The system has its origins in feudal society, with peasants allotted strips of land by a landowner in exchange for their military support. The system was perpetuated by the tithe whereby a tenth of a villager's produce would be donated to the landowner (generally the Church).
Each village would be surrounded by three large fields, with each field containing a different crop as part of a three field crop rotation. The fields would be split into a series of long strips (about an acre in area) divided by furrows. Each villager was allocated a set number of strips in each field (traditionally about thirty) which they would subsistence farm. The strips were generally allocated in a public meeting at the start of the year.
In addition to the three fields, there would be common land where the villagers would graze their livestock, woodland for the pigs, and a communal village green for social events.
As populations increased, the available land diminished as more strips were required. Slowly, the open field system was becoming unworkable.
In England in the 1530s, tithes were reallocated to the Crown as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the land sold off to private owners. The high price of wool at the time led to large areas of land being enclosed for sheep farming. Poor harvests in the late 17th century called for a rethinking of current farming techniques, and the subsequent agricultural revolution sounded the death knell for open field farming in Britain, with new developments in farming practices requiring larger enclosed areas to be workable.
Throughout the 19th century, the developments in Britain were exported across the world, and the various contributions made upon the working population by warfare and increased mechanization finally finished the open field system off.