Sharpe, Middlesex: Web section 2

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Places of Pagan Worship and Middlesex Churches.—Much help is afforded when tracing the extent of the Roman settlements in Middlesex (as well as in other Romanised portions of Britain) from the situation of the compitum or little chapel which stood at the village crossways. It has recently been discovered that the sites of many mother churches of ancient parishes in Middlesex are situated on parallel and cross parallel lines of the same distance apart as those laid out by the old Agrimensores, and the inference prima facie is, that such churches occupy the sites of compita and other sacred places of Romano-British times. (see map). This occupancy is further borne out by the particular direction set out below on page 20, which Pope Gregory gave to the missionary priests going into England, viz.: to utilise the sacred places of the pagans in the service of the true God. We will now describe these wayside chapels and sacred groves by the limites, both of which the missionaries adapted to Christian uses.

After Augustus Cæsar had assumed the purple, he re-organised the ancient religious sites and sacrificial priesthoods of the Romans which had fallen into decay. He astutely pressed them into the service of the State by combining with them the cult of the Imperial Supremacy. Hence also arose the new quasi-political worship of the deified Cæsars which, as part of the public worship maintained by the State, spread through the provinces of the Empire including that of Britain, and the dedication ‘Numinibus Augusti’ is a common inscription on altars found in different places in Northumberland. (14.1) Here within the Civitas an inscription found in London was “To the divinity of the Emperor and to the Province of Britain” and which seems to belong to the early second century. (14.2)

Compitalia—Among the ordinary rural festivals was that of the Compitalia celebrated during May and August in honour of the two Lares Compitales, with whom had been associated the Genius of Augustus. (14.3) These ceremonies took place at the village compitum, a small enclosed building situated near the crossing of the ways marking either {15} quintarial or intervening limites (15.1) in which sacellum the two Lares or spirits presiding over the surrounding fields had their shrine. These little chapels had three or four sides, each with a doorway and altar apparently connected with one of the several classes of land holdings in the village settlement, viz.: the allotment fields (agri dati assignati): purchased land: and the agri vectigales, or Imperial demesne leased and under the charge of the Procurator. On the festal days sacrifices were offered upon the altars, honey cakes being presented by the villagers and serfs, while upon the trees by the crossways, little images (oscilla) were hung to waive in the breezes. (15.2)

“Compita are places in crossways, a kind of tower where rustics perform sacrifices when the labour of the fields is completed. They are not only places in a city, but also on public roads, and are houses of refreshment for the inhabitants of adjoining lands, where little chapels open on all sides are consecrated. In these chapels broken yokes are placed by the cultivators as evidence of their task being duly served and finished.”—Trans. from Scholiast on Persius. 4. 28.

“From this passage we gather,” says Mr. Fowler, “that where country cross roads met, or where in the parcelling out of agricultural allotments one way crossed another some kind of altar was erected and the spot held sacred.” (15.3) It is also clear that the Romano-British compitum, like its successor the early English village church, held an important position in the simple and self-contained life of a rural community. (15.4)

Paganalia.—This was a general countryside festival held at the end of May when offerings were made to Ceres invoking blessings on the crops and the fruits of the cultivated fields lying intra clausus accompanied with rustic songs and merriment. It took place during the holding of the Ambarvalia or ceremonies held in connection with the official purification {16} of the pagus. (16.1) On this occasion the magister pagi with a procession of the villagers bringing propitiatory offerings also visited the well-known groves and altars to Silvanus or other rural deities along the boundary of his pagus in the woodland pastures and waste. The magister presided at these proceedings assisted by his wife who performed the duties of a priestess. (16.2)

This festival furnishes one of several instances of pagan practices being adapted by the church for Christian uses. Besides its religious significance, the public Ambarvalia fixed in the minds of the country folk the boundaries of their pagus through “the beating” of its bounds. (16.3) The sites then observed closely resemble those of the medieval ‘Gang’ (to go) or Rogation days, when priests with the Cross went in procession round their parochia, and certain Gospels were read in the wild field among the corn and grass, so that wicked spirits which infest the air might be laid low to the extent that the corn may remain unharmed.  (16.4)

Such halting places probably being where in the previous age, either Terminus had his stone by the limits of the farm, or other local divinity his sacra, or where had once existed a wayside grove by the limites in the extra clausus of the first settlers. When once a spot had become associated with a rustic deity or nymph, it was ever after regarded through generations of ignorant villagers with superstitious awe, and was therefore wisely made use of by the parochial priest.

