Secdocument 8347

Peasant Perceptions of Landscape:
Ewelme Hundred, South Oxfordshire,

500-1650 Stephen Mileson
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/peasant-perceptions-of-landscape-ewelme-hundred-s
outh-oxfordshire-500-1650-stephen-mileson/
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/09/21, SPi
MED I E VA L H I S T O R Y
A N D A RC H A E O LO G Y
General Editors
John Blair Helena Hamerow
Peasant Perceptions of Landscape marks a change in the discipline of landscape history,

as well as making a major contribution to the history of everyday life. Until now, there
has been no sustained analysis of how ordinary medieval and early modern people
experienced and perceived their material environment and constructed their identities
in relation to the places where they lived. This volume provides exactly such an a nalysis
by examining peasant perceptions in one geographical area over the long period from
AD 500 to 1650.
The study takes as its focus Ewelme hundred, a well-documented and archaeologically-
rich area of lowland vale and hilly Chiltern wood-pasture comprising fourteen ancient
parishes. The analysis draws on a wide range of sources including legal depositions
and thousands of field names and bynames preserved in deeds and manorial documents.
Archaeology makes a major contribution, particularly for understanding the period
before 900, but more generally in reconstructing the fabric of villages and the
framework for inhabitants’ spatial practices and experiences. In its focus on the way
inhabitants interacted with the landscape in which they worked, prayed, and socialized,
Peasant Perceptions of Landscape supplies a new history of the lives and attitudes of the
bulk of the rural population who so seldom make their mark in traditional landscape
analysis or documentary history.
MED I E VA L H I S T O R Y
A N D ARCHAEOLOGY
General Editors
John Blair Helena Hamerow
The volumes in this series bring together archaeological, historical, and visual methods
to offer new approaches to aspects of medieval society, economy, and material culture.
The series seeks to present and interpret archaeological evidence in ways readily
accessible to historians, while providing a historical perspective and context for the
material culture of the period.
Peasant Perceptions
of Landscape
Ewelme Hundred, South
Oxfordshire, 500–1650
ST E PH E N M I L E SON
and
ST UA R T BROOK E S
1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes 2021
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021939066
ISBN 978–0–19–289489–2
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894892.001.0001
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
SM:
For Christa, Bente, and Valentijn
SB:
In memory of Ralph Thompson (1922–1992)
A CK N O WL E DG E ME NT S
This book is the main output of the South Oxfordshire Project, an investigation of
medieval and early modern landscape and perceptions funded by the Leverhulme
Trust in partnership with Oxford University. The Leverhulme-funded research was
undertaken between 2012 and 2015, after a one-year pilot phase in 2011–12 which
was funded by the John Fell Fund in collaboration with the Oxfordshire Victoria
County History (VCH). The generous support of those bodies, and of the Leverhulme
Trust in particular, made our research possible. Stephen Mileson initiated and led the
project, and Stuart Brookes worked on it for two years as project officer. The principal
investigator was Professor Chris Wickham, then Chichele Professor of Medieval
History at the University of Oxford, who provided vital support and encouragement
throughout, as well as a large measure of freedom which allowed the investigation to
flourish. The pilot phase was headed by Robert Evans, then Regius Professor of
Modern History. In terms of the writing of the book, Chapters 2, 3, and 4 were pro-
duced jointly by Stuart Brookes and Stephen Mileson, and the rest is by Stephen
Mileson. The authors have had many stimulating discussions over the years, and we
are grateful to each other for a fruitful and enjoyable collaboration.
The South Oxfordshire Project was intended as a vehicle to push forward scholarly
understanding of peasant perceptions through an in-depth study of a particular area
over a long period of time. It consciously drew on the detailed research on Ewelme
hundred which was being carried out at the same time by the VCH. Stephen Mileson
contributed to the VCH work, and the project team and the VCH cooperated
throughout. The benefits were mutual, as noted by one review of the relevant VCH
volume, Oxfordshire XVIII, which describes that book as ‘a landmark in the history of
the enterprise’ and the cross-fertilization of the two endeavours as ‘a model for the
future’ (Landscape History, 38:1 (2017), 108–9). The authors are extremely grateful
for the input and ideas of the Oxfordshire VCH historians, Simon Townley (county
editor), Simon Draper, and Mark Page. Simon Townley in particular offered huge
support to a project which deprived him of one of his team members for four years,
and gave much needed encouragement in the seemingly endless late stages of writing.
Many others have contributed to the book, and the authors would particularly like
to thank those who have read and commented on draft text, although they bear no
responsibility for the end result. They are Chris Wickham and Simon Townley, who
read the whole book; Paul Booth, Sue Harrington, and Barbara Yorke (Chapter 3);
Simon Draper (Chapters 3 and 4); Richard Jones and Tom Williamson (Chapter 4);
Paul Harvey (Chapters 5 and 6); Chris Dyer and John Steane (Chapters 5 to 7); and
viii Acknowledgements
Steve Gunn (Chapters 6 and 7). We are also grateful to Jayne Carroll, John Baker, and
Eleanor Rye for reading sections on place names and personal names.
Stephen Mileson is especially indebted to Chris Dyer for his ongoing encourage-
ment, and for his early support for the project’s focus on perceptions. In addition,
OUP’s series editors, John Blair and Helena Hamerow, have given valuable input, and
John has supplied comments on particular chapters. A number of scholars kindly served
on a project board which supplied feedback on the research in progress, namely Grenville
Astill, John Baker, John Blair, Chris Dyer, Ros Faith, Dawn Hadley, Helena Hamerow,
Richard Jones, Kate Tiller, Simon Townley, and Chris Wickham. Audience members
at project talks in Belfast, Groningen (The Netherlands), Nottingham, Oxford,
Winchester, and in a number of village halls asked interesting questions and made us
think harder. Archivists and librarians at Oxford and in numerous other places have
been unfailingly generous in their assistance; particular repositories are listed in the
bibliography.
We would also like to thank the following people and organizations: Sally Stradling
for leading the buildings surveys; members of the Oxfordshire Buildings Record for
indefatigable survey work; the Oxfordshire Probate Group for analysis of wills and
inventories; the South Oxfordshire Archaeological Group and numerous local volun-
teers for help with test-pitting and fieldwalking; Oxford Archaeology for outreach
work on test pit surveys; Roger Ainslie for geophysics; Richard Oram and Susan Lisk
(at Oxfordshire County Council) and Edward Caswell (PAS) for archaeological data;
Maureen Mellor for pottery analysis; Ruth Pelling for her survey of archaeobotanical
data; Kris Poole for his examination of animal bone reports; Dan Miles for dendrochrono
logical surveys; John Jenkins for research on local churches (which was funded by the
John Fell Fund); Damon Ortega and Alessio Palmisano for work on the project GIS,
and Chris Green for discussions about data cleaning; Emily Pennifold for additional
place-name analysis; Rebecca Gregory for advice on place names; Alex Langlands for
discussions about early farming techniques; Andreas Duering for discussions about
demography; Robert Peberdy for information and local contacts; and Marcus Abbott
for his evocative drawings. Aileen Mooney gave crucial help with funding applications.
The MSRG, the Ewelme Society, and Ewelme Parish Council gave additional funds
for fieldwork, and the University of Oxford History Faculty helped meet the cost of
illustrations. Homeowners and landowners across the hundred kindly allowed access,
and several churchwardens rang church bells while we ran off across fields recording
soundmarks.
Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes
Bath and London
CO NT E NT S
List of Figuresxi
List of Tablesxvii
List of Abbreviationsxix
1. Introduction 1
2. Geography and Sources 14
3. The Early to Middle Anglo-Saxon Period, 500–800 44
4. The Late Anglo-Saxon Period, 800–1100 102
5. The High Middle Ages, 1100–1350 147
6. The Late Middle Ages, 1350–1530 231
7. The Early Modern Period, 1530–1650 274
8. Conclusion 317
Bibliography321
Index353
L I S T OF FI G U RE S
1.1 Ewelme hundred within its regional geographical context. Inset: the hundred’s
location within England, and in relation to Roberts and Wrathmell’s ‘central
province’.7
1.2 The parishes and settlements of Ewelme hundred, showing nineteenth-century
settlement and twenty-first-century roads (some of which reflect modern
house-building). For township boundaries, see Figure 2.3. 8
1.3 Symmesdene (1447–8) in Cuxham, an example of close local knowledge
revealed by field names, and the way that names were adapted over time.
This ‘dene’ (‘long valley’, OE denu, ME dene), is located on high ground
south of the village and is only visible to those who walk across the fields.
The first part of the name is that of a tenant family who arrived apparently
in the 1440s (below, pp. 255–6). 11
2.1 The view south-east towards the Chiltern scarp from the Warborough
ploughing monument. 15
2.2 A three-dimensional view of Ewelme hundred, showing modern settlement. 16
2.3 The hundred’s administrative topography. 17
2.4 Photographs of the landscape. Top left: fine views towards the
Chilterns from Easington; top right: view of the vale from near Swyncombe
church; bottom left: Chiltern woodland management at Digberry; bottom
right: vale fields at Latchford. 18
2.5 Solid and drift geology. Data sources: EDINA Geology Digimap Service
and Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap,
downloaded November 2012. 20
2.6 Agricultural land classification within the hundred. 22
2.7 The hundred’s landscape in 1797, as shown by Davis. This map illustrates
the survival of some large vale open fields (for example, at Benson,
Chalgrove, and Haseley), and the enclosure of others (for example, Newington).
Woodland cover by this period was under pressure from intensive arable
farming and was probably more comparable in extent to woodland in the
early fourteenth century rather than the fifteenth or sixteenth. 26
2.8 The area’s main routes, showing routeways of different periods. Here as
elsewhere many Prehistoric, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon ways gradually fell
out of use with the spread of wheeled transport later in the Middle Ages.
Sections of the various parallel routeways of the Icknield Way are preserved in
local routes, as are the long-distance Ridgeway path and the Romanized
route along the scarp edge; see Hindle, Roads, Tracks and their Interpretation,
Fig. 8, and, for Roman roads, Margary, Roman Roads.27
2.9 The deeply eroded Bushes Lane hollow way in Nettlebed. This section of
the route remains unmetalled, but the western end, in Huntercombe
(Nuffield parish), is today a minor road. 28
xii List of Figures
2.10 A LiDAR image of the braided droveways in Ewelme (indicated by an arrow). 32

2.11 Fieldwalking and metal detecting in Ewelme, March 2011. Wittenham
Clumps is on the horizon. 33
2.12 An oblique photo of the remains of the deserted medieval settlement at
Rofford (centre) in April 1953, Chalgrove airfield at the top right.
Cambridge University, St Joseph, LK33. Reproduced with permission of the
Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photography. 35
2.13 Detail from Davis’s large-scale 1788 map of the shared fields of Benson,
Berrick, and Ewelme, also showing enclosed land at Crowmarsh (bottom left)
and Fifield (right); Blue-coloured strips owed tithe to Benson,
pink to Berrick, and yellow to Ewelme. The distance between the Thames
(left) and the eastern edge of the closes at Fifield is 2 km. 42
3.1 Early Anglo-Saxon burial sites and finds in the South Oxfordshire region.
Includes data from PAS, https://finds.org.uk; EDINA Geology Digimap Service,
http://edina.ac.uk/digimap, downloaded November 2012; Soils data. 51
3.2 Berinsfield graves 28 and 102. Reproduced from Boyle, Two Oxfordshire
Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries, pp. 154, 161. 57
3.3 The excavated features at Benson, after McBride, Great Hall Complexes,
Fig. 7.36. 64
3.4 The Brightwell Baldwin and Cuxham charter boundaries. Includes data
from Environment Agency, special licence, downloaded 5 June 2013;
EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap,
3.5 The core part of Benson’s territory in the eighth century. Includes data from:
EDINA Geology Digimap Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap, downloaded
November 2012. 75
3.6 Ewelme’s Anglo-Saxon meeting and/or trading site. Includes data from:
EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap,
3.7 Nuffield’s clearing (top) and Swyncombe’s cumb (bottom). 79
3.8 The dūn at Easington, looking across Cuxham’s north field (top), and the beorg
(Town Hill) in Warborough, viewed from near Lane End Farm in Newington,
with the Sinodun Hills glimpsed in the background (bottom). 83
3.9 Artistic reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon settlement (West Stow). Courtesy of
West Suffolk Council Heritage Services/West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village Trust. 86
3.10 Brooches from the Berinsfield cemetery. Top, from left: cast saucer brooches
from graves 54 and 63, button brooch from grave 18, and cast saucer brooch
from grave 107. Bottom, from left: the great square-headed brooches from
graves 107 and 102. Reproduced from Boyle, Two Oxfordshire Anglo-Saxon
Cemeteries, Figs. 14, 17, 18. 87
3.11 View from the Ewelme cemetery site, looking south-west towards the
Chilterns and Sinodun Hills. 88
3.12 Remembering the Dead, by Marcus Abbott. 90
3.13 The visibility of ‘Ceolwulf’s tree’ and ‘hostage’s ridge’ (above) and
‘Cuda’s tumulus’ (below) in the landscape. 94
List of Figures xiii
4.1 Documented land grants by kings and others between the ninth and
eleventh centuries. Includes data from Environment Agency, special licence,
downloaded 5 June 2013. 105
4.2 Evidence for Anglo-Saxon settlement at Benson, with a grid of four short
perches (18.3 sq m) superimposed over the central part of the settlement. 113
4.3 The early eleventh-century parcel-gilt strap-end fragment with agnus dei
inscription, from Nuffield. 121
4.4 Charter boundary marks divided into three categories: linear, area,
and point. Includes data from Environment Agency, special licence,
downloaded 5 June 2013. 128
4.5 The probable hundred meeting site at ‘Ceolwulf’s tree’. The extensive
views visible from the location can be seen in the distance. Part of the
Fildena way survives as the road to Brightwell Baldwin. For the location,
see Figure 3.6. 132
4.6 The line of putative beacons north-east of Wallingford. 135
4.7 Setting out the Fields, by Marcus Abbott. Something like this would have
happened in Benson, Berrick, and Ewelme in the early eleventh century. 138
4.8 Part of a map of Huntercombe (in Nuffield) in 1665, showing irregular
enclosures and funnel-shaped greens. 140
4.9 The Hundred Moot, by Marcus Abbott. Repeated journeys to the
hundred meeting place and participation in discussions there marked out
freemen as part of a hundred-wide community. 143
5.1 Map showing the location of Lachemera and some other named fields
in Swyncombe parish. 148
5.2 Map of Ewelme hundred, showing settlement and land use c.1300, as
reconstructed from documents and archaeological evidence. Open-field strips
are shown only where their layout can be recovered from early maps, but the
great majority of vale arable was in strip cultivation. 150
5.3 The earthworks of the deserted medieval hamlet of Cadwell in 1943, north
at top right. The tenant houses lay in a cluster (A) immediately west of the
moated manor house (B). The hamlet, which had just six taxpayers in 1306,
seems to have been abandoned by the end of the Middle Ages; it was
replaced by a single farm. NMR, US/7PH/GP/LOC93, Frame 5063 (detail),
copyright Historic England. 165
5.4 Great Haseley (from a map of 1729), top, and Newington (from a map
of 1595), bottom, two settlements in which ‘planned’ elements have
been proposed. Great Haseley: SGCW, CC 11232/5 (SGCW, DIG DOC.1.5). 166
5.5 The ‘bulges’ in Benson’s high street which may have been used as trading
sites, detail from late nineteenth-century OS Map. 168
5.6 Wallingford’s trading hinterland between 1226 and 1242, as revealed
by documents listing individuals from surrounding rural settlements who
paid a fee to be exempt from the market toll. The circle represents a radius
of six miles. 170
5.7 Migration into Ewelme hundred as suggested by bynames in the hundred
rolls of 1279. 175
xiv List of Figures
5.8 Mill Farm, Mapledurham, south Oxfordshire. This early fourteenth-century

