the common pasture. Probably, as in other manors in
ancient times, each occupier had a right to as much firewood as was
necessary, and timber for building purposes and fences. The arable
land lay in numerous small plots of half an acre each and less,
mingled together in a state of great confusion, and was farmed on the
four-field system--wheat, beans, oats, fallow--though 200 years before
the three-field system had been most common in the district. Many of
the common arable fields evidently often contained, in those days of
poor cultivation and inefficient drainage, patches of boggy and poor
land which were left uncultivated.[229] In the rolls of the Manor of
Scotter in Lincolnshire, in the early part of the sixteenth century,
no one was to allow his horses to depasture in the arable fields
unless they were tethered on these bad spots to prevent them wandering
into the growing corn.[230] Many of the other regulations of this
manor throw a flood of light on the farming of the day. In 1557 it was
ordered that no man should drive his cattle unyoked through the
corn-field under a penalty of 3s. 4d. Every man shall keep a
sufficient fence against his neighbour under the same penalty. No man
shall make a footpath over the corn-field, the penalty for so doing
being 4d. Every one shall both ring and yoke their swine before S.
Ellen's Day (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6s. 8d., the custom
of yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common until
recent times. It was the custom in some manors to sow peas in a plot
especially set apart for the poor. Another rule was that no one should
bake or brew by night for fear of burning down the flimsy houses and
buildings. The penalty for ploughing up the balks which divided the
strips, or meere (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolnshire,
was 2d., a very light one for so serious an offence. In 1565 a penalty
of 10s. was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his hemp, i.e.
separating the fibre from the bark in his large open chimney on winter
nights, a habit which the manor courts severely punished owing to the
risk of fire, for hemp refuse is very inflammable. It 1578 it was laid
down that every one was to sow the outside portion of their arable
lands, and not leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his
neighbours; and that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not
gather wool before 8 o'clock in the morning, in reference to the
custom of allowing the poor to