Why it was deemed necessary in 1681 to again revive the question of titles in the Stinted Pasture I do not know. The question may have arisen before, and evidently did then, whether or not these titles were permanent; there seems to have been nothing in the record of the division of 1636, or in any other record previous to 1681, to show whether their tenure was forever or temporary, but I think the persons receiving the grants believed that they were for all time. In every sale previous to 1681, the deed simply gives the number of cow commons, but does not locate them, yet, in most of the transfers between owners, these commons are deeded to the grantees and their heirs forever, and I think all were supposed to be thus conveyed.
The idea of dividing or stinting common lands and pastures was not new; the custom dates back in England, Sweden, and probably other countries, to the earliest times. Among the early bequests mentioned in the reports of the Charities Commissioners of England is one to the poor of the town of Marston, Oxfordshire, where it has been the custom from time immemorial to grant to a certain number of the poor of this town a cow common, or right of pasturage for one cow each, on waste land. In England this right of cow commons arose, and became a law of the land probably in feudal times, when the lords of the manor granted lands to tenants or retainers for services performed or expected; and as these tenants could not plough or improve their lands without cattle, it became a necessity, and later a law, that the tenant should have cow commons or rights of pasturage for his cattle in the waste lands of the manor; other rights were granted tenants, such as the right to fish, to cut peat, etc., but these rights of commonage evidently did not carry with them any fee in the land. A knowledge of the fact that in England this tenure was limited may have caused a doubt in the minds of the Charlestownians as to whether their fee in these cow commons was absolute or limited, or whether, indeed, they had any fee at all, or only rights of pasturage, under the previous divisions.
