These new villages had adopted an open field system in which fields were divided into small strips of land, individually owned, with crops rotated between the field each year and the local woodlands and other common lands carefully managed.Dyer, pp19-21. Agricultural land on a manor was divided between some fields that the landowner would manage and cultivate directly, called demesne land, and the majority of the fields that would be cultivated by local peasants who would pay rent to the landowner either through agricultural labour on the lord's demesne fields, or through cash or produce.Bartlett, p.313.
