Society and community

Tending the Commons

For much of the medieval and early modern period, large areas of the English countryside were common land, on which villagers held rights to graze animals, gather firewood or cut turf. A familiar argument holds that any resource open to all will sooner or later be ruined, since each user gains from taking a little more while the cost is shared by everyone. Historians who have examined the records of village courts, however, paint a rather different picture. Far from being left to chance, grazing was often closely regulated. Courts fixed the number of animals each household might turn out, appointed officials to inspect the pasture and fined those who broke the rules, and villagers kept a watchful eye on one another [1] one household should take more than its fair share. The commons, in other words, were not simply open land; they were a responsibility that a whole community had to manage together.