house hunkers low to the ground, only its roof visible above the perimeter fence.
In place of the chimney was originally a wooden smoke louvre. 187
5.9 Medieval and early modern field names in Chalgrove. 189
5.10 House orientations in Chalgrove and Cuxham, as indicated by medieval
and early modern standing buildings. Late nineteenth-century OS Map base. 193
5.11 The social topography of Cuxham in 1300. Based on Harvey, A Medieval
Oxfordshire Village, pp. 122, 172–3. As Harvey points out, the bend in
the street is more pronounced on the ground than it appears on the map. 195
5.12 Chalgrove’s medieval ‘ends’. Nineteenth-century base mapping supplied
by James Bond and adapted using a map of 1822 in the Magdalen College
archive (CP3/20). 198
5.13 Medieval and early modern Cuxham field names. 212
5.14 Gravelly soil in Whytelond’, Cuxham. 214
5.15 Medieval and early modern Easington field names. 215
5.16 Medieval and early modern Ewelme field names. 218
5.17 Grim’s Ditch, a view of the section in Nuffield, facing west (towards
the Thames). 220
5.18 An eleventh-century scabbard chape found in Warborough. The object
depicts a warrior leading a horse and wearing a helmet and a long tunic
and carrying a kite-shaped shield and battleaxe. The owner was
probably a Norman soldier. PAS: BERK-3228B7. 226
5.19 The thirteenth-century seal impression of Nicholas le Chandeler (TNA,
E 326/8310, copyright The National Archives); millimetre scale at bottom. 228
6.1 Medieval and early modern Nuffield field names. Calys is shown towards
the bottom right. 232
6.2 The earthwork remains of the medieval settlement of Warpsgrove viewed
from the air in 1962 (Cambridge University, St Joseph, AEE97), with the
probable location of the church marked ‘A’. The site of the church is indicated
by geophysical survey (see inset). North to right. 236
6.3 Cuxham village’s layout c.1500. As in nearby Chalgrove, the word ‘toft’
seems to have been used to indicate a vacant house plot. Based on documents
at Merton College, Oxford, especially 875, 878, 5902, 5932, 1.7A. 237
6.4 The main areas of late-medieval and early modern enclosure. 240
6.5 Part of a map of Huntercombe in 1665 showing the c.60-acre Nuffield
heath, with an adjacent pound for stray animals (top). 241
6.6 The north elevation of 233/5 Thame Road, Warborough in 2013:
originally a four-bay box-framed house with a thatched hipped roof
(now tiled and gabled), in the late eighteenth century it was refaced in
clunch and extended by one bay. 246
6.7 The secluded settings of 233/5 Thame Road, Warborough, and
Old Mill House, Ewelme. OS Map base. 248
6.8 The base of what appears to be a late-medieval stone cross at Chalgrove green. 255
6.9 A numinous sunset over the Sinodun Hills. 258
List of Figures xv
6.10 Medieval and early modern Warborough field names. 260

6.11 The Church Piece cemetery in Warborough as revealed by cropmarks. 261
6.12 Geophysical survey of the Ewelme Manor moated site, with an inset
showing the range of buildings which remained in 1729, representing the
south side of the base court. The western fragment of the range which survives
today is marked with an ‘A’. The 1729 drawing shows a vestige of the moat. 263
6.13 Left: Ewelme’s church–almshouse–school complex, on rising ground. Right:
The fifteenth-century schoolhouse, with its two tall chimneys, still forming
part of a primary school in the twenty-first century. 264
6.14 Clockwise from top left: Benson, Berrick, Brightwell Baldwin, and
Great Haseley churches, showing surviving towers of late-medieval date. 266
6.15 Comparative ‘soundmarks’ of the church bells of Cuxham, Brightwell Baldwin,
and Nettlebed. Note the three settlements in Nettlebed beyond the range
of the bells. 268
6.16 The Dorchester tenor bell. 271
6.17 Berrick Salome church from the north-west. 271
7.1 Detail from a 1729 map of Great Haseley’s field system, naming the
many holders of strips. North at top. 278
7.2 Detail from the Golder and Easington map of 1612, north at bottom. 281
7.3 Crowmarsh in 1638, the land of small tenants on the fringes of the main farm’s
open-field blocks. By permission of the Claydon House Trust. 282
7.4 Places mentioned in Ewelme probate documents between 1543 and 1598. 284
7.5 Detail of Benson as mapped in 1638, showing London road and two inns.
North to right. 285
7.6 Beverley, Warborough (top left); Lavender Cottage, Warborough (top right);
Wheelwrights, Cuxham (middle left); The Old Post Office, Berrick Salome
(middle right); houses around Chalgrove green (bottom). 291
7.7 Large timbers in College Farm, Cuxham. 292
7.8 Areas of houses mainly close to the road in the central parts of Benson and
Nettlebed. Note that most houses are broadside to the street. OS Map base. 293
7.9 Detail from Davis’s 1788 map of Benson, Berrick, and Ewelme, showing
the broadside alignment of village houses. 295
7.10 Ford’s Farm in Ewelme, set well back from the road. 297
7.11 Irregularly oriented and deep-set houses at Crocker End. 298
7.12 The layouts of English Farm (left) and Newington’s rectory house (right,
from a map of 1595). 299
7.13 College Farm House, Benson (top), with its impressive chimney stack
dating to c.1600, and No. 54 Thame Road, Warborough (bottom). 301
7.14 Houses at Warborough Green (as shown on a map of 1606), all with a
shared alignment, apart from the vicarage houses and its neighbour in the
south-west. Note the standing cross shown by the main road at the entrance
to the green, which is likely to have been a gathering place. By kind permission
of the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 302
7.15 The seventeenth-century first-floor window at The Lamb, Chalgrove. 304
xvi List of Figures
7.16 The cross at Golder (next to Easington), as depicted in a map of 1612. 307
7.17 New enclosures at Newington as depicted on a map of 1595. The old
open-field strips and divisions are shown in some of the areas marked ‘late arable’. 310
7.18 The memorial of Stephen Rumbold in the church porch at Brightwell Baldwin. 312
7.19 The King’s (earlier Queen’s) Pool (or Pond) in Ewelme. 315
L I S T O F TA B L E S
4.1 Domesday statistics 108

4.2 Old English personal names in the landscape, those from charter bounds in bold 130
5.1 Arable land in 1086 and 1279 156
5.2 Land use in selected settlements in 1300 161
5.3 Tenant numbers, 1086–1279, with rough estimates of total populations at
each date, assuming a household size of 4.5 164
5.4 Possible inter-parish movement as suggested by bynames documented in
the hundred rolls of 1279 178
5.5 Social structures amongst the tenant population in 1279 180
5.6 Topographical bynames and minor toponymic names (mentioned in
1279 or earlier unless specified) 202
6.1 Taxpayers in 1327, 1377, and 1524, giving a sense of the size of settlements
relative to each other, and a very rough sense of overall populations at each date 235
7.1 Taxpayers in 1662 and ‘conformists’ (probably adult inhabitants) in 1676 277
7.2 Surveyed houses in Ewelme hundred of seventeenth-century and earlier date 287
L I S T O F A B B RE VI AT I ONS
ADS Archaeology Data Service (accessible online)

ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: M. J. Swanton (ed.), The Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle (1996), manuscript versions A–E
BAR BS British Archaeological Reports, British Series
BL British Library, London
Blair, A-S Oxon. J. Blair, Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (1994)
Cal. Close Calendar of Close Rolls
Cal. Cur. Reg. Calendar of Curia Regis Rolls
Cal. Inq. Misc. Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous
Cal. IPM Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem
Cal. Pat. Calendar of Patent Rolls
Cal. SP Dom. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic
E.
Cartulary of Godstow Abbey Amt (ed.), The Latin Cartulary of Godstow Abbey,
British Academy (2014)
Cat. Anc. Deeds Catalogue of Ancient Deeds
ChCh Christ Church, Oxford
Davis,
Benson map (1788) R. Davis map of Benson, Berrick Salome, and Ewelme
(1788): Bodl. (R) MS C17:49 (141)
EMC Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds (accessible online)
EPNS English Place-Name Society
Goring Charters T. R. Gambier-Parry (ed.), A Collection of Charters
Relating to Goring, Streatley, and the Neighbourhood,
1181–1546, ORS, 13–14 (1931–2)
G.
Grundy, Saxon Oxon. B. Grundy, Saxon Oxfordshire: Charters and Ancient
Highways, ORS, 15 (1933)
HE Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum: Colgrave,
B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (eds) Bede’s Ecclesiastical History
of the English People (1969)
Henig and Booth, Roman Oxon. M. Henig and P. Booth, Roman Oxfordshire (2000)

HER, PRN Historic Environment Record, Primary Reference Number
Langley Cartulary P. R. Coss (ed.), The Langley Cartulary, Dugdale Society,
32 (1980)
Leland Itin. L. Toulmin Smith (ed.), The Itinerary of John Leland in or
about the Years 1535–1543, 5 vols (1906–10)
Macray, ‘Oxon.’ W. D. Macray, ‘Calendar of Charters in Magdalen College:
Oxfordshire’ (typescript vols in Magdalen College archive)
MED Middle English Dictionary
NHLE National Heritage List England
NMP National Mapping Programme
NMR National Monuments Record
OBR Oxfordshire Buildings Record
OD Ordnance Datum
xx List of A bbreviations
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

OE Old English
ON Old Norse
OHS Oxford Historical Society
ORS Oxfordshire Record Society
Oseney Cartulary H. E. Salter (ed.), Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, OHS,
89–91, 97–8, 101 (1929–36)
Oxon. Atlas K. Tiller and G. Darkes (eds), An Historical Atlas of
Oxfordshire, ORS, 67 (2010)
Oxon. Fines H. E. Salter (ed.), Feet of Fines for Oxfordshire, 1195–1291,
ORS, 12 (1930)
PAS Portable Antiquities Scheme (accessible online)
PASE Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (accessible online)
PN Oxon. M. Gelling, Place-Names of Oxfordshire, 2 vols, EPNS,
23–4 (1953–4)
Rot. Hug. Welles W. P. W. Phillimore and F. N. Davis (eds), Rotuli Hugonis
de Welles Episcopi Lincolniensis AD MCCIX–MCCXXXV,
3 vols., Lincolnshire Record Society, 3, 6, 9 (1912–14)
Rot. Hund. W. Illingworth and R. Caley (eds), Rotuli Hundredorum
temp. Hen. III & Edw. I, 2 vols (1812–18)
Rot. Parl. J. Strachey (ed.), Rotuli Parliamentorum, 6 vols. (1767–77)
S numbers Anglo-Saxon charters are annotated with reference to the
numbering in P. Sawyer, Anglo- Saxon Charters: An
Annotated List and Bibliography (1968). Revised and
updated, as ‘The Electronic Sawyer’ (accessible online)
Sandford Cartulary A. M. Leys (ed.), The Sandford Cartulary, 2 vols, ORS, 19
and 22 (1938–41)
SGCW St George’s Chapel, Windsor
SMidlA South Midlands Archaeology
Soilscapes SS ID The Soils Guide, Cranfield University (2020) (accessible online)
Some Oxon. Wills J. R. H. Weaver and A. Beardwood (eds), Some Oxfordshire
Wills: Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury,
1393–1510, ORS, 39 (1958)
SRTM Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital elevation model
(accessible online)
Stonor Letters C. L. Kingsford (ed.), The Stonor Letters and Papers,
1290–1483, 2 vols., Camden 3rd series, 29–30 (1919)
Thame Cartulary H. E. Salter (ed.), The Thame Cartulary, ORS, 25–6 (1947–8)
TNA The National Archives
TTT P. Booth, A. Dodd, M. Robinson, and A. Smith, The Thames
through Time: The Archaeology of the Gravel Terraces of the
Upper and Middle Thames. The Early Historical Period: ad
1–1000, Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph, 27 (2007)
VCH Victoria History of the Counties of England
W Welsh
Watts, Dictionary V. E. Watts, The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-
Names (2004)
Introduction
‘A century hence the student’s materials will not be in the shape in which he finds
them now . . . Instead of a few photographed village maps, there will be many; the
history of land-measures and of field-systems will have been elaborated. Above all,
by slow degrees the thoughts of our forefathers, their common thoughts about
common things, will have become thinkable once more.’
Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 520
‘As medieval peasants have left few records other than material remains in archae
ology, not much can be known about the details of their cultural values and mental
experience.’
Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 9
In 1897 the great English historian Frederic Maitland foretold the development of
landscape history. By 1997—‘a century hence’—he was proved correct: the discipline
had matured considerably from its antiquarian roots, especially after the publication
of W. G. Hoskins’ seminal book The Making of the English Landscape in 1955. On the
other hand, Maitland’s optimism about uncovering the ‘thoughts of our forefathers’
may now seem less well placed. Decades of study have demonstrated that reconstruction
of landscape development does not automatically reveal the culture and mentality of
past inhabitants. For aristocrats we at least have literature (for which they were a chief
audience) and something of the priorities revealed by their well-documented estate
management. For other groups, things are different. As Michael Clanchy suggests,
appreciating how medieval peasants (or indeed other poorly documented past inhab-
itants) experienced their environment continues to prove very difficult. Yet Maitland
was surely right to imply a link between material surroundings, everyday practices,
and perceptions, the last defined by one modern writer as an ‘understanding of the
world gained through the interaction of sensory information, cultural values and indi-
vidual attributes/personality’.1
The aim of this book is to develop a richer understanding of peasants’ perceptions
over the long period 500–1650, based on close study of one particular area, the
1
See also Jones, ‘Interpreting the Perceptions of Past People’.
Peasant Perceptions of Landscape: Ewelme Hundred, South Oxfordshire, 500–1650. Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes,
Oxford University Press. © Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894892.003.0001
2 PE A SA NT PERCEPTIONS OF L A NDSCA PE
former hundred of Ewelme in south Oxfordshire, which comprised fourteen parishes

