Page "Fence" Paragraph 71

Servitudes are legal arrangements of land use arising out of private agreements.

Under the feudal system, most land in England was cultivated in common fields, where peasants were allocated strips of arable land that were used to support the needs of the local village or manor.

By the sixteenth century the growth of population and prosperity provided incentives for landowners to use their land in more profitable ways, dispossessing the peasantry.

Common fields were aggregated and enclosed by large and enterprising farmers — either through negotiation among one another or by lease from the landlord — to maximize the productivity of the available land and contain livestock.

Fences redefined the means by which land is used, resulting in the modern law of servitudes.