Beating the Bounds.
By John T. Page.
In those early days, when deities were called into existence at the sweet will of every potentate, we note the fact that somewhere between the years 715-672 B.C., King Numa Pompilius introduced to the Roman citizens, the worship of the god Terminus. He originated a plan, by which the fields of the citizens were separated from each other by means of boundary stones, which stones were dedicated, and made sacred to the god Terminus. The Terminalia, as the festival of Terminus was called, was celebrated annually on the 23rd of February. On this day the people turned out in force, and visiting the different boundary stones, decked them with flowers, and performed sacrificial rites amid great rejoicings.
From the seventh century B.C., to the end of the nineteenth century of the Christian era is a long stride, but it is pretty generally considered that in this annual Terminalia of the ancient Romans, we have the germ of the custom known as “Beating the Bounds,” which in many parishes throughout England is still carried out annually.[16]
The early Christians readily adapted some of the best heathen customs to their own requirements, and thus we soon find them making a perambulation round their fields, accompanied by their bishops and clergy. They repeated litanies, and implored God to avert plague and pestilence, and to enable them in due season to reap the fruits of the earth. “The Litanies or Rogations then used gave the name of Rogation Week to this time. They occur as early as the 550th year of the Christian era, when they were first observed by Mamertius, Bishop of Vienna, on account of the frequent earthquakes that happened, and the incursions of wild beasts, which laid in ruins and depopulated the city.”[17]
Some idea of the importance which eventually came to be attached to this Rogation time, may be gathered from an old sermon, still extant, in which the preacher, after animadverting upon a growing misuse of the festival by certain people, tells them that for this cause “it is merveyle God destroye us not in one daye,”—and then proceeds as follows:—“In these Rogation Days, it is to be asked of God, and prayed for, that God of his goodness wyll defende and save the corne in the felde, and that he wyll vouchsave to pourge the ayer. For this cause be certaine Gospels red in the wide felde amonges the corne and grasse, that by the vertue and operation of God’s word, the power of the wicked spirites, which kepe in the air and infecte the same (whence come pestilences and the other kyndes of diseases and syknesses) may be layde downe, and the aier made pure and cleane, to th’ intent the corne may remaine unharmed, and not infected of the sayd hurteful spirites, but serve us for our use and bodely sustenaunce.”
In order that we may now get a better idea of what these processions were like, we cannot do better than turn to Shaw’s History of Staffordshire.[18] We there learn that “Among the local customs which have prevailed (at Wolverhampton), may be noticed that which was popularly called ‘Processioning.’ Many of the older inhabitants can well remember when the sacrist, resident prebendaries, and members of the choir, assembled at Morning Prayers on Monday and Tuesday in Rogation Week, with the charity children, bearing long poles clothed with all kinds of flowers then in season, and which were afterwards carried through the streets of the town with much solemnity, the clergy, singing men and boys, dressed in their sacred vestments, closing the procession, and chanting in a grave and appropriate melody, the Canticle, Benedicite Omnia Opera, etc.... It was discontinued about 1765.”
In the seventeenth century mention is often made of the Rogation week processions in the Articles of Enquiry in the different Archdeaconries. As an example we may cite the following from the Archdeaconry of Middlesex, under date 1662. “Doth your minister or curate, in Rogation Dayes, go in Perambulation about your Parish, saying and using the Psalms and Suffrages by Law appointed, as viz., Psalm 103 and 104, the Letany and Suffrages, together with the Homily, set out for that end and purpose? Doth he admonish people to give thanks to God, if they see any likely hopes of plenty, and to call upon him for mercy, if there be any fear of scarcity: and do you, the Churchwardens, assist him in it?”
