The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter V


 * Hann sәt á haugi sem konungar: He sat on the mound as kings do sit.—Heimskringla, i, 136.

OME of my readers are no doubt acquainted with Mr. Seebohm's "English Village Community." They may remember seeing in that book a plan of a "toot-hill" which adjoins the churchyard at Pirton, and also a plan of another artificial hill which is close to the church at Meppcrshall. It is not an uncommon thing to find artificial mounds near old churches, and the late Mr. Wright has described a large tumulus which stands near the church at St. Weonard's, and which he opened, finding therein a rude vault and burnt human remains. Now the large mound known as Bailey Hill at Bradfield is only 130 yards to the north-west of the church, and there is a striking resemblance between it and the mounds which I have just mentioned. The history of most of these mounds is possibly of the same character.

The evidence which I shall give will point to the conclusion that Bailey Hill was the place of the village assembly.

A reference to the plan will show that at Bradfield there are two artificial mounds adjacent to each other, but of an entirely different shape, and I shall refer to them as the round mound and the long mound. They stand at the edge of a steep declivity. The round mound is now known as Bailey Hill. It is of conical shape, and is entirely surrounded by a deep trench. Round its base the round mound measures 504 feet, and its perpendicular height, B to C, is fifty-eight feet. The height of its sides, A to B, measured from the bottom of the trench, is seventy-nine feet. The top is truncated, the diameter of the platform on the top, B to D, being thirty-nine feet. A hole has been dug in the top.

The long mound is crescent-shaped, and stands to the south-west of the round mound. Its extreme length, measured from K to L upon the summit of the crescent, is 310 feet. A deep trench runs along its southern side. There is no trench on the side E H F, and the trench K J L forms a duct leading into the trench which surrounds the round mound. The width of the trenches is the same as that of the fosse on the northern side of the Bar Dike, namely thirty feet. The height of the long mound, J to I, on the side adjacent to the trench, and measured from the bottom of the trench, is forty-five feet. On the other side, I to H, where there is no trench, its height is only twenty-five feet. The distance between the ends of the arc formed by the long mound, E to F, is 261 feet, and from G to H the measurement is thirty-nine feet. The circumference of the long mound is 648 feet. These measurements are, of course, approximate, as it is impossible to give them with perfect exactness.

The long mound seems evidently to have been thrown up simultaneously with the round mound, for these mounds and their uniform ditches can hardly have been other than parts of the same plan.

It has been noticed that prehistoric circles, whether surrounding barrows or not, are often incomplete, and in this case the circular trench which surrounds the round mound is rendered incomplete by the trench which leads into it from the side of the long mound. The incompleteness of these circles has frequently been the subjecl of conjecture. Whatever their meaning may have been such circles are of such frequent occurrence that the incompleteness cannot be accidental; it must have had a religious or other distincl meaning.

The older antiquaries did not hesitate to describe these mounds and trenches as a "Saxon fortress." The opinion seems to have been based on the fact that the mounds occupy an elevated and commanding position, and are surrounded, in the way that has been mentioned, by deep trenches.

The depth of the ditches at Bailey Hill, taken together with the fact that such ditches are of the same breadth as that of the fosse on the northern side of the Bar Dike, might well have led to the belief that these mounds were thrown up for the purpose of fortification. But there are serious objections to this popular view of these mounds. In the first place there is the frequent occurrence of such mounds near to old English churches, and the proved fact that many of such mounds are either "toot-hills" or burial mounds. In the next place there is the improbability that a fortress would be built in the form of a cone or pyramid. And the last, but not the least serious, objection is to be found in the name Bailey Hill itself. In my opinion this place was certainly not a fortress or camp.

In the remarks which follow I shall speculate more or less on the probable history of these remarkable mounds, and perhaps I need hardly tell the reader that he must make a strong distinction between speculations and proved facts. But I think he will admit that my speculations are legitimate, and that they may, at all events, supply material from which the truth may in the end be obtained.

What the church, which stands so near, was to the later inhabitants, that, it seems to me, these two strange mounds were to the primitive inhabitants of this place. They formed the local seat of religion and justice.

In the absence of better evidence the history or probable history of these mounds can only be made out by comparing them with other mounds of the same kind and situated in similar places, by means of comparative custom and usage, by an examination of the beliefs and customs of modern races which are still in the infancy of civilization, and not least by that valuable evidence which has been preserved in Icelandic literature. Let us turn, then, first of all, to that evidence. In the first place Vigfusson has described the family mounds or barrows of the Norsemen. "The barrow," he says, "besides being the place for the 'horg' of family worship was also the seat of the patriarch."