and more than 10,000 hectares of land. The twin questions at the heart of the study
are, firstly, ‘How were perceptions and local identities formed in relation to particular
settings?’, and secondly, ‘How did those perceptions and identities change as a result
of social and landscape reorganization?’ These questions have a deep significance
because those who farmed the land comprised the great bulk of the population and
played a crucial role in shaping the landscape. The findings presented in the pages that
follow are aimed at everyone interested in pre-modern mentalities, especially those of
country dwellers. The study is novel in its chronological range and depth of treatment,
and it builds on existing work of a very varied character.
In recent decades scholars from a range of disciplines have become increasingly
alert to the notion that the material environment played a significant part in the shap-
ing of values. A so-called ‘spatial turn’ has involved an explicit focus on scale within
the arenas of human action, including the size and relationship of political and social
units, and on the way that different spaces were used and represented in discourse.2
The latter speaks of power and inequality but also of meaning, the way in which par-
ticular settings and their uses can be bound up with a sense of engagement and
belonging, becoming ‘places’ rather than mere ‘spaces’.3 For one historian the term
‘place’ can be related to ‘the construction of a social collectivity upon the landscape:
the creation of mutual, affective ties within a distinct locality’.4 It is not difficult to
appreciate that concepts of space or place might be worthwhile methodological tools
for the historian. After all, in the past just as much as in the present, establishing and
marking how buildings and the wider landscape were to be used reinforced the power
of some—amongst ordinary people as well as elites—and reduced that of others. For
that reason, understanding how and when particular patterns of use developed is a
historically important issue: because those patterns affected, and in turn were affected
by, social relations.
In studies of the medieval and early modern periods, the concept of space has
become rather fashionable. Amongst the more productive outputs have been investi-
gations into the way that castles, houses, churches, and religious precincts were used
to shape or reinforce behaviour and attitudes.5 Beyond the confines of buildings,
attention has also been paid to the creation and use of public spaces in cities and
towns, drawing on contemporary language and documents which reveal spatial
sensibilities,6 although specific urban layouts and their implications have seldom been
Campbell, ‘Space, Place and Scale’, 23–9; Withers, ‘Place and the “Spatial Turn” in Geography and History’,
2
639–41; Kümin and Usborne, ‘At Home and in the Workplace’.

3
Muir, Approaches to Landscape, 271–95.
4
Wood, The Memory of the People, 188.
5
Beattie et al. (eds), The Medieval Household in Christian Europe; Graves, The Form and Fabric of Belief;
Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture; Andrews (ed.), Ritual and Space in the Middle Ages.
6
For example, Keene, ‘Text, Visualisation and Politics’; Symes, ‘Out in the Open, in Arras’.
INTRODUCTION 3
worked through. Research on rural settlements has felt some of the influence of this
spatial turn,7 but the impact has so far been limited. Most landscape history continues
to focus on landscape as structure rather than landscape as meaning. Discussions of
the use of space in houses usually end at the front door or, at best, the farmyard gate.8
The result, according to one recent survey of medieval landscape history, is that
addressing ‘perception and performance or practice’ is ‘a prospect that still lies largely
ahead’.9 Early modernists have supplied some powerful studies of the way custom and
memory were embedded and contested in the landscape, but the analysis has tended
to be broad and thematic rather than taking the form of fully developed reconstruc-
tion of particular localities or settlements.10 Nor have there been sustained compari-
sons between the medieval and early modern periods. As a result, older claims—based
ultimately on antiquarian writings—that the peoples of the champion and woodlands
developed distinctive social and religious outlooks remain underdeveloped.11
Thanks to generations of research on landscape development and local communi-
ties, we now have the opportunity to approach perceptions at the village level as
part of a nuanced picture of medieval and early modern rural life. That picture has
long recognized the significance of relations between lords and tenants, and the
influence of demographic change and commercialization on farming practices and
family structure.12 More recently it has been enriched by explorations of the grow-
ing but differentiated involvement of villagers in secular government and church
life.13 Scholars have fruitfully investigated the sense of local community, and how far
it was affected by social change, notably by the elaboration of hierarchy and growth
of geographical mobility after the Black Death,14 and indeed in the sixteenth and
7
Hindle and Kümin, ‘The Spatial Dynamics of Parish Politics’.
8
For example, Alcock and Miles, The Medieval Peasant House; Dyer, ‘Living in Peasant Houses’; Kowaleski
and Goldberg (eds), Medieval Domesticity; Johnson, English Houses 1300–1800; Buxton, Domestic Culture in
Early Modern England; Hamling and Richardson, A Day at Home in Early Modern England. For a call to exam-
ine the spaces between houses: Dyer, ‘Vernacular Architecture and Landscape History’.
9
Dyer and Everson, ‘The Development of the Study of Medieval Settlements’, 28.
10
For example, Walsham, The Reformation of the Landscape; Whyte, Inhabiting the Landscape; Wood, The
Memory of the People.
11
Thirsk, ‘The Farming Regions of England’, 109–12; Everitt, ‘River and Wold’, 2–3; Underdown, Revel,
Riot and Rebellion, Ch. 4; Plumb, ‘A Gathered Church? Lollards and their Society’, 133–5.
12
For example, Hilton, Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism; Britnell, The Commercialisation of English
Society; Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages; Razi and Smith (eds), Medieval Society and the Manor Court;
Schofield, Peasant and Community in Medieval England.
13
Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record; French, The People of the Parish; Duffy, The Stripping of the
Altars; Forrest, Trustworthy Men.
14
Smith, ‘ “Modernisation” and the Corporate Medieval Village Community’; Reynolds, Kingdoms and
Communities in Western Europe, Chs 4 and 5; Dyer, ‘The English Medieval Village Community’; Schofield, ‘The
Social Economy of the Medieval Village in the Early Fourteenth Century’; Larson, ‘Rural Transformation in
Northern England’; Poos, A Rural Society after the Black Death.
seventeenth centuries.15 There is also increasingly sophisticated discussion of the