Among the ancient General Customs retained by injunction of Queen Elizabeth was the following:—

The people shall once a year with the curate walk about the parish as they were accustomed and at their return to Church make their common prayer. … The curate in the perambulation at certain convenient places shall admonish the people to give God thanks … for the increase and abundance of his fruits … saying the 100th psalm, etc.

Again in the Articles of Enquiry, 1662, within the Archdeaconry of {17} Middlesex, it is asked:

Doth your minister on Rogation days go in perambulation about your parish saying and asking suffrages by law appointed. etc. (17.1)

Hence the ‘Gospel Oak’ or ‘Holy Tree’ which in Middlesex survives only in three places: ‘Gospel Oak’ on the Boston road between Hanwell and Brentford where an oak, perhaps an unworthy descendant marks the site: ‘Gospel Oak’ though here in name only, near Hampstead Heath, and ‘Gospel Oak,’ by Fray’s Farm, a mile N. of Uxbridge, on the Harefield road (17.2) The ancient custom of beating the parish bounds, though shorn of all religious significance, is still continued in some Middlesex parishes.

Silvanus was a rural divinity ‘of general reverence,’ possessing a threefold personality, as, spirit of the forest: protector of the fields and shepherds: and guardian of the farmstead. His cult was observed in May and was of importance to those who in summer drove their cattle, pigs, and sheep to the woodland pastures (silvas et pascua) on the extra clausus of their pagus: for on the occasion of the Ambarvalia the magister and his procession appear to have halted in their perambulation at the groves of this divinity. Every possessa with its fields was also under the care of Silvanus (17.3), and since it was equivalent in area to the surveyor’s saltus with 1,300 jugera or 810 acres  (17.4) we should expect to find his sacra by the quintarial limites which defined the saltus, and also where they marked the track through the woodlands of the extra clausus. Here again some of the parish churches in Middlesex mark what probably were once outlying sacra on the borders of its ancient pagi. On the occasion of the Ambarvalia propitiatory offerings to Silvanus would be made by the Romano-British husbandmen, who in superstitious fear would feel “the old tremor of man in the presence of nature not yet tamed to his needs, nor yet identified with his feelings, still full therefore of stealthy and hostile powers creeping unawares upon his life.” (17.5) The inhabitants {18} generally were in constant fear lest ill should befall them in their daily toil upon the homestead, field, or forest, unless the appropriate rural divinities were propitiated. Hence perhaps the offerings of those Roman copper coins which are constantly found in all parts of Middlesex, for “sacred trees, altars, and fana were everywhere to be found in the fields and around the farm houses, where distressed men brought their offerings, and many rustics (pagani) had these abominations on their lands.” (18.1)

The limits of the fellings and clearings by the settlers in the original forest growth of Middlesex can in some places be traced by the local names of ‘Field End’: ‘North End’: East End’: ‘West End’: Hatch (entrance to wood) End’: and ‘Wood End’: though their significance has long since departed. (18.2) After the advent of the E. Saxons into the district, and during the long continued strife of their clans, much land went out of cultivation, and for centuries no further clearings could have been made, so much so, that the extent of the area under tillage by the Romano-British in the golden age of the third century was perhaps not again reached until the beginning of the nineteenth.

