OPEN FIELD SYSTEM

open field system: translation

a farming system developed in Anglo-Saxon culture. The typical example would feature a central village surrounded by three fields. Each year one filed would be left fallow and the other two cropped. The fields being worked were divided into strips, each strip being worked by a family from the village. Each family would have responsibility for multiple strips throughout the two fields being cropped. Livestock was then raised on common land between villages. This land was also the source of wood for building and fuel.