Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/91

 Rh manors with the Saxon gafol-yrth, and the Saxon method of taking the tithe in the produce of every tenth acre strip in the open field 'as it was traversed by the plough.' The constantly mentioned service of fencing in the crops (messes) is another incidental mark of open field husbandry.

To my own mind, therefore, the documents of early French history are not wholly silent as to the prevalence of the open field system. They seem to me to imply by their uniform phraseology, whether in charters or Formulæ, that the open field system was prevalent. The phraseology to my mind finds its best explanation in the existing remains of the open field system, in the scattered ownership shown upon the communal maps, and in the wide prevalence of the vaine pâture, of which the Usages Locaux of each district from Amiens to Brittany and elsewhere in France bear such ample witness.

Had M. de Coulanges added to his intimate knowledge of the texts an equally intimate knowledge of French husbandry, had he himself studied the communal maps, walked over the Chartrain or the still more primitive open fields of the coast communes of Brittany—had he in fact approached the texts from the point of view thus gained—I think he would have come to the same conclusion, and have recognized continuity, not only on the manorial side, but also in the methods of husbandry.

I must not dwell upon the importance of this continuity as a main factor in the economic history of the French peasant. I need hardly point out how the pictures of the peasant painter Millet breathe the very atmosphere of the open field, how his 'Sower' is sowing one of his own scattered strips in the wide plain far off from his homestead; how his 'Shepherdess' is leading the communal dock grazing over the stubbles of the open field in exercise of the vaine pâture; how his 'Gleaners' are gleaning on the same open field during the short interval between the removal of the last load of the harvest and the commencement of the vaine pâture; how in his 'Angelus' the potato diggers are working again on the same open field far away from the town, when the evening bell recalls them from their work. He is true to French peasant life, even in the recognition how completely the Church had made itself the centre of the open field husbandry. These pictures show how completely the open field husbandry forms even still the framework and environment of the peasant's whole life; whilst in the faces and attitude of his peasants there is touching evidence of how care is added to toil when the peasant is working on his own land, under a system