Given the hypothesis I have adopted, what can we reasonably say about the area we now call Barnoldswick in 100BC? By the way, the first evidence we have for this name is in the Domesday survey of 1086 and it is worth reminding ourselves that the Commissioners sent out by William the Conqueror only had about 18 months to roam the kingdom, ask the questions and produce the finished Great Survey. They had to work fast and when they got to Barlick buttonholed the first notable person they could find who told them that the place they were at was Bernulf's 'wick' which is generally agreed to be Old English for 'dairy farm'. One wonders what would have happened if they had asked a person from a different family, could we have ended up with Gillianswick? Remember also that in 1086 William's biographer, William of Poitiers said that the country was superior to Normandy in wealth and military strength. This says something about the available resources due to geography and climate and these had hardly changed since 100BC. We can assume that Barlick was quite a good place to live and farm.
Let's make another reasonable assumption based on the fact we have no contrary evidence. There was a relatively stable tribal structure and we know that the tribal leader, advised by the Elders, whatever title they had, was the fount of religious guidance, justice and arbitration in disputes. Whatever the norms of our local society were they must have been mainstream and similar to surrounding cultures. In terms of intellectual capacity they weren't much different than us. We know they venerated ancestors and buried their dead. All the evidence suggests they had a well-developed belief system based largely on Nature. Unlike some other early civilisations there is nothing to suggest that this belief system was based on the sky, it was centred on the earth. We know that water was revered and whenever a hole was dug in the earth they tended to bury votive offerings, almost like paying a price for the disturbance.
Close by the settlement on Esp Lane was a reliable spring and a watercourse and it's at least possible that they were a focus of belief. We also have evidence of household gods, an adoption of one or more of the many deities that were available. The early Roman invaders recognised these and in some cases adopted them as their own. This suggests the possibility of ritual and sacrificial offerings and as the community had more than one dwelling, some worship would be a family affair but in times of stress, say a bad harvest or at significant times of the year like a solstice they may have gathered together for a communal ritual. This raises the interesting question of where would this take place? Would it be at the spring or near the watercourse? Is there at least the possibility that they had a small temple that could accommodate say twenty or thirty people in relative comfort in bad weather?
A 'cult room' in the early Roman Villa at Lullingstone in Kent.
