The Nature of History

Norah

Callistemon21 Crop rotation is a useful system still practised today (even in our vegetable garden!)

Indeed.

Crops are still rotated, strengthens the soil. People still work the land, just not as serfs, paid labor, no cottage involved, typically.

The tied cottage existed well into the 20th century. My aunt and family lived in one because her husband was an agricultural labourer. The first one I remember had no running water and the loo was an earth closet at the end of the garden. When he changed jobs they had to move. They eventually lived in a council house.

Thanks MaizieD I always thought unclaimed estates went to the government. I had to google it to try and find out more.

Well, they do in a way as they go to the Crown Estates; any excess revenue from which, after paying the Civil List to the monarch, goes to the Treasury.

www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/about-us/our-history/

Callistemon21 Crop rotation is a useful system still practised today (even in our vegetable garden!)

Indeed.

Crops are still rotated, strengthens the soil. People still work the land, just not as serfs, paid labor, no cottage involved, typically.

MaizieD

^It's where all that rubbish about "my leige lord" came into the coronation ceremony. It's feudal^

It is indeed feudal, deriving from the ancient doctrine that a country belonged to the person who had conquered it. So William the Conqueror 'owned' the whole of England and handed out parcels of land to his followers to hold in return for supplying the monarch with men for his army, and lodging and sustenance if he visited their area. That is why the Crown today 'owns' the seabed around the UK, and any property unclaimed after the death of its owner, reverts to the Crown.
www.gov.uk/unclaimed-estates-bona-vacantia

It may seem like a mediaeval concept but it's one that was the basis for empire building over hundreds of years, almost to the present day.

Thanks MaizieD I always thought unclaimed estates went to the government. I had to google it to try and find out more.
Charles actually came out better than I imagined
If none of these relatives can be found, the estate will reside with the Crown. Interestingly, in Cornwall and Lancaster, Bona Vacantia are dealt with by solicitors on behalf of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster thanks to their ancient bona vacantia rights. Current practice for both is to donate the assets to charity
So he was doing the right thing. Not sure about the rest of the UK is it just going into the royal pocket? If so perhaps he will change things.

It's where all that rubbish about "my leige lord" came into the coronation ceremony. It's feudal

It is indeed feudal, deriving from the ancient doctrine that a country belonged to the person who had conquered it. So William the Conqueror 'owned' the whole of England and handed out parcels of land to his followers to hold in return for supplying the monarch with men for his army, and lodging and sustenance if he visited their area. That is why the Crown today 'owns' the seabed around the UK, and any property unclaimed after the death of its owner, reverts to the Crown.
www.gov.uk/unclaimed-estates-bona-vacantia

It may seem like a mediaeval concept but it's one that was the basis for empire building over hundreds of years, almost to the present day.

We had wonderful, dedicated history teachers at my school in London. Sometimes , for example, they would point out that they were teaching the Reformation from a Protestant point of view and they actually tried to give some balance . They also filled in a lot of social history. They were both unmarried women who lived and breathed their work and their dedication to us students. I am eternally grateful to them.

M0nica

Fleurpepper we have never had serfs in Britain. Peasants were tied to the land, although it never stopped them scarpering off to towns, but could not be sold or transferred to other land.

Open fields were not universal, only on a sweep of land roughly the same as the chalk/limestone areas. Once you get away from this champion country, you find farmers who had holdings of land and were more likely to be freeman. However there were and still are many landless labourers

Of course there were serfs in Britain. A serf could not be sold (unlike a slave) as an individual, however he was tied to the land and if the land was sold by the feudal lord the serfs went with it. The whole feudal system depended upon the status of serfs who worked the land but owed allegiance to their feudal lord who offered them protection, and in turn owed allegiance to the king. It's where all that rubbish about "my leige lord" came into the coronation ceremony. It's feudal

anna7 the history curriculum way back when for GCE only went up as far as about 1830 so anything I've learnt since then has been self-taught!

Crop rotation is a useful system still practised today (even in our vegetable garden!).

Somewhat off topic but I've never heard of the three field system. I've just googled it now. How lucky some of you were to go to good schools. I went to three different schools between the ages of 11 and 16 and the last school especially was dreadful in spite of being a grammar school. I can't remember what history was taught in the first school but the second was Tudor England and the third school was the first World War. I managed somehow to scrape an o level in history because I liked the subject . I think it must have been wonderful to receive a good education from schools that actually tried to help students . Not my experience.

History is the story of man's past.

In time past history was largely about heroic events and history existed for the purpose of encouraging and binding together the feelings and actions of a tribe or nation.

Modern academic history is rigorously scientific by which I mean that all admissible evidence comes from disinterested sources such as archaeology, and place names. However there is always an element of subjective interpretation of evidence and modern historians are aware of this.

The justification of history is that people who are alive may be inspired or informed by people who are dead, even long dead. For instance we look to Churchillian values to know that the Allies were morally justified in taking up arms against Hitler and Nazism and this guides us into the future.

Another justification for history is one that some grans here will be aware of; I mean some grans will have been researching their family histories to try to connect with their personal roots.

According to family - I really should have watched the coronation - as it's 'History in the making!'. What difference would it make, I wonder? If I can't summon up an interest, why bother?

School history, kings, queens, battles, wars etc. - boring as hell - yet now, I'm fascinated by all the history and archeology programmes on TV. They bring life in the past into focus.

growstuff

Serfs couldn't be traded like slaves, but Britain certainly had them. About 65-70% of the people mentioned in Domesday were either villeins, bordars or cottars (all forms of serfs) while about 10% were slaves. Slaves could be bought and sold.

