What the Practice of ‘Pricking the Lites’ Tells Us About Territorial Division in Anglo-Saxon England

As cheekily noted by Ned Donovan on his Twitter feed, HM the Q has recently engaged in the old practice of ‘pricking the lites’ to appoint High Sheriffs for the three ceremonial counties of Lancashire, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside. But in order to know what ‘pricking the lites’ is it’s worth looking at the territorial division of Anglo-Saxon England and the old offices that emerged therefrom.

In those days, the land was divided into hides, a hide being the amount of land on which a family lived and supported itself. Ten hides together were known as a tithing, and ten tithings were collectively a hundred.

As hundreds go, the best-known today are the Chiltern Hundreds because of the parliamentary role they play. Members of Parliament are not allowed to resign, but nor are they allowed to hold an office of profit under the Crown.

So whenever an MP wants to resign, he or she is appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham and, having accepted such office, is deemed to have disqualified themselves from continuing to sit in the House of Commons. (The Manor of Northstead is also used alternately with the Chiltern Hundreds.)

Anyhow, each hundred was supervised by a constable, and groups of hundreds were collected into shires. Each shire was overseen by an earl, of whom the French equivalent is a count, so after the Normans turned up shires became more often known as counties. These now divvy up territory across the English-speaking world, from Kenya to California.

Each level of these Anglo-Saxon divisions had a relevant court for decision-making, and the officer who administered or enforced these decisions was known as the reeve. Amongst these titles – town-reeve and reeve of the manor, etc. – there was the shire-reeve, or sheriff as it was contracted.

In the 1970s, for reasons unknown to me, all the sheriffs in England & Wales were elevated to high shrievalties.

Every February or March, a parchment is prepared for the Queen in her capacity as Duke of Lancaster with three names of candidates for high sheriff in the three current ceremonial counties covered by the old duchy. This parchment is known as the lites (a cognate of ‘list’, I believe).

At a meeting of the Privy Council, the Queen takes a silver bodkin and pricks the parchment next to the name of the candidate she chooses to be high sheriff. In practice, this is always the first name on the list, and customarily the following names move up a notch and serve in later years.

A similar process takes place for the Duke of Cornwall to appoint their high sherriff but without the aid of the Privy Council.

The Friedhofskapelle, or cemetery chapel, in Herrsching on the Ammersee in Upper Bavaria is a wonderful model of a small church or chapel.

It was designed in 1926 by Roderich Fick, who was a disciple of Theodor Fischer. Herr Fick participated in an expedition to traverse Greenland and joined the German colonial service in Cameroon, after the war moving to Herrsching in 1920.

During the Third Reich he was tasked with redesigning the city of Linz where Hitler had spent his childhood, but the dictator found Fick’s plans somewhat restrained, while Martin Bormann was constantly picking fights with the architect. The dominant style of the regime did not align with Fick’s preference for humble, unpretentious tradition in building design.

After the war he was sentenced to aid in the reconstruction of Munich, and also helped restore the magnificent Town Hall of Augsburg.

Our monthly Mass in St Wilfrid’s Chapel for the Order of Malta Volunteers. In the summer we sometimes fit about thirty people into the chapel but in the winter months volunteers tend to hibernate more. It being Lent has made everyone that little bit more morose and less keen on activity.

In accordance with custom since time immemorial, we all head to the Bunch of Grapes for drinks afterwards. Many are off the sauce as a Lenten penance, so miserable lime-and-sodas are aplenty. It is revealed that Rosie M. is an avid drummer. Didn’t you see the massive drum set when you walked into the farmhouse? No, because it was only about three seconds after I came through the door that you were already hurling insults. (Torturing Cusack seems to be a particular vocation amongst two-fifths of the M. sisters.)

The pub has suffered several improvements lately which occasioned its closing for several weeks. For a time refugees poured off to the Horrorglass or, my preference, the Star Tavern just a few minutes’ walk away in Belgravia. But return to the B.O.G. we must. It is now a little shinier, and some of the seating less convenient, but other aspects seem better (the lighting fixtures, I suppose). The staff, thank God, are exactly the same.

On Sunday afternoons there is now a gentleman who sits there and does the crossword and sometimes makes the occasional remark if he disapproves of the turn our conversation has gone. We must endeavour to provoke him – we were here first, after all.

A book launch at the Society of Antiquaries. I arrive at the same time as one of Queen Victoria’s great-granddaughters who inexplicably has a German accent despite having moved to this country just after the war when she was five or six years old. We do the washing-up together at a soup kitchen every week and for some reason we break out into laughter whenever we see one another. Nikolaus turns up so I introduce them and off they go. You are from Leipzig? I am from Coburg!

While cold outside it is of course too warm indoors and nary a window is opened. Nae bother. Another glass of white, please. Across the room I see The Young Major chatting merrily to The Army Doctor, probably conspiring against me. Liam and I talk about Athlone during the Civil War. Serenhedd gives no hints as to who will be the next provost of Oriel. Afterwards, a handful of us end up at what is allegedly the Queen’s favourite restaurant, off Berkeley Square.

