Beating the Bounds

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21903, 2 October 1936, Page 10

Beating the Bounds

A cable message printed this week states that an aeroplane was used to help in the ancient custom of “beating the bounds” in the urban district of Hodderson, Hertfordshire. It seems that this is the first time an aeroplane has taken part in this centuries-old custom of perambulating the boundaries to warn away evil spirits from the parish and its inhabitants. On this occasion the council surveyor flew above the boundaries, dropping flags at the posts, while this members of a procession on foot engaged in ancient and superstitious rites. The custom possibly developed from the pre-Christian Roman festivals of Terminalia and Ambaryalia for honouring the god Terminus and the goddess Ceres. In Christian times the pagan rites were discarded but processions and parochial perambulations were retained with all the enthusiasm of the Church. The three days following Rogation Sunday in May. were set aside for these perambulations about the year 450; they were days Of fasting and- prayer, of admonishment by the priests and -thanksgiving by the people. Early in Anglo-Saxon times the custom was adopted in England and the days came to be known as Gange Days—from the Anglo-Saxon verb gangen—to go. The custom of beating the bounds was known variously as processioning, rpga- , tioning, perambulating, or ganging the bojmd-

Aries; and the week itself was called Rogation week, cross week, because crosses were borne in the procession, or grass week, because in early times the days were supposed to be fasting days and not feasting days as they later became. Before the days of Queen Elizabeth the ganging the boundaries was a .most important affair, in some districts occupying all three days, in others one or - two days, and everywhere of far greater importance than it. appears to be to-day in Hodderson where the work took the aeroplane only 20 minutes and the procession six hours and a half.' All those who were able would follow the leading men of the town ancUwould follow round the boundaries to mark just where the land of one parish was bounded by that of the next. A writer early last century records hte memories of a perambulation at which he helped: “ The vicar of the “parish was there; so, were the ‘substantial “ 4 men ’ and a goodly number of juveniles too. “It was a merry two days’ ramble through all “sorts of places. At one time we entered a “ house by a door and left it by a window on “ the opposite side; at another men threw off “ their clothes to cross a canal , at a certain 44 point; then we climbed high walls, dived 44 through the thickest part of a wood, and left “everywhere in our track the conspicuous “ capitals R.P. to show that the Rogation Per- , 44 ambulators had been their rounds. Buns and 44 beer were served out .to . those who “lucky enough or strong enqugh to get them.’ This shows that in one parish at any rate the religious element had completely disappeared by the beginning of last century. Yet records show that in certain parts of England, the admonishing by the minister and the singing of psalms was still an important part of the perambulating. In other parts the feasting is regarded carefully as is seen from this bequest at Clifton Reynes: it directs that “ Qne small 44 leaf, a piece of cheese, and a pint of ale, should “be given to every married person, and half a “ pint of ale to every unmarried person, resident in Clifton, when they walked the bound- “ aries in Rogation week.” There was a belief that the perambulators must closely follow every foot of boundary, whether it ran through a house, a river, a pigstye, or a wall. An action brought against the plerambulators of Rudham failed: they had broken down two gates and a fence but the justice held that they had to perform their duty of beating the boundary, gates of no gates, A pigstye on one occasion had to be removed and the owner of the pig had to catch the wandering animal as best he might. In one parish a baker’s oven was built across the boundary, but the beaters considered that they had fulfilled their duties if they pushed a village boy into the oven for a short time. If the oven was heated the boy would be pushed along the top. In such ways the beaters spent ' several happy days. In Hodderson now the beating has been speeded up with flags and aeroplane; it is cheering to find that those in the procession still find time to bump one or two village lads against the milestones.