English history

Our modern mental maps of commons are woefully inadequate, in part because we have forgotten the history of commons and its once-flourishing folk culture. 

Leah Gordon, an English photographer, writer, and filmmaker has set out to fix that through a deep dive into the history of English commons. The result, produced with two collaborators, is her fascinating and beautiful book, Common People: A Folk History of Land Rights, Enclosure and Resistance. Her two partners in the project are Stephen Ellcock, a renowned visual curator, and writer Anabelle Edwards, who has studied alternative lifestyles that reject the modern market/state and its culture. 

Common People is a stunning visual portrayal of English commoners over the centuries. It looks at their everyday struggles, feelings, creativity, and cultures, bringing the human vitality of that world alive in ways that print usually does not. 

The book draws upon dozens of captivating paintings, etchings, and folk relics from English history as well as many contemporary photographs of commoners who carry on premodern traditions. The photos, taken by Gordon and Edwards, provide revealing glimpses into the eccentric, glorious, and sometimes unsettling realities of commoning as a culture.

There is the tradition of The Burryman, for example. For 1,000 years, on the second Friday in August, the English town of South Queensferry has selected a man to dress up in a costume covered with about 11,000 itchy plant burrs, with openings only for his eyes, nose, and mouth. The role can only be played by a man born there and “requires deep commitment,” said Gordon. The Burryman then walks a ceremonial nine-mile route while carrying flower-covered rakes, along with two attendants, and is frequently plied with shots of whiskey along the route. The origins of the tradition may have been to bring good luck to local fishermen or to commemorate the hiding of Scottish king Malcom III from the English, through this disguise.