THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (14)

[Stanley]

THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (14)

16 December 2001.

Our last snapshot of Barlick was in 600. The Saxons haven’t completed their takeover of Britain, indeed they never did gain control over the whole of the country. However, by 630 they had enough control and territory to stop actively advancing and accommodations started to be arrived at with the Celtic Kings in the west and the Caledonians in the North. This isn’t to say that strife finished but it was confined to boundary disputes and the main body of Britain could settle down to a reasonably peaceful and progressive life.
In Barlick the family of Bernulf (Beornwulf or Bjornulfr are alternative spellings) was well established as the major figure in the district. They were so important that the village was described as being Bernulf’s Wick, or place. (‘Wick’ can also mean a camp. It is the basis for ‘Vik’ in Viking) We can’t say when this became the accepted name and we don’t know what the Celts called the place before Bernulf came. All we know for certain is that by the time the Normans made the Domesday Book in 1086 the village was described as Bernulfesuuic. Perhaps one of the surviving names like Brogden, Calf Hall, Gillians or Esp could be a corruption of the original Celtic name.
We are getting on to firmer ground with the written evidence now. The Church was producing learned monks who were writing the history as they knew it. We are lucky in that we have The Venerable Bede, a monk at Jarrow who was a considerable scholar and wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 720/730. Some of his early history is suspect but by the time he gets to 600 onwards he has some good sources and copies of original documents so with a bit of caution we can get a firm grasp of many of the events around this time. However we should never forget that the men who wrote these histories were Christians who were fighting what they saw as Pagans and heresy so there is an undoubted bias in their treatment of some facts, the trick is to decide which ones.
The major event around 600 was once again a milestone in the history of the church. You might wonder why I keep going back to church history. The reason is that church matters had far more impact on the lives of ordinary people then than they do now. This was never more true than when Pope Gregory the Great (590 to 604) turned his attention to the state of Christianity in Britain. Not only was Paganism still the majority belief but those monasteries which had been established were coming under attack from seaborne raiders based in Norway who we commonly describe as Vikings. (Viking is an old Norse word that means roughly ‘those who camp on sea inlets or creeks) St Donnan and his followers were massacred at Kildonnan on Eigg in 617 by Norse raiders and later there were attacks on Iona and other coastal monastic sites.
Gregory decided to send Augustine to Britain in 597. He went first to the court of King Ethelbert on the Isle of Thanet in Kent. He was fairly certain that he would get a welcome there because Ethelbert’s wife Bertha was Frankish and even though her husband was Pagan she was Christian and had her own priest. Ethelbert converted to Christianity and instructed his Kentish subjects to do the same. He was the strongest Anglo-Saxon king and used his authority to spread the word. The king of Essex was his nephew and the king of Northumbria his son in law so they followed suit. The future king of East Anglia was his foster-son so they followed eventually. In 683 the Isle of Wight accepted the faith, the last place to do so and in theory the whole of England was converted. There was of course resistance, Penda the Pagan king of Mercia killed five neighbouring kings who had converted but we suspect this may have been political rather than doctrinal.
The interesting thing about this litany of conversions is that it proves how extensive Paganism was around 600. We might have to put the date of Barlick’s conversion to around 600/620 because as part of the old Brigantine territories they were part of Northumbria. (The root of this name is ‘the lands of the tribes north of the Humber).
Bede quotes from letters written by Pope Gregory, the originals of which still exist in Rome so we can be sure of their authenticity. On 17th June 601 Gregory wrote to the Abbot Mellitus who he was sending to join Augustine at Canterbury, later he became Bishop of London and third archbishop of Canterbury. In the letter Gregory gives clear instructions as to how existing pagan temples should be dealt with, they were not to be destroyed, the idols should be removed, altars erected and the whole edifice sprinkled with Holy Water. The slaughter of animals for sacrifice should be allowed but only as celebrations connected with the festivals of the church or saints days. The intention was to make as few changes as possible so that the Pagans would find it easier to accept the new religion.