The judicious Hooker “would by no means omit the customary time of Procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of love and their parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his Perambulation: and most did so: in which Perambulation he would usually express more pleasant discourse than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious observations, to be remembered against the next year, especially by the boys and young people.”[19]
As might have been expected, some very curious entries appear in the churchwardens’ books of different parishes relative to expenses incurred on the occasion of the annual procession. From the parish books of St. Margaret, Westminster, the following have been culled:—
“1555. Item, paid for spiced bread on the Ascension-Even, and on the Ascension Day, 1s.”
“1556. Item, paid for bread, wine, ale, and beer, upon the Ascension-Even and Day, against my Lord Abbott and his Covent cam in Procession, and for strewing herbs the samme day, 7s. 1d.”
“1559. Item, for bread, ale, and beer, on Tewisday in the Rogacion Weeke, for the parishioners that went in Procession, 1s.”
“1560. Item, for bread and drink for the parishioners that went the Circuit the Tuesday in the Rogation Week, 3s. 4d.”
“Item, for bread and drink the Wednesday in the Rogation Week, for Mr. Archdeacon and the Quire of the Minster, 3s. 4d.”
“1585. Item, paid for going the Perambulacion, for fish, butter, cream, milk, conger, bread and drink, and other necessaries, 4s. 8½d.”
“1597. Item, for the charges of diet at Kensington for the Perambulation of the Parish, being a yeare of great scarcity and deerness, £6 8s. 8d.”
“1605. Item, paid for bread, drink, cheese, fish, cream, and other necessaries, when the worshipfull and others of the parish went the Perambulation to Kensington, £15.”
By way of accessories, the customs of “whipping” and “bumping” gradually came to form part of the perambulation ceremony. In order that the boundaries of the parishes might be indelibly impressed on the minds of the younger portion of the community, it was deemed advisable to bump some promising boy painfully against the boundary stones; or better still, to publicly whip him while he strove to impress on his memory the exact position of the same land-marks.
As a set off against this public humiliation, the boys had a present of money given to them, and accordingly there appears an entry in the Chelsea parish books, in 1670, as follows:—
“Given to the boys that were whipt, 4s.”[20]
The process of “bumping” has been carried on until quite recently, for on June 8th, 1881, the Guardian reported a case in which three men who were engaged in “Beating the Bounds” were fined £5 each for forcibly “bumping” the senior curate of Hanwell. They met the curate and “asked him to go and be ‘bumped.’ Upon his declining, two of the defendants took hold of his arms and dragged him to the stone, one of the party taking him by the leg and lifting him bodily from the ground. On reaching the stone, they ‘bumped’ him against a man.”
It would take too long to mention all the numerous observances which still linger on in various places in connection with this ancient and interesting custom. In most parishes where it is still kept up, the ceremony is performed annually on Ascension Day. A friend of the writer thus describes the way in which it is carried out in one of the outlying districts of London:—
“We assembled, by invitation, at the Vestry Hall, about 10 o’clock a.m. I should think there were thirty or forty gentlemen present, including the rector, churchwardens, and various officers of the parish, and about the same number of schoolboys. The gentlemen wore rosettes, and carried rods, and the boys were provided with long willow wands decked with blue ribbons. The parish beadle, carrying the mace, marched in front. When we came to any of the boundary stones of the parish, they were duly examined to see if they were in their proper position, and then the boys gave three cheers, and beat them with their wands. We marched through private houses and warehouses, over walls, ditches, canals, etc., and were taken down the river in a barge, until at last we came to our starting-point again about 4-30 in the afternoon. The churchwardens then presented each of the boys with a new shilling and dismissed them.”
In these days of ordnance maps, there may be very little practical utility in “Beating the Bounds,” but as Wordsworth says:—
“Many precious relics
And customs of our rural ancestry
Are gone or stealing from us.”
Time is ever busy blotting out the land-marks which our ancestors reared with so much patience for our behoof. It is well, therefore, if occasionally, with reverential spirit, we try to set in order the fragments of those that still remain. In so doing, we may perchance cull some useful lesson, and ere they pass away for ever, haply profit by the experiences which they record.