Inscriptions upon numerous altars to Silvanus, Ceres, Numen Augusti and upwards of sixteen of the better known divinities have been found in Britain, also to many of the less known gods worshipped in the Roman world, and introduced here by settlers and auxiliary troops transported from various parts of the Empire. (18.3) Religious ‘scenes which were so common at Rome … were reproduced in remote country villages, on the edge of the Sahara … in the valleys of the Alps, or the Yorkshire dales.’ An altar inscribed to Diana was discovered in 1830 near Foster Lane, E.C., doubtless set up by her votaries in honour of the goddess who provided them with excellent sport in the numerous forests of the Civitas, and with animals for the ‘wild beast parks’ at Ruislip and Enfield. (18.4) Similar dedications to nymphs, genii of the locality, and to gods of roads and fields have been discovered, while among the debris of former Romano-British towns the sites of 26 temples have so far been traced. (18.5) {19}

In the face of this positive and ever accumulating evidence of a widespread worship in Britain of divinities of the Roman world, one can only conclude that other customary festivals which were connected with the soil and its produce, such as the ‘Terminalia’ ‘Vestalia’: ‘Neptunalia’: and Saturnalia’ (19.1) were likewise enjoyed by the rustics in the fertile districts of the Londinium Civitas, for such festivals constituted their only relaxation, since they enjoyed no Saturday half holidays or Sunday rest from an incessant round of daily toil.

Later on when Christianity was adopted, these old festivals were gradually abolished, and those of the Christians were established in their place, but the manner in which they were kept, continued to be much the same. The designation of the old religion in a law of Valentinian A.D. 368, as ‘Religio Paganorum’ proves that its observances were continuing among the rural folk. (19.2) Though Gratian disestablished all pagan worship (19.3) his decree could not have been much observed in the outlying dioscese of Britain during the disturbed period prior to the withdrawal of the Roman in A.D. 407, or during the subsequent 170 years when the Curia at Londinium strove to continue the government of the Civitas after the Roman manner: for as Mommsen observes, ‘it was not Britain that gave up Rome, but Rome that gave up Britain.’ On the heathen East Saxons becoming supreme in the Civitas, Christianity {20} flickered out, until its revival in 604 when Mellitus was sent as Bishop to preach to the East Saxons amongst whom he met with success. (20.1)

Policy of the Missionaries.—But when Augustine arrived in England A.D. 597 he found it difficult to attract the folk from the sacred places where for centuries pagan rites had been performed, and accordingly sought the advice of Gregory the Great. In reply the Pope sent the following directions in a letter dated 17th June, 601, addressed to Abbot Mellitus then going to Britain.

“Tell the most Reverend Bishop Augustine what I have upon mature deliberation on the affairs of the English determined upon—viz.—that the temples of the idols of that nation ought not to be destroyed, but let the idols that are in them be destroyed. Let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples: let altars be erected and temples placed. For if these temples are well built it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God That the nation seeing that their temples are not destroyed may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed. And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, as on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees about those churches (20.2) which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating. … It is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds. …” Eccl. Hist. Bede III. 30.

The Venerable Bede (A.D. 672–735) by giving the text in full evidently considered this direction of great importance since it laid down the policy which the Church missionaries had then been pursuing for a century past. (20.3) {21}

Hence arose the practice of the early missionaries to preach the Gospel in the former compita of the villages, and at the outlying sacra formerly used during the Ambarvalia. In the Middlesex district these compita were undoubtedly built of wood, or with wattlework and plaster, and when one of them became ruinous, a tiny church would take its place, or one would be erected in a sacred boundary grove when a roof tree was required. From time to time these Churches would be rebuilt by the villagers, until we come down to the fabrics of the parish Church at present existing in the County, and marked with a on the map. (21.1)

Hence after studying the natural features of a Romanised district, with the assistance afforded by Church sites, survey mounds and marks, oriented ways, old boundaries, and vestiges of ancient habitations, it is possible to reconstruct to some extent the former pagi and the rural settlements they once contained.

Village Settlements.—With the above information we are now in a position to briefly outline the planting of a typical Romano-British settlement in the Middlesex district. After a portion, probably a hundred centuriæ of the intra clausus within a pagus, had been assigned for the settlement (vicus), the officials would proceed to select a site for the village near the crossing place of two limites of the survey, and in the neighbourhood of fields under native cultivation. When the requisite preliminary tracks or ways following the course of the limites had been cut through the undergrowth, wooden huts would be built for the settlers, and also a little compitum on the waste by the crossways as a shrine for the two Lares who were to protect the fields of the new settlement. (21.2).

