(^6) an environmenTal hisTory of Wildlife in england
scholars. Here settlement was more dispersed in character, with scattered
farms and hamlets – many strung around commons and small ‘greens’ – as
well as, or instead of, compact villages. Often some, occasionally the majority,
of the land lay in hedged closes. But open fields of a kind usually existed,
although their layout was rather different from those found in champion
districts. They were ‘irregular’ in character: the holdings of individual
farmers, rather than being scattered throughout the lands of the township,
were clustered in particular areas of the fields, usually near their farmstead.^26
Often, although by no means always, communal controls on the organization
of agriculture were less pervasive than those in the champion. Such landscapes
were often well wooded although the term ‘woodland’ referred, in fact, to the
number of hedges and hedgerow trees they contained, for even where open
fields were prominent they were often small, numerous and hedged.
The origins of this broad division in the landscape of lowland England,
a matter of continued debate among landscape historians, need not detain
us here.^27 What is important to emphasize, however, is that ‘woodland’ and
‘champion’ are simplified terms covering a range of landscapes. There were,
in particular, two main types of ‘champion’ countryside.^28 One, found on
light, well-drained land, often overlying chalk, boasted extensive tracts of
unploughed ground – downland or heath – in addition to the open arable.
The individual ‘lands’ were usually ploughed flat, and separated by narrow,
unploughed balks. These were the classic areas of ‘sheep-corn’ husbandry,
in which large flocks were grazed on the extensive pastures by day and
close-folded on the arable land by night, the treading of the sheep serving
to incorporate their dung and urine effectively within the plough soil.^29 In
the Midlands, in contrast, champion landscapes were mainly associated
with heavy clays. Here the individual ‘lands’ were ploughed in broad ridges,
to assist drainage. These still survive in places, preserved under grass as
the earthworks known to archaeologists as ‘ridge and furrow’. Landscapes
like these lacked the great open pastures – the nutrient reserves of down
or heath – of the sheep-corn lands. Heavy soils retained nutrients better
than light, permeable ones, and close-folding would, for much of the year,
have damaged the soil structure.^30 The fallows were dunged by the village
livestock, but in a less intensive manner.
In highland areas as much as in lowland, in ‘woodland’ as in ‘champion’,
most of the arable land in medieval England was exploited by peasant
proprietors, the majority of whom paid a rent to a manorial lord, in cash
or as labour on his demesne, or ‘home farm’. To such land were appended
rights to use the non-arable commons or ‘wastes’ of the manor, for grazing
and as a source of firing and raw materials. Most of the classic ‘semi-natural
habitats’ found in England were then common land, including heaths, moors,
fens and chalk downs. By the twelfth century, manorial lords were legally
recognized as the owners of such land but their ability to exploit it was
limited by the rights enjoyed by their tenants. They did, however, manage
to enclose portions as coppiced woods or as deer parks. The connections
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