[Wikipedia: Link.]
Since the time of the Normans, and probably well before, very few people were actually entitled to [use/have access to common land]. People were free to cross a "waste" but not a common field in which crops were growing. And only "commoners" enjoyed rights (normally attached to the house they lived in) to use their local common to graze animals, or catch fish, or cut firewood or furze to burn, or collect bracken for bedding, or extract gravel or peat.
[Pannage — the right to let your pigs loose on beech mast or acorns — but only provided they had a ring through their nose, to stop them rooting around to the point that the grass was destroyed.]
Once there were millions of acres of common land — fields as well as waste. But such land was increasingly taken into private ownership — for example, in the 12/13 C? Another intense period of enclosure was — Tudor and Stuart enclosures. (t was almost certainly at this time that enclosure took place trun up to the outer edges of today's Common...or perhaps less s —
Would-be enclosers of common land could either buy out copyholders, or get a private act of Parliament passed — which could be slow and [awkward]. In 18?? an bill was promoted that would make individual acts unnecessary, but [the Commons rejected this....?]
Is it worth including anything on "copyholders"? Perhaps yes, because finding the old copyholder "Wrigsby" was believed to be crucial to JCB's legal campaign?
The latter are called "copyholders" because they had a copy of their the entry in the manorial court roll — in effect, their tenancy agreement.
In practice, even people with no legal right were tolerated or, in the case of "Lammas land", were entitled to turn their animals out on the field after crops had been harvested — between Lammas Day, 12th of August, and the 6th April the following year — the start of spring planting. [on the stubble, old vegetable staks and weeds]
[A frequently heard argument against Lammas land was that it stopped farmers planting crops in autumn, to get a head start the following year — hence "winter wheat".]
[There were broadly two kinds of common land — land that was farmed (usually in strips fields...distributed among tenants etc) These were usually called "fields". In Wandsworth and Battersea shots and closes?]
But this is not the area that we call a "Common" today...
On the other hand, some areas with very poor gravelly or sandy soil were left "waste". They were never ploughed, though they were always managed in some way. For example trees were coppiced, or furze cut back or burnt to generate new fresh growth. But Commons were not places [not literally free to all/ places in which there could be a free for all]. Indeed, they they may not have been collectively owned, but they were collectively managed. If the waste was being degraded because too many animals were being grazed, or too much gravel or peat extracted, restrictions were collectively agreed and imposed until the area was restored.
[the obvious example near here is Wandsworth's "South Field" [i.e. Southfields]. There were other communal fields, including "North Field" (where Wandsworth Park is today), and "Bridge Field" [on the other side of the East Hill, down to the Thames — now mainly the "Tonsleys" — since Trinity Road went straight through it when it was widened in the 1960s. You can still see evidence of the fragmented landholdings in the slightly higgledy-piggledy streets and varied building styles there.] [I HAVE MOVED THIS BIT TO buckmaster_early_wandsworth_common.html
[The "Bridge" in question is one that crossed the Wandle, paid for Queen Elizabeth in [??] — Wandsworth Bridge was not built until 1873.]
Commoners had rights over their own strips — no trespassing or damage or theft was tolerated — but [there was a season after the crops had been gathered in and stubble and weeds allowed to grow up when all commoners were at liberty to graze their animals on the stubble, old vegetable staks and weeds [dates — hence Lammas land].
Areas of waste were attached to particular manors... Manors were largely medieval in character ...By this time, there were relatively few commoners [JCB says just 5 or 6?] in the area, and they were not particularly interested in their rights to graze a cow or a donkey, or to gather firewood or peat. And besides, they were generally anxious not to upset their lord of the manor, Earl Spencer.
Historically commoners came together to participate in a manorial court — the Court Leet — and decide collectively on how land should used. Even their collective name for the Commoners — the "Homage" — was [?? a bit of a give-away]. And to fine or otherwise control anyone who [...].
But by now, [As Buckmaster writes ironically?]
There is, I believe, such a body as the court leet, but I have never been able to understand the modern use and power of this august body. Formerly, I believe, they used to hang people; but now the copyholders meet once in three or four years, have a good dinner, drink the health of the lord of the manor and his steward, and give permission to erect windmills and enclose such portions of the common as were a nuisance to the adjoining property.
The reference to the "portions of the common as were a nuisance to the adjoining property" is to people [such as Henry McKellar, ? ? Wilson, and > Costeker,] who complained that [gypsies, prostitutes, drunkards and ?] were frequenting... They asked leave of Spencer to enclose the offending areas and thereby drive the [offenders] elsewhere.
The issue was whether lords of the manor "owned" (and hence could sell) the land, or whether they were in some sense [custodians] of it on behalf the King or Queen, and local people. [After all manors had been doled out by royalty and hence the aristocracy to ... material base of... feudal hierarchy... to provide knights... etc]
[By the "Statute of Merton" [1236] lords of the manor could incorporate for themselves or dispose of areas of common land if "a sufficiency" remained in common/collective use, or the commoners could be bought out / compensated by some other means / persuaded [CHECK WORDING]. Amazingly, this medieval law was used to...held back...tied the hands of ... for most of the C19th. It was a ...obstacle to the defence of ..., and ....,
[The local MP, Henry Peek offered a handsome prize to any canny lawyer who could find a way round it... he published 6 winning entries as a contribution to ... One of the 6 was the... Lawrence...ultimately lead to the creation of the ? Commons Preservation Society and the National Trust...]
[Commoners would have to complain that they were losing thereby, and that they could show how.
This had worked before, in Battersea, where the loss of common land was compensated for. Some of the money accrued when Common land [which bits?] was sold off to private individuals was put into buying land and building the Lammas Hall [the name means [SEE ABOVE]...Battersea's Lammas Hall was in Westbridge Road — see the Collage photograph of 1970 — where incidentally many meetings were held in defence of Wandsworth Common — vestry meetings generally?]. In this way the people of Battersea as a whole had benefited from the sale of the land.
[LMA: Collage Picture Library: Battersea Lammas Hall, Westbridge Road: derelict / 1970]
The 1870 WC poster:
Follow the Noble Example of Mr. Augustus Smith, who destroyed three miles of Fence on Berkhampstead Common; the Men of Wigton who broke down the Fences erected by the Earl of Galloway. The men of Buckinghamshire who broke down the Fences on Northall Common; the Men of Surrey who broke down the Fences on Shalford Common, and so Preserved their Rights!
Men of Battersea and Wandsworth, GO AND DO THOU LIKEWISE!
Wikipedia: Berkhamstead:
A celebrated landmark case of unauthorised fencing of a common was in 1866 by Lord Brownlow who illegally enclosed 434 acres of Berkhamsted Common to add to his Ashridge Estate. Brownlow had failed to buy out the commoners, so resorted to this action. A public outcry followed, and the Commons Preservation Society found a champion in Augustus Smith who had the inclination and the money to act, and himself held commons rights.
Smith hired 120 navvies armed with hammers, chisels and crowbars, who on the night of 6 March 1866, under the aegis of the newly formed Commons Preservation Society (now the Open Spaces Society), felled to the ground two miles of iron railings. Soon after, local people flocked in.
Lord Brownlow took action against Augustus Smith and the court case lasted until 1870 when it ended with the complete vindication of Smith.
[Wikipedia: Common-land.]
[A classic contemporary case of direct action that inspired the Wandsworth Common campaign — indeed, it is named on the 1870 poster.
[See HistoryWandsworthCommon: /wandsworth_common/years/1870.html for Buckmaster on Spencer, Allfarthing Manor, and on the Berkhamstead case.]