A HISTORY OF RUTLAND owners were trying to consolidate their holdings in the common fields, and secondly that they were inclosing these. It was only natural that they should try to do so, as the holding of land in scattered strips (quite apart from the inconvenience of working these) was the cause of much dissension between the cultivators with regard to their common rights. And not only did dis- putes arise among persons belonging to the same manor, but also between those living in different parishes, for inhabitants of adjoining manors some- times had strips of land intermingling in the common fields of one or the other ; also the common rights were in many cases claimed by persons in one manor over the common fields of another, even when they had no right to the fields when sown. Thus several persons belonging to South Witham in Lincolnshire claimed to hold some strips of land in the common fields of Thistleton, and the quarrelling which arose in consequence between the inhabitants of the two manors not infrequently resulted in the complete destruction of the crops on the disputed land, as well as in expensive suits at law.^' In the early part of Elizabeth's reign we find certain freeholders of Cottesmore claiming right of common over the fields of Weston during the usual times of grazing, and complaining that various ' covetouse and greedye persons now being farmers and occupiers of the said fields of Weston will not allow them to use the said rights of common which they have been wont to use before the memory of man and ever since.' These freeholders had no written evidence of the rights they claimed, and depended entirely on the testimony of witnesses who were ' too impotent and aged to travel to London to be examined.* Again, in 1577, one Dorothy Poole, of Egleton, wrote to Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, making accusations against the freeholders in Gunthorpe that they would not allow her tenants to have common there, which she claimed as their right. *^ As far as our evidence goes, it appears that in Rutland it was the in- closure of parts of the common fields or the conversion of portions of these to pasture that roused discontent rather than the inclosure of old pasture or of waste. Thus, in 1599 Francis Haslewood of Belton was accused of abstract- ing thirteen or fourteen yard-lands from the holdings of several of his tenants, so that they could not ' maintain their tillage there in so good sort as in times past.' '^ The land thus forcibly taken away does not seem to have been in- closed, but to have simply been changed from tillage to grass land. The defendant (Francis Haslewood) is also accused of labouring by all ' ways and means ' to induce the tenants and farmers of Belton to inclose their fields or a great part thereof, and convert the same into pasture. The defendant's witnesses denied that he had taken so much as thirteen or fourteen yard-lands, but they had to admit that he had taken two, now in his own occupation, and that his mother had taken away several yard-lands which she had let to her son at a ' racked rent.' Another of his witnesses owned that he was in favour of his tenants inclosing their lands in the common fields, but whether to ' delay any tyllage or not he knoweth not.' A very interesting example of " Ezch. Spec. Com. 18 Eliz. no. 1865. The connexion of Thistleton and South Witham can be traced back as far as Domesday. See article on 'Domesday Survey,' above, pp. 130, 131. " Chan. Proc. (Ser. 2), bdle. 155, no. 35. " Westm. Abbey, Rut. Doc. parcel 3, no. 28705. "^ Exch. Dep. Mich. 39 & 40 Eliz. 13. 222