Gregory specifically mentioned the practice of decorating the church with greenery and said that this should be allowed but again, as part of church festivals. When I first read this I immediately thought of the use of holly and mistletoe as Christmas decorations, both these were closely associated with Pagan rites. Think also of the practice of putting flowers in church and decorating the church with produce at Harvest Festivals. While I was in Germany last year (2000) I saw a church being decorated with boughs of greenery on the outside and was told it was part of the festival of Mary Himmelfart, that is Mary’s ascension to heaven. So I think it would be a mistake to think that the old Pagan rituals died out immediately. The Roman church made it easy for the locals because the old festivals and rituals were converted to Christian uses. The springtime festival of Beltane had already been appropriated by St Patrick in Ireland and converted into Easter. Later, when the Roman church set a new date for Easter, Beltane became May-Day, the spring holiday. Christmas (or Christ Mass) seems to have originated in a Pagan festival to celebrate the shortest day of the year, the Romans had a similar feast and celebrated it on December 25th. As nobody had any clear idea when Christ was born this seemed as good a day as any and the Roman Church appropriated it in the fourth century.
It wasn’t only festivals on certain days that were absorbed by Gregory’s version of Christianity. Pagan deities such as Brigit or Brid (the origin of the word bride) were taken over, St Brigid became the major saint in Irish Christianity. There were many other examples. The well-dressing ceremonies in Derbyshire are pure pagan spring worship. The wells and springs which were worshipped were often given names which suggested a Christian provenance such as a saints name or Holywell. On the 1580 map of Whitemoor what we now know as Lister Well is marked with a cross.
We can be certain then that Gregory knew quite a bit about Pagan practices in Britain and so we can draw some possible conclusions about Barlick. Suppose Barlick had a Pagan temple, we are not talking about a stone church simply a small timber building used for worship. Suppose this was converted as Gregory instructed and became the first Christian Church in Barlick, it looks as this could be sometime around 620/630. We shall come later to what the monks did when they came to Barlick but what we do know is that they destroyed the original church because their worship was disturbed by the locals attending their festivals there. We know that the place where the monks built was at Calf Hall and so we can make a fairly well-informed guess that the original church was somewhere near there. This fits in with our main group of dwellings being at Townhead as the church would be nearby.
So, if we do one of our snapshots of Barlick in say 700, we have the main group of dwellings at Townhead and a small timber church nearby down the hill towards Calf Hall. This would fit with Hugh of Kirkstall’s later statement about ‘an ancient church’ being on the site in 1147. If we are right the locals held festivals there, decorated the building with greenery and slaughtered animals for offerings which they then ate as part of the festivals. Wells like Lister Well and St Mary’s Well which is on the north side of Calf Hall Lane opposite the end of Shitten Ginnel would still be revered but under the auspices of Christianity. There is good reason to think that the name Saint Mary’s Well goes back until the 12th century at least because when the monks came from Fountains in 1147 they re-named the area ‘St Mary’s Mount’. The Cistercians dedicated all their monastic houses to the Virgin.
Does this mean that Barlickers abandoned their household gods and everyday customs? I think not. The church could do very little about what they called ‘superstition’ or heresy but which was in fact the deeply embedded remains of the old religions. As I have pointed out before these remnants are still with us, everything from not walking under ladders to throwing salt over our shoulders if we spill any. I always remember an old farmer I knew who swore that if a cow was facing due north when mounted by the bull it would have a heifer calf, I can’t prove it but I am willing to bet money that this is yet another example of a Pagan belief that has survived.
The church consolidated its power. In 680 at the Synod of Heathfield, Theodore of Canterbury styled himself ‘Archbishop of England’. In 757, Offa the King of Mercia (the builder of Offa’s Dyke on the Welsh border) called himself ‘King of the English’. We are beginning to see the first stirrings of a national identity but there was serious trouble ahead and once more Barlick was to see troubled times.
Over in Norway the population was increasing and the natives were short of land. They were hardy and able people, very good farmers and excellent carpenters. They had evolved a design of fast, versatile boat they called ‘Dragon Ships’ and using these they started to explore west and south. The expansion of the Norsemen had begun and this was to have serious consequences, not only for Britain and Barlick but for the rest of the coast of Western Europe.

16 December 2001.