To Marylebone for a supper with the local Conservative ward in Dorset Square. I have been attempting to help out with the party since I was a teenager at uni in Scotland, where our association was led by the ever-capable Stuart Paterson. (When Stuart did a year abroad in Germany, I had him write a ‘Bonn Voyage’ column for the student newspaper I edited.)

Campaigning in Westminster North last year, I came across a gang of rastas sitting on their front step enjoying the sunshine and drinking Lambrini. Naturally I engaged these gentlemen in conversation, apologising for my interruption of the beautiful afternoon and enquiring as to their voting intentions. The leader of the pack said he would be more than happy to vote Conservative but asked what reward they might receive for this virtuous act.

“Who knows, they might give you a peerage,” I suggested, careful not to cause an inducement that might transgress the Political Parties, Elections, and Referendums Act 2000. “OK OK – but Lord isn’t good enough,” our chief said in a thick West Indian accent. “I want to be a duke!” (I’d prefer a viscountcy myself, but I couldn’t help admire his vision.) “Yes, but if you are made a duke, what will you be duke of?” Our Jamaican friend raised his cheap bottle to the sky and said “DUKE OF LAMBRINI!” I insisted I couldn’t make any promises but that I would have a word with the Prime Minister, but only if we won the seat.

Given that we often associate an interest in politics with tiresome boors, one is always slightly surprised how fun and interesting most of the people you meet at Conservative party events are, and Wednesday was no exception. In addition to new people there were some good old faces as well (Gudmund, Pritchett, and of course E.M. who got us there in the first place.) I apologised to Mark Field MP that I was no longer his constituent, having moved from Pimlico to Waterloo, but my MP there is Kate Hoey who is a Brexit-voting pro-foxhunting Labourite from County Antrim, beloved of many Tories.

To Spitalfields for a drinks party in Mariga Guinness’s old townhouse now inhabited by (amongst others) a black Labrador named Ralphie. The evening was a tribute to Mariga organised by the London chapter of the Irish Georgian Society. In addition to founding the Society in 1958 with her husband Desmond Guinness, she was also almost single-handedly responsible for the revival of run-down neglected old crime-ridden Spitalfields, whose Georgian houses with their particular style are now highly prized.

The historian Dan Cruickshank was on hand to elaborate on how this came about and Mariga’s skillful charm in wooing councillors, politicians, neighbours, and future residents and to tell us of the wonderful parties that were held in these very rooms.

In addition to its history and its architecture, the neighbourhood boasts one of the finest London-centric blogs in existence, the eternally interesting Spitalfields Life, written by the Gentle Author. I tried to prod one of our hosts into revealing the identity of the Gentle Author, who alas couldn’t make it that evening, but a sturdy silence was maintained and the Author’s anonymity safeguarded. Secrets are safe in Spitalfields.

Disgracefully I had never been to St Mary’s Church in Cadogan Street, Chelsea, until this day, and it took the funeral of dear Ann’s sister to get me there. It is a beautiful church, the sanctuary curiously quite English, especially when one considers it was designed by Bentley who was responsible for the Byzanto-Edwardian cathedral church at Westminster we love so well. The church was founded in the 1810s by the Abbé Jean Voyaux de Franous, who took on the spiritual care of the Catholic pensioners at the Royal Hospital Chelsea nearby.

The brief eulogy after Mass pointed out that Ena-Maria was not known for her punctuality. Once arriving at a house in northern France, having driven from climes further south, she was greeted by her hostess and apologised deeply for turning up two hours later. “My dear Ena-Maria!” came the reply, “You are not two hours late, you are twenty-six hours late!”

Besides anecdotes of the departed, the conversation at the reception following turned to a variety of subjects: Brexit, the Hapsburgs, Romy Schneider, that sort of thing.

It is already a whole year since Sharon Jennings shuffled off this mortal coil. A whole gang of us, perhaps a dozen or so – family, friends, clergy, and dogs – gathered at her graveside to pray the Rosary and say the Vespers of the Dead. The sun hung low in the sky, peeking occasionally through the clouds to illuminate the lump of earth where Sharon’s remains now await the end of time and the raising of the dead.

The next day a Year’s Mind Mass was offered for the repose of her soul in the St George’s Chapel of Westminster Cathedral, where the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham that she lovingly restored is displayed. In his homily, Canon Tuckwell mentioned that Sharon was “a woman of surprises”, one of which was the revelation at her death that her up-til-then well-hidden middle name was Anona.

My last memory is of visiting her in hospital. “What’s the prognosis then?” “Death, guy.” (She called everyone ‘guy’). Soon enough she was onto her favourite subject of who had been awful lately and great kindnesses and which priest was being insufferable and did-you-hear-about-what’s-her-name and that sodding you-know-who.

Sharon was a mother, wife, playwright, poet, artist, writer, gin-drinker, and friend and dearly missed by all who knew her. She was also a collector of people – waifs and strays of many kinds – and it was testament to her continual kindness, generosity, and hospitality that so many people have taken the time to gather and pray for the repose of her soul a year after her death. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

(more…)

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