County flags – Berkshire

 

County flags – Berkshire

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The Berkshire flag was registered with the Flag Institute in March 2017. It is the flag of the historic county. It shows a stag standing under an oak tree, both of which are traditional symbols of Berkshire and date back to at least 1627.

In that year, Michael Drayton (1563-1631), who was a contemporary of William Shakespeare, wrote a poem, ‘The Bataille of Agincourt.’ Agincourt was fought in 1415, and Drayton described the men of Berkshire marching in that battle under the symbol of ‘a Stag, under an Oake that stood.’

The stag shown is a red deer bearing twelve-point antlers, which marks it as a ‘Royal’, thus evoking the shire’s title as the Royal County of Berkshire, and also alluding to the deer herds to be found.  The oak tree bears reference to its wonderful forests.

 Berkshire has had historic ties to royalty since the Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror began building Windsor Castle in 1070 and it was completed in 1086. The county was always known informally as Royal Berkshire but was designated ‘Royal County’ in 1958. It is the only royal county in the United Kingdom.

Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998. The county remains as a ceremonial county, no longer administered as a single entity, but divided into six unitary authorities.

 

October 14th - another important date

 

Another important date – October 14^th  

All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Stained glass window in St Mary's Church, Battle, depicting William the Conqueror and King Harold

On this day in 1066, the Battle of Hastings was fought between the armies of the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson of England and the French Duke William of Normandy. Harold battled in vain to retain his crown but was defeated by William.    

The battle lasted all day and the outcome changed the life of the Anglo-Saxons (English) forever. William, henceforth always referred to as ‘William the Conqueror’, spoke only French and never mastered English. Therefore the Norman invasion ensured that for centuries French was the official language of England. The last French-speaking king was Richard II, who died in 1399.

After his victory William marched to London and was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066.

Four years later, in 1070, Pope Alexander II ordered William to make penance for his invasion of England. William commissioned the building of Battle Abbey on the site of his conquest as a memorial to the dead. The high altar was placed at the exact spot where Harold met his death. 

In 1085 William I ordered a ‘Great Survey’ to be undertaken. He sent his agents to survey every shire in England The purpose was to conduct a census of the lands and people of England and the resources from which they gained their livelihoods and to assess their rateable value. It was completed in 1086, the year before William died. It became known as the ‘Domesday Book’ and was originally kept in the royal treasury in Winchester. Today it is kept at the National Archives in Kew, London.

The story of the Norman Conquest is told in the Bayeux Tapestry, which was made in England soon after the Battle of Hastings. It consists of 58 panels of linen embroidered in wool with scenes from the Conquest. Today it is housed in the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Bayeux, France. A replica tapestry, created in 1885, hangs in the Bayeux Gallery of Reading Museum.

 

The New Forest

 

The New Forest

                                        Dominie in the New Forest, many years ago

 This ancient forest covers 140,000 acres of pasture, heath and forest in south-west Hampshire and south-east Wiltshire in the south of England. William the Conqueror decreed it a royal forest in 1079 for the purpose of hunting ‘the beasts of the chase’  - that is, the two native deer, the red and the roe, wild boar, and the fallow deer which were introduced by the Normans after 1066.

The New Forest was recorded in the Domesday Book, which was a survey and valuation of land and property in England. It was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085 and completed in 1086. The Domesday Book is actually two works – the Great Domesday, which was probably written on parchment by just one person and the Little Domesday, which had at least six people working on it.

                                                        New Forest ponies

It is home to the New Forest Commoners, who continue to exercise their ancient rights of common pasture. Anyone living in the forest has the right to turn their animals out to graze for pasture and is thus known as a Commoner. Their rights are protected by verderers and agisters. The Court of Verderers are unpaid officials who oversee commoner rights, such as the grazing of ponies, and ensure the protection of land and wildlife.

From Wikipedia:

The Court has the same status as a Magistrates Court, and acting under its authority the Verderers are responsible for regulating commoning within the Forest, for dealing with unlawful inclosures, and for a wide range of other matters relating to development control and conservation such as proposals for new roads, car parks, camping sites, recreational facilities, playing fields and so on.