A start having been thus made, the officials would next proceed to:—

(a). Divide two or more centuriæ of arable land each into 50 equal plots of one jugerum (ager jugarius) and assign these plots by {22} lot amongst the settlers arranged in groups of ten men, so that every man received in full ownership at least two plots. (heredium). These open fields would be where the “axe and plough” of the natives had already prepared the soil; (22.1) and this preliminary distribution of allotments in tillage was a necessity for these pioneers, who for years would he engaged on the slow and heavy task of clearing away the original growth from the lands assigned to the new vicus.

(b). Award some measured rectangular holdings to the displaced Catuvellauni in exchange for their irregular and scattered clearings. Usually a portion of the land was returned to the conquered natives, for it was the policy of the Romans to show them consideration—and perhaps in a few cases to—

(c). Offer for sale small holdings, generally of one centuria each for which a nominal fine was paid to preserve the Imperial rights over the soil.

These three classes of land holdings (ager privatus) were held free of land tax (vectigal) and it is worthy of note that centuries later in the Domesday manors of Bedfont, Fulham, Greenford, Harmondsworth, Harrow, Isleworth, Ruislip, Stanwell, and Stepney, freemen are mentioned, that is men who were holding their farms free from customary services. The owners of these lands did not escape the poll tax (tributum).

Provision had also to be made to enable the settlers to graze their cattle and sheep, and so adjacent heaths and poor lands were set apart as common appendant to the different holdings and allotments in the vicus, a right enjoyed by every villager and bearing presumably some proportion to the number of jugera in his occupation. (22.2).

Vectigal Lands.—when the above task was completed, the remainder and generally by far the larger portion of the new settlement would be leased either to adjoining occupiers or to other persons. The rents (vectigal) going to the provincial treasury of the Emperor at Londinium, {23} where the central financial administration (23.1) by the Procurator was situated (statio). Hence such lands were known as agri vectigales. (23.2).

Though there is much obscurity on the subject, vectigal seems in the first instance to have been based upon the productive value of each jugerum, “for the country was divided into minute districts for the purposes of taxation.” From these units the quota to be paid by a district (jugatio) possibly also by the pagus, was determined, for when once fixed it did not afterwards vary. Vectigal was mostly paid in kind from the produce of the leased land, and in the Imperial province of Britain was was probably garnered by collectors, one being responsible for each group of ten coloni or tributarii, of whom he was one, as well as headman.

The jugatio or division of the land for the purpose of taxation varied in size according to the fertility of the soil, though they were assessed at one value. (23.3) From the following figures it seems probable that the Middlesex district was divided by the Romans into four such areas, since it has been elsewhere shown that by adding the Saxon geld hidage of the Hundred of Honeslawe (contained in Smallbarrow on the map) to that of Spelethorne, and that of Delmetone to Gara, the County became divided into four areas of equal value. (23.4). If we now go further and compare these respective areas it will be seen how much they varied in size.

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Various theories have been advanced respecting the origin of the Saxon ‘Hundred’ and its court, though none of them seem to have led to any definite conclusion. (24.1) Here, however, it appears that the ‘Hundred” arose out of the pre-existing or Roman system of rural administration, which must have been fully organised in the fertile and prosperous district of Middlesex by reason of the number of settlements therein contained (see map) and from being under the immediate eye of the Procurator at Londinium.

To illustrate this let us take 100 settlers grouped in bodies of ten and 100 centuriæ of land, the figures stated by the Roman Surveyors, to have been the standards used by the officials when forming village settlements in the Middlesex district. Now it can hardly be supposed from the minute descriptions which have been given (24.2) that this grouping of settlers by lot ended with the ballot for their plots of land, but that it further signified that henceforth each body of ten men and their heirs were by virtue of their ownership in these particular plots, consorted together in the interests of the State and for the payment of vectigal and tribute. These latter seem to have been collected through one of their number (collectarius) who acted as head man, after the manner of a decanus, of soldiers, or slaves under a decurio, for the Roman had a passion for working in bands of tens and hundreds and their regulations were rigid.

