Clan geography [was: women's initiation]

From: Benedict Adamson <ben_at_cd.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 14:06:38 +0100


[Jane Williams <jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk> despaired that playing Ernalda
initiation would require a detailed description of the geology (I'd say geography) of a clan's land. I suggested that, because clans are self sufficient
economic units, they would have some of all the important land types. Therefore detailed rules for determining the precise geography of a clan's land seems unnecessary.]
In different clans, the names of the places and earth spirits, etc. would be different, but the types of places and spirits found would be the same. A clan's
territory would not have an arbitrarily drawn boundary, which later transpired to contain particular geological, geographic and magical features. The clan would settle, then shape, quest, trade and fight for a region it could live on: the clan territory would necessarily contain particular geologic, geographic and magical features.

I said I would provide some RW references.

_The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms_,
ed. Steven Bassett,
Leicester University Press 1989,
ISBN 0-7185-1317-7. pg. 21:
[About the _regio_, that is, the district of, a people called the Rodings:]
`What is so striking about it is... the extent it conforms to the prevailing natural topography. It comprises a discrete block of the valley of the River Roding... and clearly contains a cross-section of all available land resources: it is geographically coherent... [This area is] exactly what one would expect a well organized, self contained community living under an economy of subsistence and exchange to have occupied.'
[The _regio_ is about 7x9 km. Another poster suggested that was about the
size of a Sartar clan.]

_A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food & Drink: Production & Distribution_, Anglo-Saxon Books 1995,
ISBN 1-898281-12-2. pg. 260:
`The landscape was structured in basic resource units consisting of arable, river-grazing areas, an intercommoning area, a large tract of rough pasture and woodland, some of which could be used for emergency cultivation or transhumance... Together they contained the types of area that could produce sheep, pigs and cattle as well as cereal crops and honey.'

pg. 261:
The legal standard Wessex food rent for a mere 10 hides included honey, loaves & ale, bullocks or wethers, geese & hens, cheese & butter, salmon & eels, and fodder: even small regions apparently had various land types.

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