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The British Way of Doing Things
Cambridge University landscape historian Dr. Susan
Oosthuizen is one academic who believes that rights
of common began in the autumnal round-ups at
Neolithic causewayed camps like those at Hambledon
Hill in Dorset or on grasslands marked with luminous
features like the White Horse at Uffington on the
Icknield Way in Berkshire. Even though most of us
are far removed from the need to negotiate shared
access to the woods to graze our pigs, Dr. Oosthuizen
believes that the general values underlying common
rights go back almost 4000 years and are so strongly
rooted in us that they form the very foundation of
what it is to be British and how we do things ‘
in a
British way
’. Here’s the doctor in her own words:
“
In the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the
London Olympic Games, there’s been a huge amount
of debate about what it is to be British – whether it’s
a nice cup of tea or forming an orderly queue or the
ability to lose gracefully. It seems to me that the
fundamental values underlying the practice of
prehistoric and medieval rights of common reflect
many of the same values and beliefs that we consider
to be at the core of Britishness today
.
The key
features underlying this understanding of Britishness
are the right for stakeholders to be consulted on
matters that affect them, equity of expression among
stakeholders, the importance of consensus in decision
-making, transparency and accountability of
governance, an emphasis on custom and practice,
incremental rather than radical change, and an
insistence on the moral economy – not taking more
than one’s fair share. These are the values we aspire
to, and know to be worthy – even if we choose to
ignore them
.”
It’s a fascinating idea isn’t it? Custom and practice
expressed as rights of common and born of the need
to cooperate in sharing natural resources and passed
down by word of mouth through four thousand years
(four thousand years!) might just explain why we are
the world champions at forming an orderly queue and
why we get so very cross if anyone pushes in.
Enthralling Saxons
Everyday life in Anglo Saxon England was rough
even for the rich. At the top of the tree, as it were,
the Anglo Saxon upper class, called thanes, enjoyed
hunting and feasting. In the middle were the churls,
some reasonably well off, others desperately poor,
but all free men. At the bottom of the heap was a
class of slaves called bondsmen or an old Norse
word - thralls. They were often captives of war
passing their bondage on to their children but
sometimes a man might become
enthralled
through
debt. How odd that whereas many old Norse words
for things unpleasant have come down to us with
their original meanings - anger, berserk, Hell,
irksome, rotten, ugly and troll,
enthralled
has
flipped its meaning entirely and today is only ever
used to suggest a very pleasant experience.
Coppice and Pollard
During the long mediaeval period that began with the
Anglo Saxons and lasted roughly 1000 years until the
dawn of the Tudor age in the 1400s there were two
basic woodland management objectives, to produce
wood for fuel and building which required coppicing
and the creation of wood pasture whereby woodland
was managed by pollarding trees for the pasturing of
animals
.
If we take a look at identifying each type
you’ll have an impressive party trick next time you
take a walk in the woods with friends or family.