In theory each person’s holding totaled 30 acres (12 hectares), comprising strips equally divided between the three arable fields. A subsequent theory holds that in some places the division of fields, which may have originally been rectangular or square, among a number of heirs led to the creation of long, narrow acres. The intermingling of the strips was said to have been the result of a jointly owned plow team and plow supplied by a number of farmers working together, each being allotted a strip in turn. It has been suggested that the length of each strip was determined by the distance a draft animal, usually an ox, could haul a plow before stopping for a rest. The open-field system continued as more land was reclaimed and lasted for many centuries-longer, of course, in some places than in others. Each farmer in the village worked a number of these acres the units forming his holding were scattered among those of other men. Usually these strips of land, normally about 1 acre (0.4 hectare) in size, were laid out in two or three large fields. The earliest examples of this system date from roughly 800, the year Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the West. The precise origin of the open-field arrangement, which involves long strips of arable land separated from each other by a furrow, balk (ridge of land left after plowing), or mere (boundary), is obscure. The climate and soils and, perhaps, the social organization compelled different arrangements of land division and the use of more-complex tools as more and more farmland was converted from forest, marsh, and heath to meet the needs of a rising population.
Agriculture had, of course, been practiced regularly in Gaul and Britain and sporadically elsewhere in Europe both before and during the Roman epoch. The most important agricultural advances took place in the countries north of the Alps, in spite of the large population changes and warfare that accompanied the great migrations and the later onslaughts of Northmen and Saracens. The period falls into two divisions: the first, one of development, lasted until the end of the 13th century the second, a time of recession, was followed by two centuries of recovery. In 1,000 years of medieval history, many details of farming in the Western world changed.
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