Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2014

 

The Open Field System and Traditional English Agriculture

(Abstract)

 

Xiang Rong

 

The open field system was a system of agriculture used in many parts of England until the 18th and 19th centuries. Its origin, nature and effectiveness have long been debated by scholars at home and abroad. This system was neither the historical legacy of the Germanic village commune nor an impassable obstacle to the progress of agricultural technology in medieval England. On the contrary, it emerged in response to the economic environment of early medieval England, and maintained the prosperity of traditional English agriculture for centuries. With the development of the commodity economy and early modern agriculture, the open field system faded from the stage of history, but the rationality it once possessed should be fully affirmed.