originally arable is necessary.
This species of common right is, in fact, the direct survival of the use
by the village householder of the common of the township; while common
of pasture appurtenant represents rights which grew up between
neighbouring townships, or, in later times, by direct grant from the
owner of the soil of the common to some other landowner, or (in the case
of copyholders) by local custom.

The characteristic of connexion with house or land also marks other
rights of common. Thus a right of taking gorse or bushes, or of lopping
wood for fuel, called _fire-bote_, is limited to the taking of such fuel
as may be necessary for the hearths of a particular house, and no more
may be taken than is thus required. The same condition applies to common
of _turbary_, which in its more usual form authorizes the commoner to
cut the heather, which grows thickly upon poor soils, with the roots and
adhering earth, to a depth of about 9 in. Similarly, wood taken for the
repairs of buildings