Agricultural Sustainability and Open-Field Farming in England 247imposing stints was expressed by the preamble to their renewal in 1718 at Little
Bowden in Northamptonshire, when both the cattle and sheep stints were reduced
by a half (Northamptonshire Archives, TLB/84).
Such rules protected the common grazing on both the commons and the ara-
ble stubbles, but the frequency of their renewal is suggestive of the pressure to
increase animal stocks. At Orston in Northamptonshire the manor court deter-
mined the stint annually (Barnes, 1997), and a similar task fell to the field reeve at
Withern with Woodthorpe in Lincolnshire (Lincolnshire Archives, 199/1). In an
attempt to keep track of the cattle in Billington in Bedfordshire each commoner
was required to notify the teller in writing by the end of March of the number of
cattle he was keeping on the common. This broke down in 1772 when it was
found that ‘... the Commons and Commonable Fields ... have been overcharged
and burdened with too many cattle to the great injury and prejudice ... etc’. In
consequence the stint was reduced (Bedfordshire Archives, BO1326).
Many agreements specifically prohibited the use of the commons by anyone
without grazing rights, a reminder that modern-day ideas regarding commons
developed out of specific and relatively narrow land rights. The commoners at
Cosgrove in Northamptonshire agreed in 1715 only to rent spare stints on the
common land to fellow Cosgrove villagers and not to outsiders (Northampton-
shire Archives, YZ7849). At Gilmorton in Leicestershire in 1722 the agreements
stipulated that ‘No one shall lett sell give or dispose of his sheep commons from
the Feast of St Martin until Ladyday [to persons] not living in Gilmorton but can
receive compensation of 1 1/2 d for every sheep common not stocked or stored if
notice is given to the constable...’ (Leicestershire Archives, DE66). This is akin
to a public good where the definition of ‘public’ is more like what Pretty and
Ward refer to in a modern setting as a ‘club’ good (Pretty and Ward, 2001, pp210,
221 note 2).
Two equity principles were most abused and thereby tested by stinting regula-
tions and other field orders. The first was the time-honoured egalitarian principle
that individuals should not keep more stock on the commons in the summer than
they could reasonably feed on their own land in winter. Thus at Ibstock in Leices-
tershire in 1696 it was agreed that ‘Field masters shall yearly once betwixt Lady
Day and midsummer and once between midsummer and Michaelmas drive the
fields and take an exact account of every mans stock that no person keep any more
cattle than he have commons for in the common fields or pasture’ (Leicestershire
Archives, D E 390/56). The second was a clarification of the ownership and stew-
ardship of common community resources. The common cause of tensions was the
overstocking of the commons in the face of market pressures (widely discussed in
Ault, 1954; Yelling, 1977, pp153–156; Turner, 1980, pp145–149). For the com-
munity to regulate itself in the face of such pressures, the local manorial and other
courts had to be active, but their powers were gradually eroded more or less by the
difficulty of policing the common property. Each time a parcel of land was removed
from the communally administered system, everyone else’s entitlement was
adversely affected. The more this occurred the more occasions the local courts had