If it be granted that the lowest step in rural administration was of this nature, then these remarkable results follow. That a typical village settlement with 100 centuriæ (4 saltus) of land and 100 men, would have ten headmen of whom in turn one could be the decurio or village elder (24.3) and every pagus of 500 centuriæ (20 saltus on the map) fifty head men. But as it has been stated that probably there were only four original assessment areas in Roman Middlesex, we must therefore combine adjoining pagi and so create four jugationes viz.: 1. Londinium with Ossulton: 2, Smallbury with Spelethorne: 3, Helethorne with the 20 saltus lying in four detached portions: and 4 Gara with Delmetone. Each of these four double pagi would then contain 1000 centuriæ (40 saltus) of land intra clausus, though unequal in extent when the land extra clausus {25} was included, yet the whole district would return 100 head men or Ædiles pagi. These latter most probably constituted the rural council annually elected to attend under a magister or centenarius (25.1) to the local sacred rites of the pagus, with some police control, also of matters such as roads, perhaps of water supply, and a power of fining members.”Opening quote missing in original (25.2) Further, since a certain number of pagi made up a Civitas, so representatives, who were probably the decurions from the pagi situated in what is now Middlesex, and in parts of Bucks, Essex, and Herts, would form the Curia or Senate for the Londinium Civitas. This body as was generally the case, perhaps consisted of 100 members (centum viri) under a Comes or President. (25.3) Such appear to have been the lines of the Roman local administration, upon which the subsequent Hundred and its Court, and probably also the Shire or Burghal Court of the Saxons were continued in Middlesex.

Turning to the incidence of vectigal over the Middlesex district, it is possible that the 880 geld hides given in Domesday were under another name the ancient measures of vectigal. Taking as a venture, five measures as the Roman levy upon 25 centuriæ of land intra clausus (25.4) this would give 100 m.v. on a pages, and on the seven pagi 700 m.v. (25.5) But during the three centuries of Roman colonisation, four small communities had been regularly planted amidst the lands extra clausus which originally covered about eighty saltus viz.: Pontes, Finchley, Hadley, and S. Mimms together containing 20 saltus, and equivalent to another, or an eighth pagus. Out of the remaining sixty saltus not more than one third or 20 saltus in all show any traces of agrarian ways in accordance with the survey, or of having become vectigal lands during the Roman occupation. (25.6) There was therefore a total of 180 saltus bearing a levy of 900 m.v., {26} which was reduced to 880 m.v. after the division of the Civitas between Alfred and Guthrum in A.D. 886, when four saltus in the Hadley district remained on the Hertfordshire side of the new boundary.

A readjustment of divisions must then have followed especially at the western end of Middlesex (26.1): the 7[4/5] pagi and the extra clausus reappeared as six ‘Hundreds’ and the 880 measures of vectigal on this which was nearly the same area, as 880 geld hides. Is it therefore unreasonable to conclude that the Saxons continued inter alia the Roman method of taxing the land upon which they had settled, and with which they had long been familiar.

With reference to the selection of 5 vectigal measures as …Ellipsis in original, perhaps by mistake the ancient equivalent of 5 geld hides, a learned author has held that “the five hide unit … was undoubtedly an old institution … and that the possessio decem familiarum of Bede seems to carry the decimal system back to very early days.” (26.2) In a subsequent chapter he refers to the opinions of other authors on the allied subject of “the customary service of one fully armed man for each five hides,” as a general rule observed since Alfred’s time, etc. In the following table these figures are added in the last column, though at present nothing definite can be laid down respecting them, or as regards the incidence of vectigal in the Middlesex district.

Tenure of Land.—The possessors of vectigal land enjoyed the right of cultivating their holdings on condition of paying a fixed fee {27} farm rent annua functio, usually paid in kind which in many provinces went to support the army of occupation and the officials (annona militaris), but the amount of rent “was settled by custom and tradition” and could not be raised. (27.1) A lessee could not transfer his lease without the consent of the lord of the soil (here probably through the Procurator) who had to approve of the transferee and could demand a small fine.

On the other hand the lease was heritable, and alienable both inter vivos and by will, and the advantages accruing from this fixity of tenure naturally induced the leaseholder to cultivate his holding to the best of his ability.