construction of gender norms and their influence on values and behaviour.16 Such
difficult subjects as the emotions, memory, and self-perception have been opened
up through close analysis of proofs of age, wills, and other documents, as well as
material culture.17
What this book proposes is an examination of how the layout of settlements and
agrarian resources affected interactions between inhabitants which are currently under-
stood mainly in non-spatial terms. It will also highlight the way inhabitants may have
used spatial arrangements to create or reinforce certain patterns of behaviour. Such an
analysis of social interactions in relation to the local landscape promises to bring us
closer to real people and the choices they made in response to particular conditions.
Until now, historians have gathered a good deal of information about how individual
elements in a village were used, and have occasionally considered in a more rounded
way the material environment in which practices and relationships took place.18 But
most often village features are considered in isolation, divorced from their topograph-
ical circumstances: the church and its yard, the ale house, the playing field, and so on.
Where village space has been considered as a whole, the picture presented has often
been rather generic: we are offered a somewhat universalized impression of the fabric
and features of ‘the village’.19 Except in a recent article by one of the present authors,20
there has been no analysis of the way rural social life may have been influenced by spa-
tial relationships such as the density and layout of housing, the orientation and position
of buildings, the number, type, and location of shared resources. This is despite the fact
that these relationships, in tandem with the economic and social structure of a settle
ment, were likely to shape patterns of regular movement and interaction.
In the absence of a well-developed spatial approach, many of the most sophisti-
cated analyses of local society are conducted in the abstract realm of quantification
and revolve around the tenure of office, appearances in the manor court, patterns of
lending and borrowing, and, especially for the sixteenth century and later, relation-
ships revealed by wills.21 Long-r unning discussions of the causes of variation in settle
ment form seldom give any consideration to the potential social consequences of that
15
For example, French et al., The Parish in English Life; Wrightson, ‘The “Decline of Neighbourliness”
Revisited’; Hindle, ‘Beating the Bounds of the Parish’.
16
Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture; Goldberg, ‘Childhood and Gender in Later Medieval England’;
Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England; Herbert, Female Alliances.
17
Bedell, ‘Memory and Proof of Age’; Kane, ‘Social Representations of Memory and Gender’; Pollman,
Memory in Early Modern Europe.
18
Homans, English Villagers; Wrathmell (ed.), History of Wharram Percy, 312–56 (contributions by
Christopher Dyer and others).
19
Hanawalt, The Ties that Bound, 21–44; Gies and Gies, Life in a Medieval Village, 31–41.
20
Mileson, ‘Openness and Closure in the Later Medieval Village’.
21
From a huge bibliography: Schofield, ‘The Social Economy of the Medieval Village’; Briggs, Credit and
Village Society; Whittle and Yates, ‘ “Pays Réel or Pays Légal”?’.
INTRODUCTION 5
variation. Where medieval historians in the 1980s and 1990s offered views on the
link between rural society and settlement typology, they tended to minimize the
significance of the latter: village society was shaped by common institutions and col-
lective obligations that existed both in tightly clustered (or ‘nucleated’) settlements
and in areas of scattered hamlets and isolated farmsteads.22 Nor have views such as
these been challenged by more recent research. Archaeologists have supplied some
provocative suggestions about the influence of settlement plans on rural social life,
but these have not been accompanied by close engagement with documentary evi-
dence and, as a result, they have had a limited impact.23
The approach of the book is to use peasants’ own testimony to bridge the gap
between practice and perception. As we shall see, that testimony does in fact exist,
even if it survives in indirect form and needs to be hard won. We already know that
uncovering something of pre-modern country people’s perceptions is possible in spe-
cial circumstances, notably where elites conducted extensive interrogation of inhabit-
ants’ everyday lives. Such interrogation was conducted at the turn of the fourteenth
century by Dominican inquisitors on the trail of heresy in the Pyrenean uplands, the
results made famous by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s book about the village of
Montaillou.24 Le Roy Ladurie’s study offers us an intimate portrayal of village life,
from the house and household (or domus) which acted as the key economic and social
unit, to the village street containing closely packed houses from which night-time
conversations could be heard and the doorsteps on which people chatted during the
day, to the spring in which women washed clothes, and the fields and mountains
beyond, the last the special domain of the roving shepherds. At a larger scale, we learn
about a mental geography which linked domus to terra (village) and to the Comté de
Foix as a political unit, itself subdivided between the uplands and the lowlands, the
latter dominated by the town of Pamiers and the Dominicans.
Le Roy Ladurie was not centrally concerned with the relationship between the
material environment, perceptions, and identities, but something of that relationship
emerges from a careful reading of his text. There is the perennial problem of disentan-
gling representation and experience, a problem presented here in the form of narra-
tives crafted by those being questioned by clerical inquisitors trying to root out
Catharism.25 Yet in the resulting peasant accounts, which by necessity had to focus on
the plausible, we can see that relations between individuals and between households
were influenced by material surroundings—by the material fact of topography, but
also by choices people made in terms of what they built their houses from, where they
22
Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, 152; Dyer, ‘The English Medieval Village Community’, 410.
23
M. Gardiner, review of Altenberg, Experiencing Landscapes, in Medieval Archaeology, 48 (2004), 360–1;
Saunders, ‘The Feudal Construction of Space’.
24
Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou.
25
Davis, ‘Les Conteurs de Montaillou’.
built them, how they arranged their tenement plots and farmyards, and the way the
division of labour influenced the movements and interactions of men and women.
South Oxfordshire was not Languedoc, but even without inquisitorial registers it
supplies a strong focal point for an intensive study of rural perceptions. In an import
ant sense it is good because it was not special—as an area of mixed countryside with
open-field villages and scattered woodland hamlets, it can stand for many parts of
lowland England, and less directly for other European lowlands. In fact, the core
study area, Ewelme hundred (like other hundreds, abandoned as an administrative
unit in the late nineteenth century), cuts across the border of what historical geog
raphers have called England’s ‘central province’—a swathe of countryside between
Northumberland and Dorset with, historically, many relatively large, compact villages,
and extensive open fields—and the contrasting regions either side, where settlement
was less clustered and communally run open fields were less significant (Figure 1.1).26
Ewelme hundred, that is to say, has some of the former and some of the latter. No
strong overriding landscape type is presented here, such as mountain or salt marsh,
and the area constitutes no preconceived ‘cultural province’. Rather than being a
heartland of any kind, the area was open to a range of influences in different periods—
Saxon and Anglian early medieval cultures,27 rule by the kingdoms of Wessex and
Mercia,28 several Old and Middle English dialects,29 and cruck- and box-frame build-
ing traditions.30
The hundred, which was based around an early royal estate centre at Benson,
included eleven parishes in the Oxford clay vale and three in the Chiltern Hills, where,
in addition, some vale parishes also had detached outlying portions (Figure 1.2). A
number of small towns lay just beyond the hundred’s bounds, and its relatively central
position in the country gave it good links with surrounding regions. It was well con-
nected to the capital by road and river. In the west and north of the hundred the clay
vale was dominated by villages and open fields, while the Chiltern area to the south-
east—part of the chalk ridge that runs north-east from the Thames at Goring to
Hitchin in Hertfordshire—was characterized by woodland, early enclosure, and dis-
persed settlement. The vale becomes more undulating towards the scarp of the
Chilterns, beyond which the land surfaces rise unevenly to a local high point of
225 metres at Cookley Green in Swyncombe, and then falls away as an elongated
dip slope down into the London basin. The vale landscape of the hundred was broadly
26
Roberts and Wrathmell, An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England, 5, 42–3, 49; Williamson et al., Champion,
192–3.
27
Blair, A-S Oxon. 6–9, 46–8, 50, arguing that Oxfordshire was mainly Saxon, but noting Anglian cultural
influence; PN Oxon. I, xix, describing the county as a ‘border zone’ in linguistic terms; see pp. 48, 52, 75.
28
Blair, A-S Oxon. 42–99; Hamerow et al., ‘The Origins of Wessex Pilot Project’, 49; Holmes,
‘ “In Bynsingtun land…” ’, 1–10; see pp. 52–3.
29
Moore, Middle English Dialect Characteristics and Dialect Boundaries, map between 2 and 3; Laing,
A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English; Lass, ‘Phonology and Morphology’, 34 (map).
30
Alcock and Miles, The Medieval Peasant House, 4–8; Oxon. Atlas, 66–7.
INTRODUCTION 7
F igure 1.1 Ewelme hundred within its regional geographical context. Inset: the hundred’s location
within England, and in relation to Roberts and Wrathmell’s ‘central province’.
F igure 1.2 The parishes and settlements of Ewelme hundred, showing nineteenth-century settlement
and twenty-first-century roads (some of which reflect modern house-building). For township boundaries,
see Figure 2.3. Data sources: EDINA Digimap Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap,
downloaded November 2012; SRTM; Satchell et al., 1851 England and Wales Census Parishes.
INTRODUCTION 9
replicated in surrounding valleys, notably the vale of Aylesbury to the north (in
Buckinghamshire). The Chiltern part of the hundred is similar to neighbouring hill
country, although beyond the hundred’s confines the bottom of the dip slope to the
south-east and the wider interfluves to the north-east are characterized more by
nucleation and open fields.31
Ewelme hundred has other advantages as a study area, of which the first is strong
documentation and the existence of early estate maps. A substantial number of records
were generated by institutional landowners including the Crown, Canterbury
Cathedral priory, and several Oxford colleges. The area is also relatively rich in archae
ology, some of which relates to the built environment and settlement layout, some to
land use and farming. Both the historical and archaeological data—which are described
in greater detail in Chapter 2—were pieced together painstakingly during four years
of research. The result of this intensive investigation is a body of detailed evidence of
considerable size and range. Early place names, including minor place names and field
names, peasant bynames (the precursors of hereditary surnames), manorial surveys of
lordly and tenant holdings, and local depositions about common rights and boundar
ies, all have the potential to yield insights into perceptions. Court rolls supply vital
information of social relationships and the use of village space, as, in a different way,
do surviving and excavated buildings. Such sources, when looked at in depth and
handled imaginatively, offer, at least indirectly, much-needed testimony about prac-
tices and attitudes as well as material conditions. And, importantly, there are similar
sources in other areas. Findings on Ewelme hundred can therefore potentially stand
as a model for future research in different regions and landscapes.
The key unit for comparison is the rural settlement, defined as a group of house-
holds occupying and exploiting a territory. Such settlements were consistently present
across the area, in all periods. From the mid to later Anglo-Saxon period onwards they
were part of a framework of lordship and administrative organization imposed from
above, at first the large estate and then later the manor, the parish, and finally the tax
‘vill’ or township (representing the village or larger hamlet). The manors and vills
together formed the hundred, which itself was a component of the county of
Oxfordshire created in the early eleventh century. But the local settlement survived as
the fundamental unit, whether it was large or small (village or hamlet), its houses
clustered or scattered. Taking this unit, it is possible to interrogate social space. A key
way of doing that is in terms of access and permeability—in other words, how ‘open’
or ‘closed’ (or, more crudely, ‘public’ or ‘private’) the components of a settlement
were, and how the spatial relationships between these components affected their use
and social significance. For both buildings and open spaces, permeability can be
31
Roden, ‘Field Systems of the Chiltern Hills’, 325–9; Hepple and Doggett, The Chilterns, 1–14; VCH Oxon.
XVI, 1–3, 189–90, 210, 282; XX, passim.
understood in relation to ease of entry and freedom of use, factors that were shaped
by social norms and regulations, and delineated by physical markers and barriers.
It will be argued here that differences in openness and closure across space and time
supply a guide to rural social interaction as a whole in both the Middle Ages and the
early modern period. It will be argued that the character of social life, and also of
inhabitants’ sense of attachment to place, was profoundly affected by the nature and
quantity of shared (or ‘open’) spaces, and vice versa. The shared life of the group was,
of course, not wholly territorial, since inhabitants of rural settlements operated within
a range of overlapping collective identities, some of which, such as family affiliation,
status, and occupation, were not necessarily related to place of abode. These iden
tities, and others such as sex and age, profoundly affected the use of space. Scholars
attempting to conceptualize medieval perceptions of space—usually in relation to
towns—have argued cogently against a binary opposition of ‘public’ versus ‘private’,
and above all against any simple equation of the public realm with men and the private
with women.32 The case has been made for the existence of a gradation of more and less
restricted areas, access to which varied according to time and season as well as status
and gender, and for the influence of situation on the publicity of a place (number/
type of people present, whether or not buying and selling was going on, and so
forth).33 Such nuances strengthen the spatial approach adopted.
It is possible to come closer to the meaning inhabitants ascribed to their environ
ment by examination of the names given by local people to the landscape and (in the
early periods before hereditary surnames) to each other. Thousands of field names
and personal bynames have been collected as part of the research from a wide range
of published documents and manuscripts, and their meanings investigated. Where
possible, the names have been mapped at a large scale, in other words that of the
individual village and parish. Mapping at such a scale supports a far more sophisti-
cated analysis of bynames and field names than that which has previously been
attempted, generally without detailed local landscape reconstruction. The name
corpus—which is far larger than that previously gathered by the authors of the
county surname and place-name volumes—opens up a long view of perceptions of
place and connection, of the character of the land itself, the ways it was controlled
and exploited, its religious and historical associations, and differences in inhabit-
ants’ sense of attachment over time and space.
Crucially, we can be confident that field names and bynames were coined by peas-
ants. That local people did the naming is shown by the close knowledge of terrain,
location, and (in bynames) personal characteristics that the names contain—a level of
32
Giles, ‘Public Space in Town and Village’, 294; Rees Jones, ‘Public and Private Space and Gender in
Medieval Europe’.
33
McSheffrey, ‘Place, Space, and Situation’; Masschaele, ‘The Public Space of the Marketplace’; Reyerson,
‘Public and Private Space in Medieval Montpellier’, 15–16; Flather, Gender and Space in Early Modern England,
43–4.
INTRODUCTION 11
F igure 1.3 Symmesdene (1447–8) in Cuxham, an example of close local knowledge revealed by field
names, and the way that names were adapted over time. This ‘dene’ (‘long valley’, OE denu, ME dene), is
located on high ground south of the village and is only visible to those who walk across the fields. The first
part of the name is that of a tenant family who arrived apparently in the 1440s (below, pp. 255–6).
knowledge surely beyond that of lords, many of whom were absentees, or even
their estate administrators (Figure 1.3). These names reveal much about peasant
perceptions since they represent a subjective and collective choice: any feature,
area, or person could be described in numerous different ways, so the name which
was most commonly used—or most commonly written down—during a certain
period says something about those doing the naming. Name evidence has its limi-
tations, and certainly requires careful interpretation,34 but in using locally gener-
ated names and descriptions we can follow inhabitants past the ‘winter brook’ in
Berrick (Wynterbroke, c.1270–80) or the ‘pillory barn’ in Great Haseley (Peloribarne,
1492–3),35 out into the fields, pastures, and woods, and see something of the land-
scape through their eyes.
34
See further, pp. 207–8.
35
Magdalen College, Chalgrove 33B; PN Oxon. I, 130.
The decision to cover a very long chronological period was taken in order to identify
what were the crucial developments that affected ordinary people’s ways of looking at
their surroundings. The book encompasses structural changes of different kinds which
influenced life inside the hundred as much as elsewhere. These changes include
Christianization; the growth of political units culminating in a unified kingdom and
administrative units such as hundred and county; the appearance of intensive local
lordship and small estates, accompanied by the greater nucleation of settlement and
expansion of collaborative farming; the growth of literacy and bureaucratic govern-
ment; commercialization; the rise of the parish community; the weakening of lordly
engagement and the growth of village hierarchy after the Black Death; and the ideo-
logical fracture of the Reformation. Each had its effects, some easier to trace in the
documents and material evidence than others. Each is considered here but is not
allowed to drive the analysis through a priori assumptions—hence the decision to span
traditional period boundaries, for all the dangers of attempting analytical treatment
across them. The risk seems justified by the finding that perceptions exhibit some
deep-seated continuities as well as undergoing striking transformations. The year 500
has been taken as an approximate starting point because it is safely after the end of
strong Roman influence on government and estate structures (but not, as we shall see,
on landscape organization).36 The year 1650 seems a suitable ending place because
the mid to later seventeenth century saw significant changes in rural life, notably the
growth of a class of landless wage labourers and the institutionalization of parish-
based poor relief.37
Finally, a word or two ought to be said about definitions. Firstly, the ‘peasants’ who
are the subjects of the book are broadly conceived. The term peasant is taken to mean
country dwellers who sustained themselves mainly by working the land—smallholding
farmers, village labourers, and rural craftsmen (most of whom were farming too, part
of the time).38 These people were at best partially tied in to incomplete markets and,
to a greater or lesser extent, were subject to the demands of powerful people outside
of their social group.39 For the relatively less hierarchical and non-urban early Anglo-
Saxon period the word should be understood to comprehend the large majority of
people, as discussed in Chapter 3.40 For subsequent periods the main focus is on rural
people below an elite which variously comprised the kings and local leaders of the mid
Anglo-Saxon period and the lords and landowners of later centuries. Needless to say,
elites had a significant impact on the landscape and their culture cannot be neatly
extracted from that of their subordinates (just as urban and rural culture were not
36
Fleming, Britain after Rome, 29; see pp. 25, 29, 31, 68–70.
37
Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 225, 316; Hindle, On the Parish?, 450–5; Snell, Parish and Belonging, 85–6.
38
For a similar definition, and useful discussion: Faith, The Moral Economy of the Countryside, 5–7.
39
Scott, ‘Introduction’, 2.
40
See pp. 54–63.
INTRODUCTION 13
fully distinct). Lords will therefore be brought in to consideration quite a bit, but
from a bottom-up perspective.
The word ‘landscape’ is notoriously slippery, and has attracted a large theoretical
literature.41 In this book the word is mainly used in the sense of the local material
environment (both natural and man-made), but of course scholars have often used it
to convey something perceived. In the English language the term landscape originally,
in the seventeenth century, denoted a pictorial representation,42 and it came to carry
connotations of aesthetic appreciation, on the one hand, and possession and control,
on the other. The latter was related to techniques of surveying and map-making asso-
ciated with proprietary ownership and the overriding of customary rights.43 In the
early modern chapter we will assess whether such a view of landscape had any impact
on how the main run of inhabitants understood their world. Whether it did or not,
it is possible to accept a more broadly applicable definition of landscape as ‘a social
construction, a collective way of seeing, into which are built collective ways of
remembering’.44 Or, as the European Landscape Convention of 2000 put it,
‘ “Landscape” means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of
the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.’45
* * *
The main part of the book is divided into seven chapters. The first of these supplies a
detailed description of the hundred’s geography and the data for the study. Each of
the remaining chapters deals with a particular period: three of them cover the early
Middle Ages (or Anglo-Saxon period) and three the twelfth century onwards. The
stretch of time dealt with by a particular chapter is determined by what have been
identified as turning-points in local perceptions. For ease of comparison each chapter
broadly covers the same set of issues and is structured in the same way. At the start
there is a characterization of the development of settlement form and land use and
related changes in economy and social organization. This is followed by analysis of
perceptions, taking in the use of space, attitudes towards the land and its resources,
and the difficult question of inhabitants’ sense of belonging. Inevitably the nature and
scale of treatment is affected by the information available, with the appearance of local
documents in the ninth and tenth centuries enabling some themes to be pursued in
greater depth thereafter than is possible for the earlier period. A conclusion presents
the main findings and their implications.
41
For summaries, see Johnson, Ideas of Landscape; Bender (ed.), Landscape: Politics and Perspectives; Muir,
Approaches to Landscape. Also Ingold, ‘The Temporality of the Landscape’, 153–7.
42
Oxford English Dictionary, online edition.
43
Olwig, ‘Sexual Cosmology’, 307; Thomas, ‘Archaeologies of Place and Landscape’, 166–70; Seipp, ‘The
Concept of Property in Early Common Law’, 88–91.
44
Wood, The Memory of the People, 188–9.
45
European Landscape Convention, Florence, 20 Oct. 2000, Article 1, Definitions.
Geography and Sources
The river makes a beautiful curve below Shillingford, at the termination of which
Bensington, or Benson church, which has been recently repaired, meets the eye in
a pleasing point of view; little more than the spire, which is perfectly white, appears
above a luxuriant range of yellow waving corn fields, while in the distance the back
ground is formed from the hills of Nettlebed and the adjoining woods. The village
of Benson, though at present of little note, is extremely ancient, and formerly had
the appellation of a royal vill.
S. Ireland, Picturesque views on the River Thames . . ., I (1792), 144–5
Samuel Ireland’s picturesque description of Benson and surrounding countryside in

