ometimes plowed and sometimes laid to
grass, according to the condition of the soil. In a Cheshire village,
two tenants had small enclosures in the same field, which were treated
in this way. At the time the commission visited the place, one of
these closes was being used as pasture, and the other was in
cultivation. John Monkesfield's close, which had been made six years
before,

_continet in se duas acras & diversis temporibus fuit in cultura
& aliis temporibus in pastura & nunc occupata est in
pastura._[111]

John Molynes' close of one acre had been made the year before and

_fuit antea in pastura & nunc occupata est in cultura._

It had evidently been a strip of lea land which had been so improved
by being kept under grass that it was in fit condition for
cultivation, while John Monkesfield's close had been plowed long
enough and was just at this time in need of rest. These men were
apparently unaffected by any increasing demand for wool, but were
managing their land according to its needs.

By the sixteenth century, then, some enclosures had appeared in the
open fields, and the old common-field system was disintegrating. The
old customary holdings had been so altered that they were hardly
recognizable. Some tenants held a great number of acres, and had
managed by purchase or exchange to get possession of a number of
adjacent strips, which they might, under certain conditions, be able
to enclose. Much of the land, however, was withdrawn from cultivation,
and for years was allowed to remain almost in the condition of waste.

For the most part, however, there had been no revolutionary change in
the system of husbandry. The framework remained. The whole community
still possessed claims extending over most of the land. The village
flocks pastured on the stubble and the fallows of the open fields. The
advantages which could in theory be derived from the control of
several adjacent strips of land were reduced to a minimum by the
necessity of maintaining old boundaries to mark off from each other
lands of differing status. Even where the consolidation of holdings
had proceeded to some extent, the tenants who had acquired the most
compact holdings in comparison with the majority still possessed
scattered plots of land separated from each other by the holdings of
other men, and some of the smaller holders had no two strips which
touched each other. When the tenants had been left to themselves, all