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Origins of Individual Freedom

• Message 1. 

  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Monday, 10th October 2005

  I saw a programme in the "Britain BC" series yesterday which raised an interesting point at the end. The presenter (Frances Pryor?) mentioned that the belief in individual freedom was often seen as a "good old Anglo-Saxon virtue" which had been exported via the British Empire. He made the point that individual freedom is regarded even more strongly among the British celtic nations, where the Anglo-Saxons never really reached. His point was that perhaps the origins of the belief that each individual has a right to personal freedom may actually be rooted in the pre-Roman culture of the Britons.
  
  Maybe he has a point.
  
  

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• Message 2

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  Posted by ap Tom (U1380901) on Monday, 10th October 2005

  Why did he say this? I saw some of the series when it was originally broadcast, but I don't remember this. Was it relevant to the programme; or was it just another of his messages to mankind (or at least the people of the British Isles)?

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Monday, 10th October 2005

  It was right at the end of the programme. I'm afraid I did not see it all, but what I did see was centred on the culture of the Britons with particular emphasis on the spiritual.

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Monday, 10th October 2005

  I'm not sure, you mean like those wetland and highland areas the Germanic incomers seem to have avoided? I do seem to remember that this was at the end of the programme documenting the spread of the Bell Beaker assemblages into the Megalithic zones of Europe. This coincided with a shift away from the communal burial practices of passage graves and causeway enclosures to single graves with personal belongings notably the Bell Beaker jar of about one litre volume. Note how he is supping a pint of Guiness when commenting on this. Its not a coincidence as the Beakers are thought to have been used for the consumption of alcoholic beverages representing the acceptance of drinking culture into these isles. This would also suggest a change to emphasis on the individual as opposed to the community in ritual activity with personal ownership of a beaker and drinking from your own tankard. I'm sure choice of drink played into the suggestion of the most what with its Celtic image.
  
  Mind the Amesbury Archer appears to have grown up in central Europe so maybe it wasn't entirely British. Look up the development of Corded wares on the continent.

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Monday, 10th October 2005

  Drat...
  
  I'm sure choice of drink played into the suggestion ... about the development of personal identity... what with its Celtic image.

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  Posted by shufflin' peasant (U1778121) on Tuesday, 11th October 2005

  Mediaeval historians had a longstanding and often quite bitter debate on this point from the late ‘70s to the early ‘90s.
  
  It was precipitated by Alan Macfarlane’s publication of The Origins of English Individualism, based upon the first major computerised study of an English village (Earls Colne) over several centuries using records of local government, estates and churches. Macfarlane advanced that the individual, rather than the family unit or wider kin and community groups, was the principal driving force in areas such as the purchase of land and tenual agreements.
  
  This analysis has been pretty much rejected by historians on both sides of the Atlantic who now view the community (or more accurately a number of interlocking communities) as more significant than individual identity. For the best summary of the rejection of Macfarlane’s case see Whittle ‘The Development of Agrarian Capitalism’ for the best summary of the state of play of current Medieval historiography see Schofield ‘Peasant and Community in Medieval England’.
  

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 11th October 2005

  Good points, wasn't till Thatcher that anyone said there was no such thing as community. I suppose like most of the series he was trying to dispel presumptions derived from nineteenth century attitudes about the the Germanic origins of the English in comparison to the Celtic fringe. One might look at Teddy Roosevelt's belief in the Anglo Saxon pioneering spirit and individual drive that built the west. Mind you Sergio Leone debunks the whole notion brilliantly in the Spaghetti Westerns.
  
  From what little I know of medievle property relationships and rights these seem to have been granted on a communal basis as opposed to individuals, at least this is the case with the Mowbrays and the Isle of Axholme. Aerial photographs of the lansdscape between Haxey and Epworth show the medievle strip farm alignments which were never really abandoned until the adoption of modern prairie farming techniques.

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