the late eighteenth century remains recognizable today, despite much house-building
and the construction of a bypass. The tower of Benson church can still be seen from
the river, at least where the view is not obscured by buildings and trees. The ‘corn
fields’ have been largely replaced by houses and an RAF airbase, but the landscape
background is little altered: when one stands on the roadside between nearby
Shillingford and Warborough, next to a small monument celebrating the 1956 world
ploughing contest, the view is of wide, open lowland fields framed by the steep scarp
slope of the Chilterns, Ireland’s ‘hills of Nettlebed’ (Figure 2.1). This contrast
between the south Oxfordshire vale, with its villages and large fields, and the hilly and
wooded Chiltern landscape of scattered hamlets and enclosures is a long enduring
feature of the region, and it supplies a fulcrum for the analysis of landscape percep-
tions offered in the pages which follow.
The main purpose of the present chapter is to introduce the fundamentals of topog-
raphy, geology, soils, and communications—the bones upon which inhabitants built
up the flesh and blood of developing local communities. Its other function is to
describe the data available for our analysis, in all their richness, variety, and imperfec-
tion. The main discussion of landscape change, which was just as significant a feature
of the period 500–1650 as any other time, comes in later chapters.
Peasant Perceptions of Landscape: Ewelme Hundred, South Oxfordshire, 500–1650. Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes,
Oxford University Press. © Stephen Mileson and Stuart Brookes 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894892.003.0002
GEOGR A PH Y A ND SOURCES 15
F igure 2.1 The view south-east towards the Chiltern scarp from the Warborough ploughing monument.
T H E GEOGR A PH IC A L FOU N DAT IONS
The historic hundred of Ewelme covered an area of 25,096 acres (10,156 hectares) or
39 square miles (just over 100 square kilometres) in south Oxfordshire.1 In outline it
was irregular and slightly pear-shaped, its elongated northern arm (Great Haseley par-
ish) forming the pear’s stalk (Figure 2.2). In the south-west, the hundred boundary
followed the River Thames, and, for shorter stretches in the west and north-east the
River Thame and the Haseley brook; elsewhere there were no significant natural bor-
ders. From Great Haseley in the north to Nuffield in the south is a distance of 20 km,
and from Warborough in the west to Nettlebed in the east 14 km. The northern arm
of the hundred was much narrower, measuring just 1.5 km across. Topographically,
the hundred can be likened to a large ramp. At the base of the ramp, in the west, a
third of the hundred comprised a flat plain lying between 40 and 80 metres OD,
dropping gently towards the Thame and Thames valleys. To the south-east, the land
rises up into the Chilterns, reaching over 200 metres. In its three Chiltern parishes,
nearly a third of the hundred’s land surface lay at over 120 metres OD.
The hundred was established before Domesday (1086), when it belonged to the
large royal estate of Benson, as did the other four Oxfordshire ‘Chiltern hundreds’ of
1
VCH Oxon. XVIII, 18.
F igure 2.2 A three-dimensional view of Ewelme hundred, showing modern settlement. Data source:
SRTM.
Binfield, Langree, Lewknor, and Pyrton.2 The precise extent of the later Anglo-Saxon
Benson estate is unknown, but it certainly extended across the Chilterns as far as
Henley-on-Thames (in Binfield hundred), and as far south as Wyfold (in Langtree
hundred), and probably considerably further.3 At first Benson gave its name to the
hundred, but from the thirteenth century the latter became known as Ewelme hun-
dred, presumably reflecting Benson’s decline as an administrative centre and the fact
that, almost certainly, the hundredal meeting place lay within Ewelme, by then separ
ated from royal lordship and existing as an independent parish.4 The hundred was
rated as a ‘half-hundred’, although its constituent manors (first fully documented in
the thirteenth century) incorporated 121½ hides and its measured extent in the nine-
teenth century was larger than that of the other Chiltern hundreds.5
The hundred’s main part was a relatively compact block of land stretching north-
west to south-east. The inclusion of Great Haseley, its main outlier, may be explained
by its continued connection with Benson manor in the eleventh century, by contrast
with places to its east and west (perhaps including Dorchester) which had been
2
Ibid. 18–19. For the hundred’s origins, see pp. 118–20.
3
VCH Oxon. XVI, 15–16; XX, forthcoming, discussing Checkendon, Little Stoke, and Mongewell’s links to
Benson/Ewelme hundred; see pp. 74–5.
4
See pp. 119, 132–4.
5
VCH Oxon. II, appendix iv: Binfield hundred, 22,749 acres; Langtree, 21,577 acres; Lewknor, 19,414
acres; Pyrton, 14,163 acres.
Draycott (Ewelme Hundred

N Waterstock detached)
(Thame Hundred)
Thame
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
Tham e
B ullingdo n Ry.
Hu n d red Princes
Hund red Risborough
La.
Great Haseley L e wkno r
Tham e GH Hu n d red
Hund red LH
P yr to n
W
Hu n d red
Wa.
Ro.
Br.
Le. Lewknor
Holcombe
Chalgrove Es.
Ne
Dorc hest er
win
Hund red Wd. Pyrton
Cux
g
ton
Brig win
ham
W Berrick
ar Bald
bo Prior
Watlington
htw
ro
ug Berrick BS
Dorchester h
Salome ell
BP
Shillingfo
Shillingford BP
Fif. BS
Ewelme
Benson Sh.
Swyncombe
Crowmarsh
Wallingford Gifford
Nuffield Ew.
Nettlebed
Bix
BERKSHIRE Langt ree
to 1974 Hund red ve
r T
Ri
ha
m
Do r c s
e
hest
er H
county boundary (d e t
ac un
he d d re Wyfold
) d Henley-on-Thames
Ewelme Hundred boundary Rotherfield Greys
and Peppard
other hundred boundaries
parish boundary
township boundary Langt ree B i n fi e ld

R
iv
Hund red Hu n d red

er
Chiltern hills (above 125m.)

h
T
am
scarp es
BP Britwell Prior (Newington detached)
BERKSHIRE
BS Britwell Salome (Lewknor Hundred)
Br. Brookhampton
Es. Easington parish
Ew. Ewelme (detached)
READING 0 mile 3
Fif. Fifield (Benson parish; Dorchester
Hundred, detached) Ro. Rofford liberty
GH Great Haseley tithing Ry. Rycote tithing 0 km 5
La. Latchford tithing Sh. Shambridge (Newington detached)
LH Little Haseley tithing W Wheatfield parish (detached); Wd. Woodford meadow (Drayton St Leonard);
Le. Lewknor meadow (Lewknor detached); added to Chalgrove 1886 shared by Benson, Berrick Salome,
added to Easington 1886 Wa. Warpsgrove parish Ewelme, Newington, Warborough
F igure 2.3 The hundred’s administrative topography. Source: VCH Oxon. XVIII, Fig. 1. © University
of London.
granted away at a much earlier date.6 The hundred included several minor detached
areas of which the most distant were Wyfold, a hamlet in the Chiltern parish of
Checkendon, and Draycott, a hamlet of the Buckinghamshire parish of Ickford
(Figure 2.3). Wyfold was included as part of Benson’s former ancient demesne, and
Draycott probably because of its connection with the honor of Wallingford, a feudal
lordship which took over much of the jurisdiction of the Chiltern hundreds in the
thirteenth century, and which was succeeded in 1540 by the honor of Ewelme.7 In
Benson itself a five-hide estate called Fifield was a detached part of Dorchester hun-
dred, having been granted to the bishop of Dorchester before the Conquest, although
administratively it was treated as part of Benson parish.8
Ewelme hundred incorporated a considerable variety of terrain (Figure 2.4), pre-
sumably as a result of a deliberate early apportionment of lowland and upland resources
amongst the Chiltern hundreds. The western part forms a portion of the south
F igure 2.4 Photographs of the landscape. Top left: fine views towards the Chilterns from Easington;
top right: view of the vale from near Swyncombe church; bottom left: Chiltern woodland management
at Digberry; bottom right: vale fields at Latchford.
6
Paragraph based on VCH Oxon. XVIII, 2, 18–19.
7
For Draycott’s possible early function within the Anglo-Saxon estate of Benson, see pp. 74–5.
8
VCH Oxon. XVIII, 21, 33, 37.
Oxfordshire clay vale, a gently undulating expanse of countryside largely devoid of

woodland. Low eminences in Warborough (Town Hill), Newington (at Ewe Farm),
and north-east of Great Haseley (Milton Common) break up the lower ground, but
the main impression of this landscape today is of flat farmland divided into large,
regularly shaped fields by long, straight hedges. Numerous watercourses are sur-
rounded by low-lying grassland, with the arable land beyond lying slightly higher and
drier. Apart from an appreciation of its river scenery and the surrounding hills, mod-
ern writers have generally characterized this as a rather ordinary kind of countryside,
according to Mary Russell Mitford (describing Chalgrove’s fields in 1812): ‘A com-
mon spot of earth, where grows / In summer time the yellow corn’.9
The centre of the hundred, from Easington in the north to the south-eastern part
of Benson parish in the south, is a transitional area of more uneven terrain, which
includes deeper valleys and steeper slopes. The cross- over from this area to the
Chilterns proper is marked, in some places more clearly than others, by the north-
west-facing Chiltern scarp. This is the most distinct topographical feature of the
region, visible from large parts of the vale as a grassy, occasionally creamy white, wall
bisected by narrow coombs and valleys. Beyond the scarp, the Chiltern upland itself
presents a stark contrast to the vale. The land surface is deeply fractured and, in many
areas, densely wooded; horizons are generally short, though from a few high points
there are long views back across the vale or down the dip slope into the London basin.
South of the study area, in Binfield and Langtree hundreds, the long tail of the lower
dip slope meets the gravel terraces and alluvial meadows of the Thames. The Chiltern
woodlands have attracted much literary approbation, and in 1965 were included in
the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), within which develop-
ment was restricted.10
Ewelme hundred’s contrasts of relief and vegetation derive ultimately from geo-
logical differences, especially the resilience of particular types of rock in the face of
flowing water (Figure 2.5). On the edge of the hundred, the Thames and the Thame
have cut into the bedrock and deposited terraces of limestone gravel, notably in
Benson and Warborough. The present relatively stable course of streams through the
gravel terraces emerged about 10,000 years ago, replacing a much less fixed pattern,
though the character of the floodplain has continued to be affected by changes in
water level and varying rates of alluvial deposition. The lowest (first) gravel terrace is
regularly flooded and its fertile alluvium provides good grass for hay meadows or
grazing animals. The higher (second) terrace is usually dry and more suitable for
cereal farming and settlement (Figure 3.1).11 However, periods of prolonged rainfall
9
‘Watlington Hill’, poem.
10
Stevenson, ‘An Autumn Effect’ (1875), in his Essays of Travel, 119–20; Brooke, ‘The Chilterns’;
Massingham, Chiltern Country; Oxon. Atlas, 158–9.
11
Marshall, The Land of Britain, 198–206; Powell, The Geology of Oxfordshire, 57, 59–62; PN Oxon. I, xi–xiii;
Blair, A-S Oxon. xv–xvii.
N
N
Great Haseley
W
ar
p
sg
ro
Lewknor pa.
Chalgrove ve
Easing-
ton
Newington Cu
xh
am
Brightwell
Baldwin
Berrick
Warborough Salome
Br
w
el
it
lS
alo
me
Benson Ewelme
Swyncombe
Legend
Water
Study area
DRIFT SOILS
Alluvium Nuffield
Clay-with-flints
River Terrace Deposits
Nettlebed
BGS NAME
Chalk including Red Chalk
Corallia
Kimmeridge Clay and Ampthill Clay
Lower Greensand
Reading beds
Oxford Clay and Kellaways Beds