Caribbean slavery started in the mid 1600s and the first slaves there were not African, they were Irish!. It was nothing to do with Monarchy either. When Cromwell took over Ireland and many were dispossessed, 50,000 destitute Irish were “Barbadoed” - sent to Barbados as indentured laborers or POWs (slaves), none ever returned of course.

It was soon realized they were not productive in that climate only then we’re African slaves transported

Serfs couldn't be traded like slaves, but Britain certainly had them. About 65-70% of the people mentioned in Domesday were either villeins, bordars or cottars (all forms of serfs) while about 10% were slaves. Slaves could be bought and sold.

But of course England had serfs.

Serfs were the poorest of the peasant class, and were a type of slave. Lords owned the serfs who lived on their lands. In exchange for a place to live, serfs worked the land to grow crops for themselves and their lord. In addition, serfs were expected to work the farms for the lord and pay rent.

Peasant ties to the land were serfs. Semantics.

Fleurpepper we have never had serfs in Britain. Peasants were tied to the land, although it never stopped them scarpering off to towns, but could not be sold or transferred to other land.

Open fields were not universal, only on a sweep of land roughly the same as the chalk/limestone areas. Once you get away from this champion country, you find farmers who had holdings of land and were more likely to be freeman. However there were and still are many landless labourers

We have also used our recent passion for genealogy to find out about so much, the complexity of slavery, immigration- push and pulls, colonisation, religions, and so much more- as we have discovered how hugely mixed and 'complicated' our two families are, literally from all over the world, and all races - even though you'd never ever know by looking at us, our ACs and GCs. History comes alive when it is so close to you and yours.

Key stage 3 History (top level) trues to cover incredible amounts!

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239075/SECONDARY_national_curriculum_-_History.pdf

The history of the enclosures is just fascinating, how both Church and Nobles forced serfs into modern slavery to be abused for the sake or fast industrialisation . culmunating in the current wave of AI and automation.

And as a keen gardener and nature lover, how Capability Brown 'natural landscaping' became a part of this too.

My primary and early secondary school history was mostly of the kings, queens and battles type but later on I was fortunate enough to have a teacher who covered things like Mohammad and the rise of Islam, and the European Renaissance. I started the O-level syllabus "Background to the Modern World" but only did the first year of the two-year course, covering the Great Exhibition, the unification of Germany, the American Revolution and Civil War, the Great War, and the rise of Hitler, which was interesting and useful enough but didn't enthuse me enough to complete the course and sit the exam.

Years later, in the 1980s, I attended a WEA course on Landscape Archaeology, and that really fired me up. Of course, once you know about the three-field system you can't help but notice ridge-and-furrow everywhere, as well as old field boundaries, earthworks, pillow mounds, holloways and many other usually unremarked features that show how the everyday life of the ancestors of people like most of us lived.

whitewavemark2 I regret that that view of how the Anglo/Saxons came to Britain is already under assault. Recent DNA studies, taken from nearly 500 graves, show a massive migration of settlers from Denmark and Germany into Britain in the early medieval period and many of the men are buried with weapons, Such a large migration, must have involved some forcible claiming of land from local people www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2

It is fascinating to see how our interpretation of the past is based on our own cultural determinants, and how archaeological science sometimes proves these, but can also refute them.

In the 19th and early 20th century the past was seen in terms of invasions or mass migrations, based on the attitudes of a country with a large empire, to whom these forms of change made sense.

These views were the norm when I began my archaeological studies 40 years ago. Then modern norms took over and everything became, not movement of people, but movements of culture transferring from one group to another.

We have seen the same changes of interpretation with the introduction of Beaker culture over grooved ware cultures in the Bronze Age. First it was seen as an invasion of Beaker people, then it was seen as cultural change.

Recent DNA anlysis has shown, that it was, actually, an invasion and at least 90% of the ancestry of Britons was replaced by this wave of migrants,

The Augustine bible used at the coronation was around when the community at Tintagel was at its height.

Doodledog

One thing I learnt in my studies of history is that where you have three historians you will find four opinions, and none of them can claim to be 'right'. All will enjoy arguing their case, but the ones who recognise the rights of others to put forward their own perspectives (and are willing to engage with them, rather than putting them down) are likely to be far more successful.

Agreed, life init?

Luckygirl3

I hated history at school as it was all about killing basically.

I wanted to know what people ate, when toilets came in, how they made their money, what they wore, what they thought, how they treated illnesses, what music they played and on what instruments. OK, tell me which king/queen was in power and how that impinged on people's lives; tell me about political movements - but I wanted to know how people lived.

Yes, and more yes.

And later- I became fascinated with parallels with other countries, Europe, and then the world. What happened at the same time in other countries and Continents.

Even in relatively 'minor' ways. Our house was built in 1587 - and my curiosity led me to look at what happened that year elsewhere. The year Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay (I have sat on that mound many times and reflected since)...Having such an event to pin a date on, makes it all so much alive and real (poor Mary).

Doodledog

One thing I learnt in my studies of history is that where you have three historians you will find four opinions, and none of them can claim to be 'right'. All will enjoy arguing their case, but the ones who recognise the rights of others to put forward their own perspectives (and are willing to engage with them, rather than putting them down) are likely to be far more successful.

Historiography (and even changes in historiography over time) can be just as fascinating as historical facts.