ANGLO-SAXON TUNS AND VILLS
1. A good many Britons no doubt settled down with the Saxons as
slaves, and that probably accounts for so many of the natural features
of the country--the rivers and hills--keeping their old British
names. The British villages must have had names, but those villages
were apparently destroyed, and the slaves would be settled near the
homesteads which their conquerors set up.
2. In fixing on a place for a "tun" the Saxons would choose a valley
rather than a hill, usually near a running stream, or a plentiful
supply of water. At the present time nearly all over England we can
find villages which have not been touched by modern improvements and
alterations; and most of these show something even now of their Saxon
origin.
3. For instance, in the county of Rutland there is a village named
Exton, which has for many centuries kept several features which show
its connection with Saxon days. Its name Ex-ton seems to be compounded
of the British word "ex", which means "water", and the Saxon "ton" or
"tun", which means the "enclosure"--"the tun by the water". There,
sure enough, flowing by the village, is the River Gwash; just such
a stream as the Saxons loved. In the middle of the village is the
triangular open space, or village green. Round it the houses are
thickly clustered together, with hardly any garden ground at the back
or in front, and most of them with none at all. Outside the ring of
houses are small grass fields or closes, where calves and cows feed,
and poultry run. These little fields form a kind of ring round the
village, and the hedges enclosing them represent the old fence of Saxon
days, which formed the "tun". Beyond this are wider pasture-grounds and
big plough-lands, stretching away in several directions up the gentle
slopes.
[Illustration: THE VILLAGE GREEN, EXTON, RUTLANDSHIRE (page 33)]
4. You will be able to find a good many villages which have some
resemblance to Exton; they answer very closely to the Anglo-Saxon
=vill= and the Anglo-Saxon town, for town and village were laid out on
the same principle.
5. Now look at some little sleepy country town, and you will see
much the same arrangement as in the village. The wide open space in
the middle, where the town pump stands, and where the market is held,
answers to the village green. Though this is often spoken of as the
Market Square, it is usually more like a triangle in shape than a
square.
6. The old houses round the market square are built very closely one
into the other, and with queer narrow alleys leading to houses behind
those in front; much in the same way as the houses are clustered round
the village green. Round the outskirts of the town, at the back of the
houses, are small green closes or paddocks. Beyond them are the larger
meadows and pastures; then the wide corn-lands and woods; and, not far
away, the heath or common.
7. The Saxon settlements, the "tuns" or "vills", whether they
afterwards became what we now understand as "towns" or "cities", or
remained what we call villages, had all the same chief features. Just
as ordinary school-rooms are all pretty much alike, because they all
have to serve much the same purpose, so the Saxon settlements were very
similar in their general plan.
8. There was the open place, where people met and the folk-moot was
held, surrounded by the houses of stone or wood, in which the people
lived. Around these lay the grass yards or common homestead; and,
beyond them, the arable and pasture lands, with patches of moorland and
forest.
9. But outside the actual "tun" there would be something connected with
the Saxon settlement which you would be sure to notice. After you had
passed the boundary to the tun, you would see no hedgerows, or walls,
dividing the land into fields. The arable land was one huge field.
Its position would depend, of course, upon the nature of the soil
and the lie of the land. You would not expect to find it down in the
water-meadows, through which the river flowed; it would be higher up,
out of the reach of floods; perhaps on the hillsides.
10. Then, you would see the huge field, ploughed in long strips, about
a furlong in length, that is, a "furrow long", and one or two perches
in breadth. Between the ploughed strips would be narrow unploughed
strips, on which, in places, brambles would grow. The heath-lands and
moorlands were uncultivated tracts, where rough timber and underwood
grew, which was cut and lopped by the people of the vill under certain
conditions. There were no formal spinneys[2], nor wide stretches of
old timber, such as we nowadays expect to see in a forest. In places
the forests contained old timber, and were thick with undergrowth, and
infested with wild animals, such as wolves and boars. The name =forest=
was often given to an uncultivated district, not much differing from a
rough common, where sheep, cattle, and swine could pick up a living.
=Summary.=--Anglo-Saxons _tuns_ and _vills_ were usually in a
valley near a stream, with a meeting-place or green in the middle,
and the houses built round it. At the back were small closes, and
all was surrounded by a fence. Outside was the big common field,
reaching up the slope, and beyond these the wide pasture-grounds.
In many old villages and towns something of this arrangement can
still be seen.