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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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open-field system
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(also known as *strip-farming) Method of agriculture, widespread in medieval Europe and from Anglo-Saxon times in arable areas of Britain, particularly in the Midlands. Each peasant had several long strips of land, in separate parts of large open fields, on which to grow his family's food. This arrangement shared out with some degree of fairness the areas of better and worse soil. His planting was part of a communal plan, because crop rotation was organized field by field. The development of a market economy and of wages (instead of days worked on the lord's own land) meant that the open fields became divided among tenant farmers, and gradually much of the *common land was also enclosed.
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