foreland

1) The various meanings given for foreland in the OED are not relevant to the use of the word in Yorkshire where it referred to land which formed part of an expanded open field system.

In 1258, for example, a survey of Barwick in Elmet listed Forlande in a separate category, giving the names of nine tenants with holdings in excess of thirty acres. It occurs alongside holdings in the open fields in several regions and an undated deed for Draughton refers to ‘a bovate and all the land called Le Forland adjoining that bovate’. Similar examples include: 1361 Et de redditibus liberorum natiuorum Cotariorum cum forland per annum, Leeds

1382 ‘tenement, 2˝ bovates of land and 6 acres of Forland’, Yeadon

1385 a messuage, 5 bovates of land and ‘six acres of forland’, Dodworth

1443-4 ‘two acres called Forland at Staynrawes’, Stockeld. The land thus referred to might be arable or meadow but as it had come into use after the field system was established, it may be that ‘fore’ described a location beyond or in front of those fields. It is a complicated topic but has been discussed by several landscape specialists, notably by Stephen Moorhouse. The word can be compared with forbyland, fordole and foreshut and contrasted with rodeland, which are all commented on separately.

spellings forland
dates 1258 1361 1382 1385 1443-1444

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