There was an agricultural revolution from the two-field to the
three-field system, in which there were three large fields for the
heavy and fertile land. Each field was divided into long and
narrow strips. Each strip represented a day's work with the
plough. One field had wheat, or perhaps rye, another had barley,
oats, beans, or peas, and the third was fallow. These were rotated
yearly. There was a newly invented plough that was heavy and made
of wood and later had an attached iron blade. The plough had a
mould-board which caught the soil stirred by the plough blade and
threw it into a ridge alongside the furrow dug by the plough
blade. This plough was too heavy for two oxen and was pulled by a
team of about eight to ten oxen. Each ox was owned by a different
man as was the plough, because no one peasant could afford the
complete set. Each freeman was allotted certain strips in each
field to bear crops. His strips were far from each other, which
insured some very fertile and some only fair soil, and some land
near his village dwelling and some far away. These strips he
cultivated, sowed with seed, and harvested for himself and his
family. After the harvest, they reverted to common ownership for
grazing by pigs, sheep, and geese. As soon as haymaking was over,
the meadows became common grazingland for horses, cows, and oxen.
Not just any inhabitant, but usually only those who owned a piece
of land in the parish were entitled to graze their animals on the
common land, and each owner had this right of pasture for a
definite number of animals.
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