The agisters are a small group of people who help the verderers in monitoring the free-roaming animals which graze the Forest. They spend much of their time on horseback, checking the land and the animals. There are several thousand semi-feral ponies as well as many thousand cattle to oversee. Sheep and donkeys are also turned out to graze, though in lesser numbers. In the autumn, pigs are turned out for about 60 days to feed on acorns, beechmast and other nuts. This practice is known as pannage.

 Ponies have right of way 

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

                                                            Homeward bound

                                            Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Pony power versus horse power at Beaulieu garage

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 Each agister has responsibility for a specific area of the Forest and is on call every day to deal with emergencies, like injured or trapped animals. Every year between August and November the agisters organise ‘pony drifts’. The Commoners, who pay an annual fee, called the ‘marking fee’ so that their ponies are allowed to graze, round up their ponies to be checked and recorded.

The drift provides an opportunity to worm the ponies and brand the new foals, each owner having a distinctive brand. This is the time that ponies may be withdrawn for sale or taken in for the winter. The ponies that are to be turned out for another year have their tails clipped in a style that identifies them as belonging to a particular agister’s area of the forest. 

                                                            Pony tail cuts

Courtesy of New Forest Show, 2012

Someone once remarked that the ponies’ tails look as though they’ve had a bad haircut, but they are clipped to prove that their owners have paid the marking fee for the coming year.

Because the animals are free to roam, they often wander onto unfenced roads. There is a speed limit through the unfenced areas but accidents happen, because drivers do not adhere to the speed limit. Last year, 2022, 41 animals died, either killed outright, or destroyed because they were too badly injured to survive. The unfortunate animals were 34 ponies, 3 pigs, 2 cows and 2 donkeys. Nineteen more were injured but lived to tell the tale.

Triskaidekaphobia and Paraskavedekatriaphobia or Friggatriskaidekaphobia

Is fear of the number 13 more troubling than fear of Friday 13^th? After all there is a 13 in every month.

In any year there will be at least one Friday 13^th but never more than three. If the month starts on a Sunday the thirteenth day will be a Friday. This year’s Friday 13ths fall in January, April and July.

However, there is little evidence that Friday 13^th was considered unlucky before the 19^th century. The superstition seems to be a combination of two older ones, namely Friday is an unlucky day and 13 is an unlucky number. Friday was the day for executions in ancient Rome. Christ was crucified on a Friday. In Britain hangings were carried out on Fridays.

On Friday 13^th October, 1066, William of Normandy demanded that King Harold II relinquish his throne.  Harold refused and the Battle of Hastings took place the next day, Harold’s troops falling to William the Conqueror’s army. Life for the Anglo-Saxons was never the same again!

In recent times, stock market crashes have occurred on Fridays, spawning the phrase ‘Black Friday.’

The ancient Egyptians believed that people passed through twelve stages of life on earth and the thirteenth stage was the happy afterlife. When this belief was adopted by other cultures the association with happiness after death was lost and thirteen related simply to bad luck or death.

Witches’ covens are thought to have thirteen members and thirteen guests at a table presages disaster. In an Old Norse myth the god Odin invited eleven of the gods to a banquet. He did not invite the mischievous Loki to the feast but he heard about it and attended anyway. Loki caused an argument which resulted in the death of one of the gods.

Jesus sat down to the Last Supper with his twelve disciples. Judas Iscariot was one of the party of thirteen. He betrayed his master and killed himself.

Some hosts will seat a teddy bear or doll at a table where only thirteen people will gather. Towns often omit thirteen when numbering their streets, as do some hotels and airlines. Many high-rise blocks do not have a thirteenth floor. Italy’s national lottery doesn’t have a number thirteen.

So perhaps Friggatriskaidekaphobia is greater – it seems that the combination of an unlucky day with an unlucky number is just too terrifying to ignore.

   

However, in Spanish-speaking countries and in Greece it is Tuesday 13^th that is considered unlucky.