Can we fairly apply this statement of the Icelandic scholar to Bailey Hill? We have seen that this mound, like other English mounds, is in the village, and near the church, and I think we may conclude that it was not far from "the big house on the estate." In England the "big house on the estate" in more recent times was the lord's house, the "manor house," which usually stood near to the church, or in the village. If therefore we may apply the customs of the Norsemen to this village situate in a Danish part of England we may infer that near to the house of the village chieftain was the seat whereon he administered justice or gave advice, the place where the people met both to worship and to deliberate in council. And as in early Christian times there was no church without an altar, and no altar without dead men's bones, so we may infer that amongst the heathen there was no mound or high place of worship which did not contain the bones of the village chief, or founder of the settlement.

Now we have seen that the mound near the church at St. Weonard's was a grave mound, and if we turn to the customs of modern savages we shall be able to guess what was the origin and ulterior use of these mounds, and with some show of reason to infer that the worship carried on there was the worship of dead ancestors. It seems a long way off, but let us hear what a modern traveller has said about the Africans:—

"On the subject of the village gods opinions differ. Some say that every one in the village, whether a relative of the chief or not, must worship the forefathers of the chief. Others say that a person not related to the chief must worship his own forefathers, otherwise their spirits will bring trouble upon him. To reconcile these authorities we may mention that nearly every one in the village is related to its chief, or if not related is, in courtesy, considered so. Any person not related to the village chief would be polite enough on all public occasions to worship the village god."

Thus we see that modern African savages worship the forefathers of their chief, and with them, as with the Norsemen, the chief held the priesthood of the village.

We have just seen that the round mound besides being possibly the place of family or tribal worship—a worship which the adjacent Christian church carried on in another and purer form—was also "the seat of the patriarch." Let us now enquire whether it had not also a secular use. The mound near the church at Pirton which I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter is called Toot hill. Now a toot hill, as is well known, is a look-out hill, a spying place or watch tower. This word toot survives in the modern tout, as when an enterprizing solicitor touts or looks out for business, though, of course, such a pradtice is as obsolete as the word toot-hill itself. Now the Bailey Hill at Bradfield was also a "toot-hill" or look-out hill, though I am not aware that at Bradfield it was ever called a toot-hill. It was here that the village chieftain, afterwards represented by the bailiff or bailey, who was the governor of the village, used to spend some portion of his time not in looking out for his enemies, or, as some have supposed, in shooting flint-pointed arrows at them, but in seeing that the people in the village were behaving themselves and doing their work properly.

Let us examine this matter more in detail. The old writings of the Norsemen often give us, without intending it, glimpses of the social life of Northern races, just as Homer unconsciously tells us something about the manners and customs of his own time when he is telling tales about things which never happened. The adventures of heroes and giants can only be described in terms of human aclion. And in like manner when we read in Old Norse literature of the giant Thrym sitting on the mound by his hall plaiting golden leashes for his greyhounds we are accidentally told that the chieftains of Northern clans or village communities were accustomed to sit upon mounds near the doors of their houses. And when we are told in Hallfred's Saga that the good yeoman Thorlaf "was wont, as was much the habit of the men of old, to sit for long hours together out on the howe not far from his homestead," and that "here he was to be found by all who sought him, and could see all that was going on all over the farm," I think we are fairly justified in concluding that the time was when the same thing was done by the Norsemen who settled at Bradfield. Commanding, as it does, a wide and splendid view over all the country round, as well as a prospect of the hamlet which lay close by, Bailey Hill would have been peculiarly suitable for such a purpose.

Inasmuch as the high place of religious observance was also "the seat of the patriarch," Bailey Hill would be a fit place for the village assembly or open-air court. Mr. Gomme has pointed out that according to Hindu law judgments delivered inside a house are of no effect, and he has observed that according to old belief in England it was uncanny to hold a public meeting in a roofed building lest magical arts should be practised therein. He also refers, when discussing the village assembly, to the Birlie Court at Whitsome in Berwickshire "where the Birliemen sit on the raised mound in the village, and the villagers receive from them their decisions in matters of dispute." At Bradfield the whole administrative machinery of the village community was formerly in existence. It had its lord (represented by its steward or bailiff), its manorial court, or court of the village community, its homagers, and its by-laws. As Jacob Grimm has observed, the shape of the ancient open-air court was annular, because men naturally form a circle when they meet to hear a speaker in the field. At the court held upon the Tynwald Hill in the Isle of Man the twenty- four Deemsters sat round about the lord on the hill, "the commons standing without the circle." The truncated summit of Bailey Hill would have given ample room for the chieftain and elders sitting about him, and forming, as one might say, a sort of "Local Board."

As I have explained Bailey Hill as the hill upon which the bailiff or governor of the village sat in judgment it may be expecled that I should give some further reasons for this opinion.

