Boundaries between
fields and communities form the ancient social topographical
scaffold of the countryside. In the days before maps, these compartments were
established and maintained by a process known as perambulation. This term refers
to the actual process of marking out these important land divisions, a description that
was written down for future reference, and also describes the actual actual process
of reinforcing ownership. For village boundaries, the latter was an annual ceremony
organised by the parish officers to ensure that all the inhabitants knew the limits of
their homeland in relation to the lands of adjacent communities. This ceremony was
also known as 'beating the bounds', and was attended by customary events, such as
upending children of the community, at particular features used as markers.
Parish boundaries still
snake across the British countryside, following hedgerows,
roads, footpaths, streams and rivers. Often they cut across the landscape with no
apparent reference to the lie of the land or to features of the human landscape. They
create a pattern of considerable complexity and raise numerous questions. Why
does a boundary which has been following a particular stream suddenly swing away
to follow lanes and hedgerows for a couple of miles before rejoining the stream?
Why was a Roman road used to mark the limits of parishes in one area but totally
ignored by the boundaries a few miles further on? Why do parishes vary so much in
shape and size between different parts of the country?
As represented by dotted
lines on the Ordnance Survey maps, parish boundaries are
some of the most durable legacies from Anglo-Saxon England. The Hundred
boundaries defined groups of parishes that represent civil estates of Saxon times.
As a medieval network, the village boundaries formed an invisible web which knit
families into communities and divided communities one from another. These
boundaries also divided the landscape of local administration, which was both
ecclesiastical and civil. The former defined the church in which people could be
baptised and buried and to which they had to pay tithes and other dues. At the level
of civil administration they dictated the official to whom they were responsible for
payment of taxes and rates. Therefore, boundaries of parishes and other units of
local administration mattered greatly to past generations. Before the local
government reforms of the nineteenth century, the parochial basis of poor relief and
many charities and schools were centred on the parish in which a person was born.
Today, most inhabitants
would not be aware of where their village ended and another
began. However, parish boundaries still form the basis of the political divisions for
county and district, and those created to define the voting arrangements for the
British and European constituencies. In this modern context the old Hundred
divisions take on a contemporary significance.
Today, some footpaths
follow the ancient parish boundaries and allow walkers to
follow these footmarks of villagers of ancient times. An ancillary footpath network
was a system of roads and footpaths used by villagers to attend their local manorial
court. Now, the sites of some of these courts are farmsteads off the main roads, and
it is possible to follow in the steps of named individuals who's attendance at the court
was recorded in the medieval court rolls.
Angus Winchester
See also 'Hundred
Lines' in the library section ofwww.otohydra.org.uk
