246 Agricultural Revolutions and Change
(377 hectares) surveyed at Lubenham in 1734, 75 per cent was enclosed (Leices-
tershire Archives, DE 2960). At Laxton in Nottinghamshire from 1894 acres (767
hectares) which were once open fields, 1143 acres (463 hectares or 60 per cent)
were still open in 1736 (Beckett, 1989, p317). Occasionally individual fields were
removed from cultivation altogether. At Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire one of the
four open fields was turned down to grass in 1717, and the others followed piece-
meal until the enclosure legislation of the 1790s simply confirmed that the village
was now almost entirely in pasture (Nottingham University Manuscripts Depart-
ment, MaB). At Orston, also in Nottinghamshire, both in 1730 and in 1753 and
piecemeal thereafter, there was conversion to permanent grass from the open-field
arable to such an extent that by 1793 only 14 per cent remained in arable. This
soon disappeared following the enclosure of that year (Barnes, 1997, pp125–
132).
A third method that altered the balance of arable and grass was the enforce-
ment or revision of agreements that restricted grazing rights. The owners of cot-
tages and holdings had rights to graze a given number and type of animal on the
commons, and on the crop stubbles after harvest. Permanent commons were usu-
ally on poor ground or waste, but that made it even more important that the cor-
rect stocking density was maintained with a mixture of types, ages and sexes of
animal, to maximize the maintenance of a good grass sward. Though contempor-
aries were aware that grassland would benefit from careful management, neverthe-
less commons were often seriously neglected, and even encroached upon. In an
attempt to control the situation at Cosgrove in Northamptonshire, the field orders
of 1686 required that ‘all those persons that have flocke or flockes upon the green
or any other part of the commons or waste shall take them off by the first of Febru-
ary next’ (Northamptonshire Archives, FS70/1). In Leicestershire, the Sheppy
Magna manor court in the late 18th and early 19th century disallowed repeated
encroachments on the communal wasteland, opened them up and returned them
to communal use (Leicestershire Archives, DE 798/1; Turner, 1980, p143). Once
the rules were enforced and unauthorized encroachments ended, the equitable
access to agrarian resources was restored.
The enforcement of stinting agreements and field orders helped to maintain
the integrity of the open-field farming system. New and revised agreements
bemoaned the neglect and over-stocking that occurred by way of justifying amend-
ments or the enforcement of new stints. Penalties were imposed for failure to com-
ply with the rules, thus restating the importance attached to communal equity in
the use of these common resources. Exceeding the agreed stints was effectively the
theft of an inequitable share of the forage. At Wigston Magna in Leicestershire in
1707 after a number of disputes over rights to common grazing, it was agreed to
reduce the cattle stint from eight to four beasts and the sheep stint from 40 to 24
(Hoskins, 1957, pp238–240). At Castle Donington, also in Leicestershire, grazing
resources were in such short supply that in 1737 they were eaten off by early sum-
mer. In consequence the cow pasture stint was reduced by 25 per cent and the
sheep stint by 50 per cent (Leicestershire Archives, DG8/24). The necessity of