As the common of pasture appears as an outcome of a system of husbandry set up by the village community, so every change in the use of the pasture ought in the natural course to proceed from a decision of this community. Such a change may be effected in one of two manners: the customary rotation of crops may be altered, or else a part of the waste may be reclaimed for tillage. In the first case, a portion of the open arable and meadow, which ought to have been commonable at a certain time, ceases to be so; in the second, the right to send cattle to the waste is stinted in so much as the arable is put under defence, or the land is used for the construction of dwellings. By the common law the free tenants alone could obtain a remedy for any transgression in this respect. I have mentioned already that suits frequently arose when the old-fashioned rotation of crops was modified in accordance with the progress of cultivation. As to the right of approving from the waste, the relative position of lord and tenants was for a long time debateable, and, as everybody knows, the lord was empowered to approve by the Statute of Merton of 20Henry III, with the condition that he should leave sufficient pasture to his free tenants according to the requirements of their tenements. The same power was guaranteed by the Statute of Westminster II against the claims of neighbours. It has been asked whether, before the Statute of Merton, the lord had power to enclose against commoners, if he left sufficient common to satisfy their rights. Bracton's text in the passage where he treats of the Statute is distinctly in favour of the view that this legislative enactment did actually alter the common law, and that previously it was held that a lord could not approve without the consent of his free-tenants.(27*) Turning to the practice of the thirteenth-century courts, we find that the lawyers were rather doubtful as to this point. In a case of 1221 the jurors declare, that although the defendant has approved about two acres of land from the waste where the plaintiff had common, this latter has still sufficient pasture left to him. And thereupon the plaintiff withdraws.(28*) In 1226 a lord who has granted pasture everywhere, 'ubique,' and has inclosed part of it, succumbs in a suit against his tenant, and we are led to suppose that if the qualification 'ubique' had been absent, his right of approvement would have been maintained. It must be noticed, however, that the marginal note in Bracton's Notebook does not lay stress on the 'ubique,' and regards the decision as contrary to the law subsequently laid down by the Constitution of Merton.(29*) In a case of 1292 one of the counsel for the defendant took it for granted that the Statute of Merton altered the previously existing common law.(30*) The language of the Statutes themselves is certainly in favour of such a construction: in the Merton Constitution it is stated as a fact that the English magnates were prevented from making use of their manors,(31*) and the Westminster Statute. Is as positive as to neighbours; 'multi domini hucusque... impediti extiterunt,' etc.
It seems hardly possible to doubt that the enactments really represent a new departure, although the way towards it had been prepared by the collision of interests in open Court. The condition negatively indicated by the documents in regard to the time before these enactments cannot be dismissed by the consideration that the lord would derogate from his grant by approving. Although a single trial may bear directly on the relation between the lord and only one of the tenants or a few of them, every change in the occupation of the land touches all those who are members of the manorial community. The removal of difficulties as to approvement was, before the Statute of Merton, not a question of agreement between two persons, but a question as to the relative position of the lord and of the whole body of the tenantry. The lord might possibly settle with every tenant singly, but it seems much more probable that he brought the matter, when it arose, before the whole body with which the management of the village husbandry rested, that is, before the halimote, with its free and unfree tenants. In any case, the influence of the free tenants as recognised by the common law was decisive, and hardly to be reconciled with the usual feudal notions as to the place occupied by the lord in the community. It must be noted that even that order of things which came into being in consequence of the Statute contains an indirect testimony as to the power of the village community. The Act requires the pasture left to the free tenants to be sufficient, and it may be asked at once, what criterion was there of such a sufficiency, if the number of beasts was not mentioned in the instrument by which the common was held. Of course, in case of dispute, a jury had to give a verdict about it, but what had the jury to go by? It was not the actual number of heads of cattle on a tenement that could be made the starting-point of calculation.
Evidently the size of the holding, and its relation to other holdings, had to be taken into account. But if so, then the legal admeasurement had to conform to the customary admeasurement defined by the community.(32*) And so again the openly recognised law of the kingdom had to be set in action according to local customs, which in themselves had no legally binding force.