Portland Beds
0 1 2 4 km
Upper Greensand and Gault
F igure 2.5 Solid and drift geology. Data sources: EDINA Geology Digimap Service and Digimap
Ordnance Survey Service, http://edina.ac.uk/digimap, downloaded November 2012.
can lead to more widespread flooding, as was demonstrated during the winter of
2013–14, when large-scale inundation occurred near the confluence of the Thames
and Thame in Warborough and Benson.12
Within the main body of the hundred, most of the waterways flow westwards into
the valleys of the Thame and Thames. In the north, the arc of Haseley (or Rofford)
brook defines parts of the hundred boundary before cutting west between Chalgrove
and Little Haseley to the Thame. Further to the south, rising in Watlington parish,
the Marlbrook stream flows west through Cuxham and—as the Chalgrove brook—
through Chalgrove, joining the Thame at Stadhampton. Finally, in the south-west
corner of the hundred, the Ewelme brook flows from Ewelme through Benson to the
Thames. These streams are associated with further areas of gravel, notably in Chalgrove
and to a lesser extent elsewhere. The surrounding terrain is based on superficial
deposits of Gault Clays and Greensand, which form broad belts running south-west
to north-east along the base of the Chiltern scarp. In the north, around Little Haseley,
there is an outlier of late Jurassic Portland Beds, composed of laminated clays and
limestones.
At the foot of the Chalk, between Chilterns and vale, a narrow band of Upper
Greensand—a fine-grained sand known as Malmstone—has been cut by small tribu-
taries of the Thame. The tributaries emerge from springs (which have long attracted
settlement) where the porous Greensand meets impermeable clay, and create an
undulating landscape of hills and valleys. The Chiltern Hills themselves are made up
of Chalk, including Red Chalk, geologically the youngest and least eroded strata. This
highly porous bedrock ensures that the upland areas are today characterized by dry
glacial valleys without regular surface streams. This was almost certainly the case in
the Middle Ages too, even if modern boring has slightly lowered the water table.13
Residual deposits of Clay-with-flints (a sandy clay mixed with broken flints and sarsen)
are found in pockets in Nettlebed, Nuffield, and Swyncombe.
These different geologies support agricultural land of varying character and quality
(Figure 2.6). Most of the vale soils belong to the heavier Denchworth series of stag-
nogley soils, lying on bands of Kimmeridge and Gault Clay. These soils are stoneless,
clayey, and, because they are relatively impermeable below the surface, waterlogged
for long periods in winter.14 Though reasonably fertile, they are hard and difficult to
cultivate, as well as being sticky and prone to flooding when wet, especially without
modern field drainage. The majority of soils in Chalgrove, Great Haseley, Newington,
and Warpsgrove is of this type. During winter months walking on the soil can cause it
to compact badly and become unable to support the growth of plant roots; accord-
12
Oxford Mail, 6 Jan. 2014; ‘Benson Drainage Strategy: Phase 1’, Thames Water report (c.2015), available
online.
13
See pp. 169, 200.
14
Soilscapes SS ID 18, Unit 0712b Denchworth.
F igure 2.6 Agricultural land classification within the hundred. Data sources: Agricultural Land
Classification of England and Wales (1971); EDINA Geology Digimap Service, http://edina.ac.uk/
digimap, downloaded November 2012; SRTM.
ingly, it is often only in late spring that it can be worked. In 1813 a farmer in Golder
(in Pyrton parish, close to Easington) described several types of clay, including ‘a
whitish calcareous loam, which is apt easily to run together with rain, and then to cake
and encrust’, and ‘gravel in clay, very stiff, tenacious, and difficult to plough, and
when hard, mattocks will scarcely pick it’.15 The damage which rock hard clay caused
to ploughshares is indicated by manorial accounts from Watlington, next to Cuxham,
where in 1296–7 extra money was spent on plough maintenance because of unusually
dry weather.16 Today much of this land is classified as grade 3 or, in the far north,
grade 4 agricultural land.
The vale’s best soils are found in the southern half of Great Haseley parish (where
there are Frilford and Aberford loams),17 and, further south, in a band stretching from
Warborough in the west to Cuxham in the east, especially where the Greensand coin-
cides with lighter gravels and loams. The southern parts of Warborough and Great
Haseley parishes (especially Little Haseley hamlet) stand out in having significant
areas classified as grade 1 agricultural land; much of the rest of the southern vale is
grade 2 as far as Ewelme. In the Chilterns, where most of the farmland is classified as
grade 3, patches of workable gravel are mixed with acidic and infertile sandy soils
covered with heath and rough pasture, and intractable clays mainly associated with
beech woodland.18 At a localized level, quite pronounced changes in land quality long
influenced land use. Around the village of Great Haseley, for example, in 1701 (and
during the Middle Ages) the arable fields occupied an area of sandy limestones, clays,
and sands that support a loamy soil,19 whereas the pasture closes were located to the
south and east on sands that yielded to a buttery clay, and to the east (at Latchford,
which was enclosed in the late Middle Ages) on heavy soils formed on Gault Clay.
Close to the stream which marks the Latchford township boundary, where the sand
geology disappears beneath alluvium and clay, was an area of marsh called Spartam
Bog, from which turves were dug.20
The physical framework of landscape was also affected by climate. Since detailed
records began in the nineteenth century there have been small but significant climatic
differences between vale and surrounding hills, including the Chilterns,21 and prob
ably these broadly reflect historic patterns. In fact, the disparity is likely to have been
more pronounced during the periods c.400–1000 and c.1570–1900, which were
15
Young, General View of the Agriculture of Oxfordshire, 8. Golder’s best soil was a loam formed from chalk
and clay: ibid. 9.
16
Midgley (ed.), Ministers’ Accounts of the Earldom of Cornwall, I, 86.
17
Soilscapes SS ID 5, Unit 0511a Aberford; Soilscapes SS ID 10, Unit 0544a Frilford.
18
Young, General View, 7, 9−10, 224−5; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 1, 275, 285, 306, 368.
19
Young, General View, 11 describes it as a ‘sort of stonebrash’.
20
Ravenhill, ‘An Early Eighteenth-Century Cartographic Record’, 85–91.
21
Marshall, The Land of Britain, 206–11; Tilney-Bassett, ‘Forestry in the Region of the Chilterns’, 271; MET
Office: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/
uk-past-events/regional-climates/southern-england_climate-met-office.pdf, accessed March 2014.
characterized by cooler and wetter weather than modern times.22 Today in January,
the coldest month, the mean monthly temperature in the vale is around 3.5°C, com-
pared to just 0.5°C on the higher ground. In the warmest month, July, the average
temperature in Abingdon is 16.6°C, around a degree higher than on the hills. In the
Chiltern Hills snow lies longer on the ground and the valley bottoms sometimes form
frost pockets as late as April and May. Another potential disadvantage in the Hills, at
least for arable farming, is the slightly lower amount of sunshine and higher amount
of rainfall. The Chilterns has on average 100 hours less bright sunshine a year, and, in
its highest parts, over 200 mm more rainfall. Higher rain, and especially summer rain,
reduces wheat yields,23 though today this is a minor issue since the region as a whole
experiences the kind of low rainfall that produces heavy wheat crops.
Over the centuries, inhabitants have reacted to this landscape framework in dif-
ferent ways. The extent and character of settlement and the intensity and type of
agriculture have altered greatly since prehistory. Today the vale is characterized by
denser and more nucleated settlement than the Chilterns. The same was true in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and also in the high and later Middle Ages
when the relatively clustered villages of the lowlands contrasted with the scattered
hamlets of the hills. Yet the difference was not a timeless one. The similarities and
contrasts in settlement between the two areas have shifted considerably over time,
and in some ways, as we shall see, their modern-day distinctiveness owes much to
developments which occurred after 900, especially the laying of extensive open
fields and the nucleation of settlement. As elsewhere, the evolving relationship
between land and people has a complex history which has to be understood in
terms of wider political, economic, and social changes as well as local population
levels and environment. Earlier Anglo-Saxon inhabitants, small in number and
using scratch ploughs, are likely to have concentrated their activities on the easily
tilled gravel terraces, which had the further benefit of being located next to the
floodplain and its supply of feed and water for their animals.24 In the late Anglo-
Saxon period the adoption of heavy ploughs is likely to have facilitated cultivation
of the clays, spurred on by demographic growth which continued until the fourteenth
century.25
In later centuries there were also significant changes to land management and field
systems, especially as remaining open fields were enclosed in the sixteenth to nine-
teenth centuries, with great tracts of open-field land enclosed in the 1850s to 1860s
at Warborough, Berrick, Benson, and Ewelme. Marsh was drained, including Spartam
Bog, which in the generation before 1701 was turned into a pasture called Spartam
22
Lamb, ‘Climate from 1000 BC to 1000 AD’; Matthews and Briffa, ‘The “Little Ice Age”’.
23
Williamson, Shaping Medieval Landscapes, 35; Roden, ‘Demesne Farming in the Chiltern Hills’, 13; Roden,
‘Field Systems in Ibstone’, 48.
24
See pp. 63–7.
25
See pp. 111–12.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Das Haus am Zirkelstein
Von Dr. Kurt Schumann, Dresden
Mit Bildern von Walter Möbius
Kennst du das Haus, mit Fleiß und Mühn

Erbaut im frischen Waldesgrün?
Inmitten unsrer Felsenwelt
Ist es gar lieblich hingestellt.
Wo Vogelsang und Blumenduft
Erfüllt die reine Bergesluft,
Da steht erhellt vom Sonnenschein
Die Hütte an dem Zirkelstein.
Die Verse sind nicht von Schiller oder von Mörike, sie sind
überhaupt nicht dichterisch wertvoll; die Reime sind nicht neu und
die Stimmung ist etwas sentimental, aber gut sind sie doch, denn sie
spiegeln die Liebe einfacher Menschen zu einem Werk, das sie in
gemeinsamer Arbeit geschaffen und dessen sie sich in
gemeinsamer Freude freuen.
Als die Bewegung der Naturfreunde seit Beginn dieses
Jahrhunderts lebhaft aufblühte, mußte es natürlich ihre erste Sorge
sein, für die zumeist minderbemittelten Mitglieder
Übernachtungsgelegenheit für Wanderungen und Heime zu
schaffen. So erklärt es sich, daß jetzt weit über hundert
Naturfreundehäuser in allen Teilen der Welt vorhanden sind. Von
diesen liegt die Mehrzahl in unsern deutschen Mittelgebirgen, im
Schwarzwald wie im Taunus, im fränkischen Jura wie im Teutoburger
Walde, im Erzgebirge wie in der Sächsischen Schweiz. Erst kürzlich
wurden hier dem Reichsfiskus am Königstein einige Pulverhäuser
abgemietet, die teils als Jugendherberge, teils als Naturfreundehaus
dienen. Sie bieten Unterkunftsmöglichkeit für fünfhundert Wanderer
und wenn sie auch, da nicht zu dem jetzigen Zweck erbaut, kleine
Mängel inbezug auf Einrichtung und Aussehen aufweisen, so helfen
sie doch gerade in dieser Gegend einem sehr brennend gewordenen
Bedürfnis ab.
Abb. 1 Naturfreundehaus am Zirkelstein (Vorderansicht)

Ganz andrer Art ist das »Haus am Zirkelstein«. Schon seine Lage
unterscheidet es vorteilhaft von den eben genannten
Unterkunftshäusern. Während sie nahe den Brennpunkten des
Touristenverkehrs an nicht gerade übermäßig landschaftlich
bedeutsamer Stelle sich finden, liegt das Zirkelsteinhaus in dem Teil
der Sächsischen Schweiz, der glücklicherweise noch nicht
überlaufen ist, obwohl gerade hier eine Fülle schöner Landschaften
aneinanderstoßen. Im Osten begrenzen die beiden Zschirnsteine,
die wie zwei Adlerflügel auseinanderstreben, die Ebenheit, auf der
Wolfsberg, Kaiserkrone und Zirkelstein liegen. Der nach Süden
schweifende Blick fällt in den gewaltigen Elbkañon bei Niedergrund,
den man am besten von den etwa eine Viertelstunde von der Hütte
entfernten Sandsteinklötzen überblickt, die die Mündung des
romantischen Gelobtbachtals flankieren. Die Ostaussicht gehört zum
Schönsten, was man überhaupt in einem deutschen Mittelgebirge
sehen kann. Da steigt zur Linken des der Hütte gerade gegenüber
mündenden Kamnitztals das mächtige buchengeschmückte
Basaltmassiv des Großen Winterbergs auf, an den sich im Norden
die hier mehr wuchtig als grotesk wirkenden Schrammsteine, im
Süden die Silber- und Flügelwände am Gabrielensteig anschließen.
Im Süden aber erheben sich die ganz anders gearteten Gipfel der
böhmischen Basalt- und Klingsteinvulkane, deren heitere
Formenwelt den italienkranken Ludwig Richter von seiner Sehnsucht
nach den Albaner Bergen zu heilen vermochte.
Abb. 2 Naturfreundehaus am Zirkelstein (Rückansicht)

Infolge dieser glücklichen Lage kann die Hütte wochenlang als
Stützpunkt für die verschiedensten Wanderungen dienen. Aber sie
ermöglicht es auch, das Haus jedesmal auf einem anderen und
andersgearteten Wege zu erreichen. Selbst der Aufstieg von der nur
zwanzig Minuten entfernten Bahnstation Schöna bietet eine Fülle
von prächtigen Eindrücken. Nach wenigen Schritten von der zum
Dorf Schöna führenden Straße abbiegend steigen wir in einer
Schlucht aufwärts, von der immer neue Blicke sich öffnen auf die
Klamm des Kamnitzbaches, das in ihr liegende Herrnskretschen und
den Elbspiegel. Am Ende der Schlucht bringt uns ein scharfer
Geländeknick an den Hang eines diluvialen Elbtals, bis endlich bei
einem neuen Wechsel der Neigung der Blick auf den Zirkelstein und
die Hütte mit ihrem hellen Sandsteinunterbau, der warmen
Holzverschalung und dem roten Ziegeldach fällt. Aber nicht minder
reizvoll ist der Weg von der Station Schmilka über das
Waldhufendorf Schöna an der Kaiserkrone vorüber und durch die
Schönaer Felder um den Zirkelstein herum, dessen Besteigung sich
trotz seiner geringen Höhe ebenso lohnt wie der seiner dreizackigen
Nachbarin. Noch schöner ist’s, wenn man die Hütte als Ziel einer
Tageswanderung auf den Tagesplan setzen kann. Wer die belebten
Gegenden nicht missen möchte, wandert von Königstein über
Gohrisch und die dahinter gelegene Felsenregion (Papststein,
Gohrisch, Kleinhennersdorfer Stein) nach dem hübschen Dörfchen,
nach dem der letztere genannt ist, besucht von hier aus die
idyllische Liethenmühle oder den aus der Mode gekommenen
Kohlbornstein und erreicht dann Schöna über den Wolfsberg oder
das langhingezogene und trotzdem durchaus nicht langweilige
Reinhardsdorf. Ich bin im letzten Winter diesen Weg auch einmal mit
Schneeschuhen gefahren und dabei auf meine Rechnung
gekommen, zumal er eine Reihe für bescheidene Gemüter sehr
reizvoller Abfahrten einschließt. Wie schön ist ferner der Weg durchs
Krippental oder über die Lasensteine zur Rölligmühle und von dort
über den Kleinen nach dem Großen Zschirnstein, dem höchsten
Berge der eigentlichen Sächsischen Schweiz, dessen Aussicht
schon Schiffner 1840 mit folgenden Worten rühmt: »Im Norden ist
die Aussicht durch den Berg selbst unterbrochen, übrigens aber ein
Panorama vom höchsten Reichtum und wahrer Großartigkeit, so
daß es, abgesehen von der hier mangelnden Elbe, jenem des
Winterbergs mindestens gleichsteht. Insbesondere stellt das
Niederland sich hier deutlicher, der sichtbare Teil Böhmens schöner
dar, und das Riesengebirge zeigt hier mehr Höhen als dort, unter
welche jedoch nur der Irrtum auch die Schneekoppe gebracht hat.«
Recht niedlich und glücklicherweise auch für andere noch nicht von
den üblen Zeitgenossen entdeckte Aussichtspunkte passend ist der
Satz, den er seiner Panoramabeschreibung hinzufügt: »Obwohl nun
der Berg bequem zu besteigen ist, so geschieht dies seitens der
Schweizreisenden sehr selten, weil es diesem Panorama nicht nur
an Wasser, sondern auch an Bier und Schnaps fehlt.« Materialisten
seien trotzdem darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß bei meiner letzten
Klassenwanderung nach dem Naturfreundehaus meine
Wandergefährten (ich selbst bin auf diesem Gebiet etwas unbegabt)
so viele Maronenpilze auf dem Zschirnsteinplateau fanden, daß wir
uns abends in der Hütte ein opulentes Mahl bereiten konnten, bei
dem alle satt wurden, und wir außerdem noch einen Rucksack voll
mit nach Dresden brachten. – Selbst auf die Gefahr hin, daß ich
einen oder den andern Leser das nächste Mal auf einem meiner
Lieblingsspaziergänge treffe, will ich hier noch auf zwei schöne
Wege hinweisen, die in Verbindung mit den Anmarschwegen zum
Zirkelstein bequem mitzunehmen sind. Der eine ist der Rundgang
um den Kleinen Zirkelstein, der nicht nur wieder eine ganz
entzückende Aussicht besonders nach dem Erzgebirge zu bietet,
sondern vor allem die Verwitterungserscheinungen des Sandsteins
in unübertrefflicher Weise zeigt. Die Zerfressenheit der Wände durch
Alaunausblühungen mag mit dazu beitragen, daß man hier im
Spätwinter Eisgebilde schauen kann, wie man sie in solcher
Schönheit nur an einzelnen Stellen im Polenztalgebiet wiederfindet.
Der andre schöne Zugangsweg ist der Grenzweg von Rosenthal
nach Schöna. Wer das Bedürfnis hat, einmal stundenlang auf
einsamen Waldwegen zu wandern, auf denen er höchstens hier und
da einen stillen Teich oder ein klares an bemooster Felswand
hinfließendes Wässerlein trifft, dem ist dieser Weg aufs wärmste zu
empfehlen. Allerdings kann die Einsamkeit auch ihre Nachteile
haben. Wenigstens hätten wir sonst etwas darum gegeben, wenn
nach dem Schneefall am Ende des alten Jahrs auch nur ein
Skiläufer vor uns diese Strecke schon gefahren wäre. Dann hätten
wir nicht von zwei bis gegen sieben Uhr Schneepflug spielen und die
schönsten Abfahrten tränenden Auges unsre Bretter hinabschieben
müssen.
Abb. 3 Naturfreundehaus am Zirkelstein (Saal)
Doch die Zugangswege zur Hütte haben uns recht weit von ihr
weg geführt. Wir kehren also zum Zirkelstein und dem an seinem
Fuße sich ausbreitenden auch den Naturfreunden gehörigen Wald
zurück, der an drei Seiten das Haus umgibt. Durch die
Eingangspforte treten wir zunächst in einen Vorraum ein, der zum
Waschen und für die Kleider dient. Von dort gelangen wir in den
geräumigen Vorsaal, von dem aus es links in die Küche geht, wo der
Hüttenwart und seine bessere Hälfte ihres Amtes warten, obwohl
ihnen das, wenn gleichzeitig ein Dutzend andre Parteien sich um
den mit allerhand Töpfen besetzten Herd drängen, nicht immer leicht
gemacht wird. Trotzdem ist’s auf der Wandbank hinter dem großen
Tisch außerordentlich gemütlich. Das wissen andre Leute leider
auch, und so bleibt meist nichts weiter übrig, als uns in das kleine
Zimmer zurückzuziehen, das ihm gegenüberliegt und mit schönen
Steindrucken und einer ausgezeichneten Bücherei geschmückt ist.
Das Muster eines ländlichen Festsaals stellt der große Raum dar,
der das Haus nach Osten zu abschließt. Mit kräftigen Farben und
lustigen Sprüchen sind die Balken und Wandverkleidungen bedeckt,
ohne irgendwie in altdeutschen Stil zu verfallen. Der schönste
Schmuck des Saals ist aber zweifellos der Ofen, ein gemütvolles
Ungetüm, zu dem man schwer seinesgleichen finden dürfte. Aus
diesem Saal treten wir hinaus auf eine von Quadersteinen
eingefaßte Plattform, wo sich an Ferien- und Sonntagabenden ein
fröhliches Leben bei Gesang und Gitarrenklang abspielt. Wer aber
die Jugend bei Tanz und Spiel sehen will, der muß auf die große
Wiese am Westrand des Wäldchens gehen, die statt der üblichen
Ballsaaldekoration die beiden Zschirnsteine und die untergehende
Sonne als nie veraltenden Bühnenschmuck besitzt. Im ersten Stock
liegen die Einzelzimmer und zwei Schlafsäle, in denen man vom Bett
aus den Sonnenaufgang zwischen Kaltenberg und Rosenberg
bewundern kann. Mehr ist von einer Sommerfrische wirklich nicht zu
verlangen. Da auch der gesamte Boden noch voll Betten steht, ist es
möglich, bis an zweihundert Menschen in diesem schönen Hause,
das auch elektrisches Licht und Wasserleitung besitzt,
unterzubringen.
Abb. 4 Blick vom Naturfreundehaus nach Nordosten (Winterberg)
Wenn man bedenkt, daß der größte Teil des Geschaffenen durch
den Idealismus einiger weniger zum Teil in schwierigen Kriegszeiten
entstand, in denen man oft Material und Werkzeug von Schandau
bis hierher tragen und in dem notdürftig überdachten Keller
übernachten mußte, so wird man das Haus mit noch ganz anderen
Augen ansehen. Als Heimatschützler aber wollen wir uns freuen,
daß trotz diesen Schwierigkeiten hier ein Bau entstanden ist, der in
die umgebende Landschaft paßt wie selten einer. Auf vielen Fahrten
in einem mehr als zwanzigjährigen Wanderleben habe ich kaum ein
Haus gefunden, das den Ansprüchen, die man an ein Wander- und
Erholungsheim stellen muß, so entspricht wie das Dresdner
Naturfreundehaus. Um so befremdender wirkt es darum, wenn man
immer wieder bekannte Wandrer und Wanderführer findet, die sonst
in der Sächsischen Schweiz und ihren Herbergen aufs beste
Bescheid wissen, die diese Musterhütte nicht kennen. Vielleicht
regen diese Zeilen manchen dazu an, diese Unterlassungssünde
wieder gut zu machen. Den Naturfreunden aber, die zu Ferien- und
Feiertagszeiten hier Freude und Erholung suchen, möge immer
Verwirklichung des verheißungsvollen Worts erblühen, mit dem das
am Anfang zitierte »Hüttenlied« schließt:
Du wirst stets froh und glücklich sein