This excellent system of leasing land (emphyteusis) is traceable to these agri vectigales, and was largely adopted by the Emperors whose practice it was to settle subject races as coloni in different parts of the Empire. In the third century there was a tendency for these free lessees to become inseparably attached by law to the soil which they tilled (glebæ adscripti) and to be known as coloni and inquilini, and who could not of their own accord leave, nor could they be ejected from, or sold away from their holdings.

Those coloni who also had to pay a poll tax (tributum capitis) were known as tributarii, and both classes with their decurions were settled in Britain and paid this tax (27.2) and from a chance reference we learn that tributarii were living in the district round Londinium. (27.3) In what way they paid the poll tax is obscure, but it was probably discharged by personal service upon the Imperial domain within their espective vici.

A species of vectigal was paid to pasture cattle (scriptura) and to feed swine (glandifera) in the Emperor’s woods and wastes (silvæ et pascua) {28} also for felling timber, and for leasing fisheries, etc. Considering the extensive oak woods which then existed along the northern borders of the County, the herbage and pannage must have yielded a good return.

The Domesday Survey in A.D. 1086 shows that in the Saxon period pannage (silva porcis) was returned from every manor north of what is now the Uxbridge Road; and that either weirs, nets or fishponds were then existing in the manors of Enfield, Fulham, Hampton, Harefield, Harmondsworth, Isleworth, Staines, Stanwell and Tottenham. A rent for the herbage was also being charged in Enfield and in some other manors, and which with the above returns were customary charges long established.

In the stretch of forest along the northern borders of the County, Domesday mentions that there were two enclosures (parcus) in Middlesex for keeping wild animals—one at Ruislip and still known as Ruislip Park, with 295 acres, and the other within Enfield Chase. Both apparently date back to Roman times, for men of position then frequently kept a variety of animals, boars, stags, roedeer, etc., confined in parks which in the provinces, and especially in transalpine Gaul, comprehended a circuit of many miles. This space was fenced with a strong paling, aad it was necessary to feed the animals in winter. (28.1)

The borderlands of the civitas such as the Chiltern hills together with the extra clausus of the pagi, and other oddments intra clausus came under the general designation of subseciva (cut off). There were no definite arrangements for its disposal, and the Procurator could deal with it in any of these ways. Portions might be—(a) Returned to former native proprietors (28.2)—(b) Leased, to the Curia or Senate of the civitas for the maintenance of the main roads, watercourses and baths: or, to a religious corporation for the service of the temples: or to an adjoining occupier for his life. A glance at the map shows that about 20 saltus of land extra clausus had been regularly settled, but it is impossible to say whether any portion of it within the Middlesex district went for the service of a temple which existed in Londinium. However in {29} the gradual change from Paganism to Christianity exemplified by the laws relating to religion passed between A.D. 321 and 426 (29.1) it is likely that the religious endowments followed the priesthood in its conversion from the old to the new belief. Out of the 8,900 acres in 18 holdings in Middlesex belonging to the Canons of St. Paul’s in A.D. 1086, some of them may have been originally given to their pagan predecessors, and very possibly the land in the forestal district of Willesden and Twyford, once situated on the border land of the Ossulton Pagus. (29.2)

After the Roman government was withdrawn from Britain the former Imperial lands of the Civitas and from which vectigal was derived, must have become vested in the Curia at Londinium. In the Saxon age such land seems to have become known, first as ‘Folkland’ or land belonging to the community, though subject to the ancient rights and obligations of those who cultivated the soil, their rents in kind and their personal services. This subsequently became ‘Bocland’ after the King and Council had by deed (boc) made a grant from the Folkland either to an individual, or to an Ecclesiastical Corporation. On this Kemble remarks “towards the closing period of the Anglo-Saxon polity I should imagine that nearly every acre of land in England had become bocland.” (29.3)

Thus did the lordship (manu Cæsaris) of the vectigal lands in the Middlesex district become vested in the community (respublica) of the Civitas, subsequently in the Saxon age to pass by grant from the Folk into the hands of powerful individuals, so that by A.D. 1086 the whole County, parcelled out into Manors, was held by twenty-four lay and ecclesiastical overlords.

All these particulars deserve more consideration than can here be given, for they disclose some of the foundation stones upon which the ancient ‘Hundred’ and English Manorial system arose, and to which some reference will be made in the next chapter.