common-field

The term common-field is of American invention, and adopted by Congress to designate small tracts of ground of a peculiar shape, usually from one to three arpents in front by forty in depth, used by the occupants of the French villages for the purposes of cultivation, and protected from the inroads of cattle by a common fence.

1. The arable land of an ancient village community which though divided into parcels, long narrow strips, separated by balks of turf perhaps a yard wide, and allotted to ownership in severalty, lay otherwise in common, were to some extent used in common, and were cultivated, or at any rate ploughed, in co-operation. In this sense usually in the plural. See Pool. & M. Hist. Eng. Law, I, 364. 2. In those parts of the southern states which were of French settlement, a field divided into lots from one to three arpents in width (front) by forty in length (depth) for cultivation by the inhabitants of a village, the whole enclosed by a common fence. The term common field is of American invention, and adopted by congress to designate small tracts of ground of a peculiar shape, usually from one to three arpents in front by forty in depth, used by the occupants of the French villages for the purposes of cultivation, and protected from the inroads of cattle by a common fence. The peculiar shape of the lot, its contiguity to others of similar shape, and the purposes to which it was applied, constituted it a common-field lot. 1 Black. (U. S.) 600. COMMON FINE (Law Lat. finis communis).

In old English law. A certain sum of money which the residents in a leet paid to the lord of the leet, otherwise called head silver, cer't money (q. v.), Or certum letae. Termes de la Ley; Cowell. A sum of money paid by the inhabitants of a manor to their lord, towards the charge of holding a court leet. Bailey. See "Leet." A fine or amercement imposed upon a county at large. Bracton, fol. 36b; St. Westminster I. c. 18; Fleta, lib. 3, c. 14, § 9; 2 Inst. 197.