In unserm Haus am Zirkelstein!
Abb. 5 Blick vom Naturfreundehaus nach Südosten (Kaltenberg, Rosenberg)
Bäume und Menschen
Erziehungs- und auch Heimatschutzgedanken von Th. Leuschner,
Dresden-Loschwitz
Ich liebe die Bäume. Ich habe sie schon immer geliebt. Ob sie
dichtgeschart einer neben dem andern im Wald große Landflächen
bergauf und bergab mit ihrem satten Dunkel bekleiden – ob ein
großer, mit seinen Ästen weitausgreifender Baum auf einem langen
Bergesrücken wie ein Wahrzeichen steht, auf Stadt und Land gleich
einem Herrscher herabschaut und die Wanderer zu weiter
Rundschau herauflockt – ob sie in langer Reihe links und rechts an
der Landstraße stehen, ihr weithin sichtbar das Geleite geben und
sie von oben herab mit ihren zusammenstoßenden Kronen
beschatten – ob die beiden Pappeln wie zwei Wächter hüben und
drüben vor der Hofeinfahrt stehen und über den First des
Bauernhauses auf die Felder hinausschauen – ob sie in den langen
Reihen des Obstgartens regelmäßig ausgerichtet einer neben und
hinter dem andern stehen.
Ich liebe die Bäume: ob sie im Winter kahl und schwarz dastehen,
daß sie sich bis in ihre feinsten Zweige hinauf von dem grauen
Himmel wie ein vielgestaltiges Gewebe abheben – ob sie sich im
Lenz mit ihrem ersten helleuchtenden Grün leise schmücken, als
wenn sie den Winterschlaf abgeschüttelt hätten – mag dann im
Sommer die Sonne in die vielen tausend Spiegelchen des
Blätterdaches scheinen – und mag dann der Herbst sie aufleuchten
lassen in Gelb und Braun und Rot wie ein Scheidegruß, ehe Sturm
und Reif den Kehraus machen.
Ich liebe den Baum: ob die Pappel wie ein Ausrufezeichen in der
Landschaft hoch und schlank hinaufwächst und dem leichten Winde
gehorchend hin- und herschwankt – ob nun die Eiche am Wegrand
ihre gewaltige Laubkrone unbeweglich starr aufbaut, getragen von
den dicken knorrigen Ästen, und andern Pflanzenwesen unter ihr
Licht und Luft nimmt.
Ich liebe die Bäume. Nur wegen der reichen Form ihrer
Erscheinung? Ich fragte mich, ich prüfte mich: es muß noch etwas
mehr, etwas andres als diese Äußerlichkeit sein, was mir den Baum
so lieb und wert macht. Nicht gleich fand ich eine Lösung. Da fügte
es die Zeit. Von einer andern Seite kam ich her und fand, was mir
Befriedigung gab. Ich kam vom Menschen her: die Gedanken über
den jungen Menschen, über das reifende Kind führten mich zum
wachsenden und gewordenen Baum. Ich fand zwischen beiden
Wesensverwandtes und Ähnlichkeit.
Das Kind wächst nach einem inneren Gesetz heran und wird zu
dem, wozu es werden kann und muß. Die Natur hat dem jungen
Menschen allerhand Anlagen, stille Kräfte gegeben, mit der
Fähigkeit und dem Streben, sich zu entfalten und in Erscheinung
sich auszureifen. Manchmal hat die Natur in einen Menschen eine
Anlage niedergelegt wie ein Geschenk, das sie nur selten hier und
da von sich loslöst: mitten aus Armut und Niedrigkeit geht gleich
einem Licht ein Künstler, ein Denker, ein Erfinder, ein Führer der
Menschheit auf: aus sich heraus geworden, allen Widerständen und
Hemmungen zum Trotz, als ein Eigner aus Eigenem dastehend. Oft
sind die Anlagen ein Niederschlag der Umgebung, eine Mitgabe von
Vater und Mutter, eine Selbstverständlichkeit von
Familienüberlieferung und -eigentümlichkeit. Das Kind atmet den
Geist des Vaterhauses ein, und mit ihm wächst es heran zu einem
Menschen, der in den Spuren der Eltern mehr oder weniger weiter
geht.
Zu diesem Aussichherauswachsen tritt von außen heran die
Erziehung, die Einwirkung durch Persönlichkeiten, die in sittlicher
und geistiger Hinsicht dazu berufen sind. Die Erziehung kann darum
kein Abrichten, kein zwangmäßiges Einwirken nach einem
vorgedachten Plane sein, kein Gestalten und Bilden zu einem von
außen her an das Kind herangebrachten Zweck. Erziehung kann nur
den Sinn einer Hilfe haben, indem sie Hindernisse beiseite räumt,
den Weg bereitet, indem der Erzieher mit ihm geht und es schützt
vor Irrtum und Umweg.
Mitten in diese Gedankengänge schaute mir zum Fenster herein
von weither die Babisnauer Pappel. Wie manchmal habe ich unter
deinem Schatten gelegen und in deine Zweige hinaufgesonnen! Du
bist so ein Eigner aus Eigenem, so groß und gewaltig, so breit und
rund, so fest und gesund, so frei und selbständig stehst du auf
schöner Höhe! Und du, meine liebe Pappel, du Stolz meines
Gartens, kommst auch zu mir in meine Gedanken. Als ich dich vor
zwanzig Jahren pflanzte, reichte ich mit der Hand an deine Spitze,
jetzt ragst du hoch hinaus mit deinen schlanken beweglichen Gerten
über das Dach des Hauses. Aus dir ist geworden, was du im Kleinen
schon warst und versprachst.
Und nun habe ich es gefunden. Auch ihr Bäume seid Wesen für
sich, von Anfang bis zum Ende hin. Auch in euch ist ein Ziel gesetzt
von Anfang an. Auch ihr seid belebte, zielstrebige, wollende und
müssende Natur. Auch euch hat die Natur eine besondere Anlage
mitgegeben und Kräfte, die in dieser Richtung weiter sich entfalten,
bis ihr das seid, was in euch ist. Und das werdet ihr ohne viel
Erziehung, ohne viel Zutun von außen her. Der Naturfreund pflanzte
euch ins Erdreich, dorthin, wo er euch haben wollte. Er gab euch
Licht und Luft, er trug euch Wasser an die Wurzel. Und dann
überließ er euch eurem Werden. So wie ihr wurdet im Sonnenschein
und im Regen, wie ihr Sturm und Ungewitter, Frost und Trockenheit
trotztet: er hatte seine Freude daran. So seid ihr mir nun nicht bloß
lieb und wert geworden durch euer vielgestaltiges und wechselndes
Äußeres – ihr sprecht zu mir aus tiefem verinnerlichtem Sinn, als
wenn auch ihr beseelt wäret, als wenn auch in euch ein unsichtbarer
Geist nach Verkörperung sich gestaltete.
Doch was soll das hier? Der Ring schließt sich für mich auch hier
im Heimatschutz. Ihr Menschen müßt auch diesen Sinn für den
Baum erleben. Dann werdet ihr nicht so herzlos einem schönen
Baum vor seiner Zeit mit Axt und Säge das Ende bereiten. Ihr werdet
ihn schützen und zu erhalten suchen, wie es der nachdenkliche
Jukundus im »Verlorenen Lachen« jenem alten stattlichen Eichbaum
auf aussichtsreicher Höhe angetan hat. Dann werdet ihr nicht mehr
so gedankenlos einem Baum Äste, Zweige und Blüten nehmen,
dann werdet ihr ganz anders in seinem Schatten ruhen und den
Platz an seinem Stamm in schöner Ordnung zurücklassen. So gut
wir einem lieben oder großen Menschen zugetan sind, ihn ehren und
uns mit ihm freuen: so wollen wir auch den Baum als ein Stück im
tiefern Sinn belebter Natur achten und ehren.
So sind wir auch von dieser Seite her zum Heimatschutz
gekommen.
Herrnhut
Ein Stimmungsbild von Susanne Hausdorf
Nichts Historisches mit Daten und Zahlen und Begebenheiten.