In the first place then I will refer to some documents dating from the sixteenth century. At a court baron of Thomas Duke of Norfolk held for this manor on the 17th of June, 1717, before John Battie, steward, John Woodhead of Woodseats in Bradfield, in consideration of £295 paid to him by Arthur Grisedale of Sheffield, surrendered a customary messuage called Gawkehouse together with a customary tenement in Nether Bradfield and the following closes held therewith, viz., the Bayley field and the Hill, the Church field alias Kirke field, the Stake Piece, the Little Bank, the Little Rood, the Long Croft, the Sowter Acre, the Sowter Acre meadow, the Little Bank, and the Holme.

Thus we see that in 1717 the mound and its surroundings were known as "the Bailey Field and the Hill." In a deed of 1764 I find "Bailey Hills," in allusion, no doubt, to the round mound and the long mound. The Bailey Field was the piece of land which the bailiff held in consideration of the services rendered by him to the village community. Examples of this are found elsewhere. Thus "the bailiffs of Northampton were allowed the rent of a piece of ground called the bailiff's hook, and the bailiff of Axbridge possessed a piece of ground called the bailiff's wall," i.e. the bailiff's field. And in Sheffield the piece of land, now covered with streets, to the west of the Parish Church, called Bailey Field, was probably applied for the same purpose. And so "the Sowter acre" in Bradfield, just mentioned, was the trade-allotment which the village shoemaker or tanner—for the word will mean either—held in respect of services rendered by him to the community.

There are historical examples of the manorial steward or bailiff sitting on a hill, and holding court there. For instance at Rochford in Essex a "lawless court" was held. Fuller tells us how a gentleman in that county showed him "a little hill which he called the King's Hill: and told me of a strange customarie court, and of long continuance, there yearely kept, the next Wednesday after Michaelmas day in the night, upon the first cock crowing without any kinde of light, saue such as the heavens will affoard." The description of the proceedings is too long to quote, but enough has been given to show that the bailiff of Rochford held his court upon "a little hill" which was called "the King's hill." Compare with this the extract given at the head of this chapter.

I think I have given satisfactory evidence as to the meaning of the term Bailey Hill, but it appears that at Rochester the hill where the court was held was known as Boley Hill. But I think this is only a loose spelling of Bailey. "King's hill" and "bailiff's hill" are perfectly intelligible, and in harmony with known historical facts.

The history of the word bailey must nevertheless be referred to, and I shall cite my examples from the New English Dictionary. (i) Bailey used in the sense of the bailiff or governor of a town is traced back to 1297. The word also meant, in the fourteenth century, the jurisdiction of a bailiff, and also the district or bailiwick under the jurisdiction of a bailiff. (2) Another word bailey is used in the fourteenth century in the sense of "the external wall enclosing the outer court, and forming the first line of defence of a feudal castle; and, in a wider sense, any of the circuits or walls or defences which surrounded the keep." These two words seem to have been confused with each other. It is not likely that Bailey Hill is derived from this last-mentioned word.

I might mention here that Bailey Hill, together with the croft and plantation adjoining and containing together 3A. OR. 18P., was sold by public auction on the 28th September, 1892. The lot was purchased by C. Macro Wilson, Esq., for £350.

There is a natural eminence in Bradfield called Castle Hill. The following note thereon may be found amongst Hunter's MSS.:—


 * "At the east end of the town of Bradfield is a round hill with a sort of trench still visible about it, from which there goes a foss-way to the moor. There are now no remains of building upon it, but it is reported to have been a castle, which seems a not improbable tradition, both from the name of itself, and of a farm near adjoining, called Castle field. In a certain writing belonging to the said farm, it is called 'campum buttantem super castellum.' This, connected with the obvious traces of a trench and foss, shows that heretofore hath been a fortification, but when, by whom, or for what purpose it was erected, is uncertain."

I have examined this place carefully, and at the present time the signs of fortification are very indistinct. The Ordnance Survey, however, gives a small oval enclosure with a "sort of trench" running a few yards therefrom to the south-east. There is no "foss-way to the moor" to be seen now, though Hunter was probably right in saying that such an entrenchment existed in his time. Places called Castle Fields, Castle Lathe, and Castle Bents are, according to the Ordnance Survey, adjacent to Castle Hill. Genuine as the local name undoubtedly is, it is not at all necessary to suppose that a castle, in the modern sense of the word, stood here. Probably the word means no more than a rampart. In Iceland, says Vigfusson, a dome- shaped hill is called kastali, and út-kastali is an outwork. In the name Castle Dyke near Sheffield—a place at which no "castle" is known to have existed—the meaning seems to be the same. The "castle" in these cases is not a fortified house, but an earthen bulwark thrown up for the purpose of defence or attack.