The arable field system in West Boarhunt consisted of a combination of open common fields, and closes – enclosed parcels of land bounded by ditches and hedges. Each tenant probably held a mixture of land, some interspersed with other tenants’ lands in the common fields and some enclosed. The crops on the demesne lands were wheat, barley and oats grown in a three-course rotation – that is, the arable was divided into three courses with each used in turn for winter and spring grains and then fallowed. On the neighbouring manor of Boarhunt Herberd beans, peas and vetch were also grown. The crops the tenants grew were much the same: 16th century probate inventories record wheat, barley and oats, rye and peas.

The seigneurial sheep flocks were pastured together with the tenants’ sheep on the downland on the north side of Portsdown. In 1421 John Borewell was presented in the manorial court for killing a sheep worth 14d with his cart on ‘Portesdon’. In the mid 15th century the priory was maintaining a flock of approximately 300-350 sheep in West Boarhunt – a small flock in comparison with those on the manors of the Bishop of Winchester, which could number up to 2000. In 1450-1 the Priory also had 12 oxen, 12 cows and 12 bullocks. The number of oxen suggests that the canons were still using oxen for ploughing, and possibly for hauling as well. The cows were probably used for milk, which was used to make cheese and butter. The tenants would have kept a variety of livestock, depending on their wealth and the size of their holdings. They paid pannage for the right to let their pigs forage in the woodland, the amount determined by the age of the pig: 2d for a one-year old pig down to 1⁄2d for a weaned piglet.

Shepherds.  Smithfield Decretals.  England early 14th century
Reproduced by permission of The British Library, further reproduction prohibited.

It has been suggested that this part of Hampshire was a consuming rather than a producing region, meaning that it had little surplus produce to export and external trade links were weak. Tenants holding less than 10 acres (the amount of land needed to feed a peasant family of five) can only have survived by hiring themselves out as wage labourers and most tenants probably supplemented their income with by-employment such as brewing, baking, dairying, and small-scale industrial activities such as potting. The overall impression of Boarhunt in the late medieval period is of a poor, woodland area with a relatively weak rural economy and little rural industry.