[MR] Wikipedia: Clattern Bridge and Cucking Stools
Garth Groff via Atlantia
atlantia at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Thu Feb 2 02:16:28 PST 2017
Noble Friends,
Please excuse the obvious sexist implications of this post. It is part
of our middle-ages heritage, and is also very interesting.
One of today's featured Wikipedia articles concerns Clattern Bridge in
the Kingston section of greater London. This bridge is said to be the
oldest intact bridge in England, and in its original form dates to 1175.
The original bridge has been spansonned out twice with brick sections as
traffic grew. That it still carries modern automobile traffic is
testament to its solid construction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clattern_Bridge .
The story mentions that the bridge was used as the goal in an annual
foot ball (yes, the space is intentional; that's how it is usually
described in historical documents) game played on Shrove Tuesday. It
also mentions that the bridge was the site where scolds were ducked.
Now, this is the sexist part. Scold ducking, or cucking, was a minor
punishment visited upon women for gossip or other unruly conduct, and
occasionally men as well. The offender, or victim, was bound into a
chair and carried through the town to shame them. In its most extreme
form, the chair was dunked into a river or pond. Special cucking-stools
attached to long poles were used in some locations, and several survive
in British museums. Cucking is mentioned in various documents from the
middle ages including PIERS PLOWMAN. You can read more about this form
of punishment and see examples of the chairs at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucking_stool .
Yours Aye,
Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge
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