A Traveling Hill

I’m trying to enrich my understanding of an event in Herefordshire in the late 16th century. Here’s what happened, according to John Speed and William Camden’s Theater of the Empire of Great Britaine:

But more admirable was the worke of the Omnipotent even in our owne remembrances, and yeere of Christ Iesus 1571. When the Marcley Hill in the East of this Shire rouzed it selfe out of a dead sleepe, with a roaring noise removed from the place where it stood, and for three daies together travelled from her first site, to the great amazement and feare of the beholders. It began to journey upon the seventh day of February, being Saturday, at six of the clocke at night, and by seven in the next morning had gone fortie Pases, carrying with it Sheepe in their coates, hedge-rowes, and trees; whereof some were overturned, and some that stood upon the Plaine, are firmely growing upon the Hill, those that were East, were turned West; and those in the West were set in the East: in which remove it overthrew Kinnaston Chappell, and turned two high-wales neere a hundred yards from their usuall paths formerly trod. The ground thus travelling, was about twenty six Acres, which opening it selfe with Rocks and all, bare the Earth before it for foure hundred yards space without any stay, leaving that which was Pasturage in place of the Tillage, and the Tillage overspread with Pasturage. Lastly, overwhelming her lower parts, mounted to an hill of twelue fadomes high, and there rested herselfe after three daies travell.(1)

The note in this copy indicates that most of the text comes from Camden’s Britannia, but the earliest editions of this work (in Latin) do not contain a reference to the event, so I’m guessing this is all John Speed’s addition. The date is also a little uncertain. Some (much) later references to this event say it happened in 1575, and one says it occurred on February 17. All, however, seem to be derived from Speed’s account in 1612. Yet Speed himself calls the date “Saturday” in one edition and “Sunday” in another. February 7, 1571 was a Wednesday (ecclesiastical year) or a Tuesday (legal year) according to the historical calendar app I wrote, which is always right. I’m hoping to find some ephemera at the Newberry Library, not indexed in EEBO, that can help clarify the source.

And why, you might ask, is it relevant? Well, first of all Hereford is held up as an epitome of England’s pastoral countryside. As Speed and Camden put it,

No place in England yeeldeth more, or better conditioned: sweet rivers running as veines in the body, doe make the corne-bearing grounds in some of her parts rightly to be termed the Gilden Vale: and for waters, wooll, and wheat, doth contend with Nilus, Colchose, and Egypt: such are Lemster and Irchenfeild, the banks of Wye, Luge, and Frome.(2)

That means that landscape descriptions for Hereford are particularly important in understanding attitudes toward the environment in England more widely. Second, the language of the passage, which literally animates the landscape, is bizarre, as is the concentration of agricultural images: pasturage, tillage, sheep, etc. This feels to me like language originating from near the source. Finally, Hereford was also the site of rapid environmental change in the agricultural landscape, a change sometimes contested even in terms of the relative proportions of tillage and pasturage. This event is oddly contiguous with that environmental change.

1. John Speed and William Camden, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine Presenting an Exact Geography of the Kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Iles Adioyning: With the Shires, Hundreds, Cities and Shire-Townes, within Ye Kingdome of England, Divided and Described by Iohn Speed. (London, 1612). p. 49.
   
2. Ibid.