COPPCDV – well its the longest abbreviation yet as early as the 15th century it was questioned whether it was in fact a right of common. Sir Thomas Littleton had then dismissed it not as a right “but only an excuse for trespass”. A problem arose frequently when the waste of one manor backed on to the waste of another. It was expensive and impracticable to fence the wastes off one from another but how then could you prevent the cattle of manor A from straying onto the land of manor B and vice versa. This was a trespass and without some arrangement the owners of the said cattle could be summonsed. The pragmatic approach, to the benefit of the commoners of both manors, was to allow their cattle to graze where they would – a practice known as ‘interpasturing’ or ‘intercommonage’. Some form of legal agreement had to be arrived at and this COPPCDV.
Naturally there were rules. Firstly the agreement was between two manors with two lots of commoners. The owners of two private estates could of course come to a mutual agreement but if the land on one side was privately owned and the other the waste of a manor then it could not exist.
Both commons had to be contiguous; if manor C was interposed between manors A and B then there could be no intercommonage between A and B [or at least not if there was no similar arrangement between all three parties. One practical outcome of this is seen at Rampisham where the court was told that “Hook farm hath no right of sheep common over Hook Way and that the occupier must keep a shepherd to follow his sheep to where they have a right to feed.” The parish boundary between Rampisham and Hooke ran over the top of Rampisham Hill which in 1815 was a large area of waste. Hook farm can be identified on the tithe map and the road out of it lead straight onto Rampisham Down. There must have been some area where Hoof Farm’s sheep were allowed to graze and that this road led to it but we must assume from the entry that the shepherd at Hook farm had not been too diligent getting his sheep to where they should be.
Both parties had to be in agreement over the arrangement and if for any reason the lord of manor A detained the cattle of manor B then the right would disappear, as it would if a fence was erected between the two wastes. As with COPA the practice must have been established from time immemorial, although continued use of the practice without demur for a period of sixty years could also establish the right. The animals of manor A could not be turned out directly on the land of manor B, they had to stray there and both sets of commoners had to stick to the levant et couchant rules on numbers. If the whole system of rights, let alone COPPCDV, was to work the system was to work then ownership of the cattle concerned had to be proven which is why many manors had rules on marking the animals. The rules at Rampisham were that “every person turning horned cattle or horses into the commons do mark them on horn or hoof with a burning iron with the letters of their names and do agree that the cattle be registered with the Haywards under penalty 20s”.
Finally If manor [A] decided to inclose the waste then manor [B] automatically lost the right but there was an onus on manor [A] to ensure that the land was properly inclosed, by maintaining there hedges or fences. If they did not then so long as vicinage had existed before inclosure the owner of cattle wandering onto those inclosed fields could not be summonsed.
Categories: In Depth
John Martin of Evershot 