Etwas von dem eigenartigen Reize dieses wunderlichen kleinen
Städtchens möchte ich wiedergeben, das den fremden Besucher
seltsam anheimelt, wie ein altes frommes Bildchen aus Großmutters
Album. Gewiß, es gibt hübschere kleine Städte, idyllischer, äußerlich
reizvoller, mit uralten Bauweisen und romantischen Resten einstiger
Ritterherrlichkeit; Städtchen, die an Spitzweg, Schwind, Ludwig
Richter gemahnen, aber das eine, ganz Besondere, das hat eben
nur Herrnhut. – Ist es die rührende Schlichtheit der Bewohner, die
feine, stille Art, wie sie ihr Tagewerk erledigen, ihre Feste feiern, die
ganze Gemeinde eine große Familie, in Leid und Freude
miteinander verbunden? Ein Hauch von Güte und Vornehmheit
umfängt uns unter diesen Leuten und den modernen
Großstadtmenschen überkommt ein nachdenkliches Verwundern
und dann eine mehr oder weniger tiefe Beschämung. Denn – Hand
aufs Herz – zuerst hat er prickelnde Spottlust verspürt über all das
»Rückständige«, das ihm dort begegnete. Auf dem kaum fußbreiten
»Trottoir« kamen ihm Leute entgegen, die er linkisch und altmodisch
fand und belustigt musterte. Aber da sah er unbekümmerte
Freundlichkeit und fast kindlich anmutende Arglosigkeit in Gruß und
Gebärde. Und weiter, durch offene Fenster blickte er in saubere
Zimmer mit blanken alten Möbeln und vielen schneeweißen
Häkeldeckchen. Und immer stand da auch ein Blumenstrauß und
immer lag da irgendwo auf Tisch oder Fensterplatz das Buch des
Hauses: die Bibel. Und von den »altmodischen« Menschen, denen
die reine Herzensgüte aus den Augen blickt, von den blanken
Stuben mit Häkeldeckchen und Bibel und Blumenstrauß geht ein
feiner Zauber aus, der den Spötter von vorhin restlos
gefangennimmt. – Die lieben schlichten Häuser! So ein richtiges
Herrnhuter Häuschen hat eine spiegelnd geputzte Messingklinke an
der Haustür, eine gute alte Schelle dahinter, die chronisch heiser ist
und einen kühlen dämmrigen Hausflur, mit weißem Sand bestreut.
Eine knarrende hölzerne Treppe führt ins Obergeschoß, manchmal
ist sie aus Stein, blütenweiß getont. Hinter dem Hause das
Gärtchen, ein liebes verträumtes Hausgärtlein mit einer lebenden
Hecke darum; Malven blühen darin und mancherlei Nützliches. –
Und dann ist der »Herrschaftsgarten« da, das Schmuckstück des
Ortes, für alle zugänglich, von jedermann geschont und respektiert.
Wo in der weiten Welt blühen die Rosen schöner, leuchten die
Nelken stärker? Ich wüßte mir kein friedlicheres Plätzchen als im
Herrnhuter Herrschaftsgarten, an sonnigen Sommertagen! Ein
Duften ist da, ein köstliches Gemisch von Rosen, Nelken, Reseden,
Wicken und Buchsbaum; und dazwischen duften noch viele längst
vergessene Blümlein und Kräuter, die es anderswo gar nicht mehr
gibt, so pietätvoll-altväterisch, so gepflegt und anheimelnd wie das
ganze Herrnhut selbst. Weiße Bänke unter Linden und Kastanien.
Blätterrauschen, Bienensummen, dann und wann behutsame
Schritte auf den Kieswegen, Kinderstimmen, irgendwoher die Klänge
eines Chorals. Eine Uhr schlägt, tief, versonnen; Schwälblein
schwatzen am Hausgiebel irgendwo, alles verhalten, geruhsam, von
Frieden durchtränkt.
Herrnhut, im Hintergrund sein berühmter Friedhof
Der Gottesacker: Eine schmale Lindenallee führt hinauf. Ja und

dann steht man verwundert wie in einer großen Buchenlaube und
sieht, daß das hier keine Gräber sind, wie wir sie kennen auf
unseren Friedhöfen, mit teueren und billigen Grabsteinen, prachtvoll
geschmückten Erbgrüften neben verwahrlosten Rasenhügeln. Nein,
hier liegen sie alle gleich, die stillen Schläfer und man hat das
Gefühl, daß sie wirklich friedlich ruhen unter den schmucklosen
Steinplatten. Was sollten hier prunkvolle Monumente und kunstvolles
Schmiedewerk, hier, wo Äußerlichkeit nichts, tiefste Innerlichkeit
alles gilt! Nur eine schmale Platte mit Namen, Geburts- und
Todestag und einem Spruch darunter, kaum handhoch über dem
Erdboden. Aber einem jeden Sarg gab die ganze Gemeinde das
Geleit, wie sie auch der Taufe und der Trauung jedes einzelnen
Mitgliedes beiwohnt und es gibt wohl keinen bedeutsamen Festtag,
an dem sie sich nicht zu innigem Gedenken um die Gräber ihrer
Verstorbenen versammelt.
Die Kirche? Ja, die übliche Kirche mit Turm und Portal sucht man
vergebens. Inmitten des Ortes, von den Häusern und Häuschen
umgeben wie eine gute Mutter von ihrer Kinderschar, liegt es, das
Gotteshaus. Weiß, schmucklos, mit winzigem Türmchen, das man
gar nicht als Kirchturm anerkennen kann. Drinnen in dem einfachen
hellen Saal haben sie alle ihren bestimmten Platz: die Alten, die
Jungen, die Jüngsten; hüben die Frauen, drüben die Männer. Weiß
die Wände, die Emporen, die Orgel; auf weißem sandbestreutem
Fußboden die weißen Bänke. Vor den hohen Fenstern, die das Licht
ungebrochen hereinlassen, ein dunkel verhangenes Pult, ein
besonderer Stuhl dahinter. Hier spricht der Prediger zu seiner
Gemeinde. Und er spricht wirklich. Nichts, was Auge und Ohr
ablenkt in Farbe und Ausdruck, reines tiefdurchdachtes Gotteswort
wird hier gegeben. Hier begreift man mit einemmal diese Menschen
in ihrer rührenden Anspruchslosigkeit, ihrer Weltfremdheit, ihrer
Treue an ihren Toten.
Krieg und Revolution haben auch Herrnhut ihre Spuren
aufgedrängt. Aber das stört nicht weiter; so wenig, wie die paar
modernen Stadthäuser zwischen den ehrwürdigen grauen
Häuschen. Autos rasen über das holprige Pflaster der Staatsstraße
in der Richtung Löbau–Zittau zu, es gibt sogar Sommergäste in
Herrnhut, was tut’s? Einer stillen unberührten Insel gleich liegt es
ruhig im »brausenden Strom der Zeit« und wer von seinem
heilsamen Frieden kostete, der denkt sein mit Heimweh.
Hermann Löns
Ein Lebensbild
Vortrag im Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz am 12. Oktober 1923 im
Vereinshaus
Von Kurt Siegel
Ein wunderlicher Tag geht über die alte Erde. Es schimmert in

allen Farben und Stimmungen. Grau im Nebel und grämlich im
Regen schleicht er dahin, andächtig und still wandelt er ohne einen
Lufthauch – mit wildem Lärmen und Heulen saust er im Winde
daher, bis zuletzt alles gegen die Nachmittagsdämmerung hin im
sanften Regengeriesel einzuschlummern scheint.
Das ist die heimatliche, heimelige Schummerstunde, wo im Sinnen
und Träumen und Dämmern Gestalten kommen, von draußen und
drinnen, Gestalten lebendig werden, die einem lieb geworden im
Laufe der Jahre – und die Gestalten grüßen aus goldenem Eiland
und erinnern an Zeiten, da man selbst noch glücklicher war. Der
Heidebusch aber vor mir auf meinem Schreibtische duftet mir heute
besonders entgegen und läßt mich träumen von einem, der auch
gewesen, mit dessen Werken und Wirken ich mich oft in stillen
Stunden beschäftigte. Und die Gedanken flechten sich zu Bildern,
und leibhaft ersteht vor meinem geistigen Auge Hermann Löns,
dieser moderne Klassiker der Naturschilderung, dieser im geistigsten
Sinne urdeutsche Mann. Und meine Gedanken tragen mich mit ihm
hinaus in seine Heide, in seine Dörfer und Wälder, hinauf auf die
Berge. Ich bin in der schönen, reinsten und heiligsten Natur, ich bin
bei dem Besten und Echtesten, was das Leben der suchenden
Seele bietet. Durch ihn redet auch heute wieder die Natur zu mir,
durch ihn sprechen die Tiere, die Wälder rauschen und die Quellen
lächeln. Und Menschen wandeln dazwischen von starker Echtheit
und Kraft, von harter Lebenstreue und bitterer Daseinswahrheit, von
milder Süße und träumerischer Schönheit, wie sie nur Sinn und
Seele eines echten Dichters hegen und hergeben können.
Und was diese stille Stunde in mir geweckt und was ich aus
seinen Werken gelesen, das will ich hier noch einmal – in kurzen
Zügen – entrollen, will doch auch der Landesverein Sächsischer
Heimatschutz diesem edlen Mann in den Herzen seiner Mitglieder
ein bleibendes Denkmal setzen.
Willst du den Dichter recht verstehn,

Mußt du in Dichters Lande gehn!
Man muß einen Dichter erleben, sonst hat man nichts von ihm.
Hermann Löns, der Dichter, verdient es ganz besonders, ein
Erlebnis zu sein. Nur so gewinnt man das richtige Verständnis von
ihm. Und das ist ja der Zweck meiner kurzen Worte und des
heutigen ganzen Abends. Liebe zu ihm und seinen Werken soll
erweckt werden und die Würdigung, die er verdient.
Das aber soll gleich vorweg deutlich ausgesprochen werden:
Hermann Löns ist kein »Jagdschriftsteller«, als der er so gern
abgezeichnet wird, er ist auch kein »Heimatschriftsteller« oder ein
»Heidedichter«, sondern er ist einfach ein Mensch und ein Dichter,
wie wir nicht viele gehabt haben und nicht viele haben.
Ein Dichter nimmt das ganze Leben wie eine Dichtung, und jede
seiner Dichtungen nimmt er wie das ganze Leben. Darin liegt sein
Glück und sein Unglück. Wer ihm das nachfühlen kann, der ist
ebenso glücklich oder unglücklich.
Alle die Verwirrungen und Irrungen, an denen das Leben Löns oft
krankte, liegen in der tiefsten Seele seiner Dichternatur begründet,
und wer hier beschreiben, erzählen und kennen lernen will, der muß
gründlich und lange in diese Tiefen hinabtauchen und den Grund
klären.
Löns gehört zu denen, denen die Dichtung und die ungeheure
Tiefe ihrer Empfindung und Einbildungskraft glühende Male in die
Seele brannte, und wo Brandwunden waren, da bleiben Narben, und
manche Feuerwunden des Herzens heilen niemals. Wenn er gefehlt
hat, so trugen Verwirrung, Verirrung und Krankheit die Schuld daran.
Hermann Löns hat selbst das Beste über sich, sein Werden und
Schaffen geschrieben. Das steht im ersten Heft des deutschen
Literaturblattes »Eckart« im vierten Jahrgang von 1909.
Löns ist am 29. August 1866 in Kulm an der Weichsel geboren;
seine Eltern waren Westfalen. Sein Vater war Gymnasialoberlehrer;
seine Mutter Klara geb. Kramer stammte aus Paderborn. Als
Hermann ein Jahr alt war, wurde sein Vater nach Deutsch-Krone
versetzt, wo die Familie Löns siebzehn Jahre blieb. Seine erste
Kindheitserinnerung, die für seinen Sinn recht bezeichnend ist, war,
daß er in einem blauen Kittel auf einem gepflasterten Hofe saß und
grün und rot gefärbte Blattkäfer in eine Pillenschachtel sammelte.
»Mit fünf Jahren lockte mich eine tote Maus mehr als ein Stück
Kuchen.« Immer größer wurde seine Liebe zur Natur, vereint mit
einem Hange zum Alleinsein; er war auch deshalb meist einsam,
weil er sich in dem fremden Lande als Westfale nicht einheimisch
fühlen konnte. Meist ganz für sich durchstreifte er Heide, Wälder und
Moore und erlebte dabei allerlei Abenteuer:
»Beim Besuch einer Seeschwalbensiedlung, die sich auf einer
Insel im Klotzowmoor befand, ertrank ich beinahe. Acht Tage
nachher biß mich eine Kreuzotter.«
»Teils durch meinen Vater, teils durch das Leben auf Gütern und
Förstereien, auf denen ich meist die Ferien verbrachte, wurde ich
Fischer und Jäger, doch war mir schon damals ein unbekannter
Fisch, ein seltener Vogel, eine regelwidrig gefärbte Eichkatze von
größerem Werte denn ein gutes Geweih oder eine ganze Tasche
voller Hühner. – Ich schoß auf meinen ersten Hirsch wie nach der
Scheibe, aber als ich in den Sägemühler Fichten eine
Schwarzdrossel als Brutvogel fand, flog mir das Herz. Schon damals
war ich der Heide angeschworen. Ich konnte vor Freude über die
Pracht des maigrünen Buchenwaldes nasse Augen bekommen, aber
die Heiden, Kiefernwälder, Moore und Brüche lockten mich doch
mehr. Ähnlich ging es mir mit den Menschen; auch bei ihnen lockte
mich das Ursprüngliche!«

Secdocument 8347

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Secdocument 8347

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Secdocument 8347

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Peasant Perceptions of Landscape:

Ewelme Hundred, South Oxfordshire,

Peasant Perceptions of Landscape marks a change in the discipline of landscape history,

2. Geography and Sources 14

3. The Early to Middle Anglo-­Saxon Period, 500–800 44

4. The Late Anglo-­Saxon Period, 800–1100 102

5. The High Middle Ages, 1100–1350 147

6. The Late Middle Ages, 1350–1530 231

7. The Early Modern Period, 1530–1650 274

xii List of Figures

2.10 A LiDAR image of the braided droveways in Ewelme (indicated by an arrow). 32

List of Figures xiii

xiv List of Figures

5.8 Mill Farm, Mapledurham, south Oxfordshire. This early fourteenth-­century

6.10 Medieval and early modern Warborough field names. 260

xvi List of Figures

4.1 Domesday statistics 108

ADS Archaeology Data Service (accessible online)

ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

former hundred of Ewelme in south Oxfordshire, which comprised fourteen parishes

639–41; Kümin and Usborne, ‘At Home and in the Workplace’.

seventeenth cen­tur­ies.15 There is also increasingly sophisticated discussion of the

Geography and Sources

Samuel Ireland’s picturesque description of Benson and surrounding countryside in

T H E GEOGR A PH IC A L FOU N DAT IONS

Draycott (Ewelme Hundred

Hund red Wd. Pyrton

township boundary Langt ree B i n fi e ld

Hund red Hu n d red

Chiltern hills (above 125m.)

Oxfordshire clay vale, a gently undulating expanse of countryside largely devoid of

Oxford Clay and Kellaways Beds

Kennst du das Haus, mit Fleiß und Mühn

Abb. 1 Naturfreundehaus am Zirkelstein (Vorderansicht)

Abb. 2 Naturfreundehaus am Zirkelstein (Rückansicht)

Abb. 4 Blick vom Naturfreundehaus nach Nordosten (Winterberg)

Du wirst stets froh und glücklich sein

Nichts Historisches mit Daten und Zahlen und Begebenheiten.

Der Gottesacker: Eine schmale Lindenallee führt hinauf. Ja und

Ein wunderlicher Tag geht über die alte Erde. Es schimmert in

Willst du den Dichter recht verstehn,

You might also like

2. Geography and Sources 14

3. The Early to Middle Anglo-Saxon Period, 500–800 44

4. The Late Anglo-Saxon Period, 800–1100 102

5. The High Middle Ages, 1100–1350 147

6. The Late Middle Ages, 1350–1530 231

7. The Early Modern Period, 1530–1650 274

2.10 A LiDAR image of the braided droveways in Ewelme (indicated by an arrow). 32

5.8 Mill Farm, Mapledurham, south Oxfordshire. This early fourteenth-century

6.10 Medieval and early modern Warborough field names. 260

4.1 Domesday statistics 108

seventeenth centuries.15 There is also increasingly sophisticated discussion of the