common lands
Village grazing grounds
Common lands are areas where multiple people share rights to use the land—typically for grazing livestock, gathering firewood, or fishing.
The term evokes medieval English villages where peasants could graze animals on unfenced land owned by lords.
Today it refers to any land held collectively rather than privately: The town preserved the common lands for public use.
Commons and common land mean the same thing.
- co-ownershipShared legal possession
- usufructRight to another's property
- enclosureConfined, bordered space
- village greenShared central lawn
- right of wayLegal passage privilege
public access · grazing rights · grazing land · subsistence farming · agrarian reform · fallow land · feudalism · charter · medieval villages · village life · serfdom · tenant farmers · shared resources · conservation · folk traditions · collective · peasants · meadow
- medieval economyfiefs, manors, serfs, vassals, lords
- urban historycity walls, urban renewal, ancient cities, landmarks, city gates
- land reformland reform, agrarian reform, land redistribution, land distribution, land seizures
- rural lawcadastre, land registry, tenant farming, grazing rights, sharecropping
- feudalismfief, vassal, fealty, homage, lord
- feudal landsfief, fiefdom, demesne, manor, barony
common landsprivate property
Individually owned assets
private lands · private estate · demesne · royal estates · freehold