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The Debatable Land: The Lost World Between Scotland and England
The Debatable Land was an independent territory which used to exist between Scotland and England. It is the oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain. At the height of its notoriety, it was the bloodiest region in the country, and preoccupied the monarchs and parliaments of England, Scotland and France. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be conquered and brought under the control of a state. Today, it has vanished from the map and no one knows exactly where and what it was.
When Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, he discovered that the river which almost surrounded his new home had once marked the Debatable Land’s southern boundary. Under the powerful spell of curiosity, Robb began a journey – on foot, by bicycle and into the past – that would uncover lost towns and roads, shed new light on the Dark Age, reveal the truth about this maligned patch of land, and lead to more than one discovery of major historical significance.
For the first time – and with all of his customary charm, wit and literary grace – Graham Robb, prize-winning author of The Discovery of France, has written about his native country. The Debatable Land is an epic and energetic book that takes us from 2016 back to an age when neither England nor Scotland could be imagined to reveal a crucial, missing piece in the puzzle of British history.
When Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, he discovered that the river which almost surrounded his new home had once marked the Debatable Land’s southern boundary. Under the powerful spell of curiosity, Robb began a journey – on foot, by bicycle and into the past – that would uncover lost towns and roads, shed new light on the Dark Age, reveal the truth about this maligned patch of land, and lead to more than one discovery of major historical significance.
For the first time – and with all of his customary charm, wit and literary grace – Graham Robb, prize-winning author of The Discovery of France, has written about his native country. The Debatable Land is an epic and energetic book that takes us from 2016 back to an age when neither England nor Scotland could be imagined to reveal a crucial, missing piece in the puzzle of British history.
418 pages, Hardcover
First published February 8, 2018
132 people are currently reading
1238 people want to read
About the author
Graham Robb
27 books160 followersGraham Macdonald Robb FRSL (born June 2, 1958) is a British author.
Robb was born in Manchester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester and Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Modern Languages. He earned a PhD in French literature at Vanderbilt University.
He won the 1997 Whitbread Book Award for best biography (Victor Hugo) and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Rimbaud in 2001. In 2007, he won the Duff Cooper Prize for The Discovery of France.
On April 28, 2008 he was awarded the £10,000 Ondaatje Prize by the Royal Society of Literature in London for The Discovery of France.
Robb was born in Manchester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester and Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Modern Languages. He earned a PhD in French literature at Vanderbilt University.
He won the 1997 Whitbread Book Award for best biography (Victor Hugo) and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Rimbaud in 2001. In 2007, he won the Duff Cooper Prize for The Discovery of France.
On April 28, 2008 he was awarded the £10,000 Ondaatje Prize by the Royal Society of Literature in London for The Discovery of France.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
December 14, 2019
An anomaly of geography, the Debatable Land has a rich history stretching far into the past. For a thousand years before the arrival of the Romans this area, about five miles wide and ten miles long, was neutral ground at the juncture of the lands of three tribes. Free passage was permitted to get goods to the Solway Firth, and anyone could pasture flocks there from dawn to dusk, but no one could settle in them. The word Debatable comes from the now obsolete verb “batten,” which meant fattening livestock. The agreement lasted an impressively long time, as shown in the fact that this area is almost completely devoid of traces of human habitation during this period. The only things that have been found are a piece of a bridal and two apparently sacrificed cattle. It is one of the ironies of history that the Debatable Land went from being a peaceful place to one of most famously violent stretches of ground on earth.
Graham Robb, the author if this book, did a great deal of research into the history of this area. As England and Scotland emerged as modern states, the bureaucracy of laws, legal documents, surveys, wills, and reports was created as well, and Robb used them to create a surprisingly complete picture of this land and its people.
Located at the western end of the border between England and Scotland the Debatable Land was claimed by both at a time when national borders moved back and forth depending on which armies were successful at any given time. In the fifteenth century clans from both north and south, under the pressure of expanding populations, began moving in. Raiding, pillaging, and destruction came with them.
Even so, in the beginning a sort of rough local justice prevailed. People who had had their goods stolen or destroyed could submit an itemized list to the magistrates and expect some compensation from the raiders. The word “blackmail” is often said to have originated in the Debatable Lands, although in fact it is earlier attested elsewhere. It started as a kind of insurance policy, where landowners could pay a clan leader a certain rate per livestock or for household goods, and the clan would guarantee to either get them back or pay compensation for them. Only later did the word become associated with criminals and extortion.
Graham Robb also discovered an interesting thing in these lists of legal complaints and resolutions. Many of the raiders’ names appear only once, leading to the possibility that the raids were more of a one-time right of passage for clan members than a regular part of their lives. This idea is further supported by the fact that the documents mention very few murders, and most of those were committed by a single criminal gang outside the clan structure. The raids were designed to bolster clan strength and cohesion by theft and destruction, but killing was apparently not part of the plan.
The clans considered themselves neither English nor Scottish, but were willing to claim either nationality as it suited their interests. However, they got caught up in the game of thrones as the two nations used them to further their own plans. Both England and Scotland were cynically willing to use the clan rivalries to their own advantage, by terrorizing the people and destabilizing the local power structures.
The old system of local laws and compensation broke down. English Wardens declared blackmail punishable by death even though the local farmers found it helpful and wanted it to continue, and raids became bloodier, more violent, and more frequent, often extending deep into the opposing side’s territory and towns.
It was only after the unification of the two kingdoms that peace began to settle on the region. A formal survey divided the Debatable Land between the two nations, and common laws and law enforcement, which included hanging a number of the clan leaders, brought the raids to an end. Today, only a hazy memory remains of these times, perpetuated by dramatic but inaccurate local history and museum displays. The Border Reivers themselves, who were thugs and thieves and occasional murderers, have been raised to the status of folk heroes. For this they largely have Sir Walter Scott to thank, by romanticizing their exploits and publishing their supposedly ancient ballads (many of which he is suspected of having written himself).
The last part of the book takes a surprising detour into ancient maps and even King Arthur. Ptolomy’s map of the British Isles has long been dismissed as mostly fiction, but Robb was able to show that by using simple drawing software to distort the maps so that the distances between points were corrected, the overall map becomes surprisingly accurate, allowing previously unidentifiable Roman settlements to be correctly plotted and fit into the available histories.
He also raises the possibility that the Arthurian legends stem from a Scottish invasion of Roman Britain about 180 AD. Certainly something happened around that time, as previously undefended Roman towns across England hastily raised walls and improved their defenses. There was even a Roman general of that time whose name could be the basis for Arthur. It is an intriguing idea, and Robb backs it up with some evidence and some clever extrapolation, but it is not widely accepted by historians.
This is an interesting book, about an area few people are familiar with. It is well written and well researched. Anyone with an interest in British history would enjoy reading it.
Graham Robb, the author if this book, did a great deal of research into the history of this area. As England and Scotland emerged as modern states, the bureaucracy of laws, legal documents, surveys, wills, and reports was created as well, and Robb used them to create a surprisingly complete picture of this land and its people.
Located at the western end of the border between England and Scotland the Debatable Land was claimed by both at a time when national borders moved back and forth depending on which armies were successful at any given time. In the fifteenth century clans from both north and south, under the pressure of expanding populations, began moving in. Raiding, pillaging, and destruction came with them.
Even so, in the beginning a sort of rough local justice prevailed. People who had had their goods stolen or destroyed could submit an itemized list to the magistrates and expect some compensation from the raiders. The word “blackmail” is often said to have originated in the Debatable Lands, although in fact it is earlier attested elsewhere. It started as a kind of insurance policy, where landowners could pay a clan leader a certain rate per livestock or for household goods, and the clan would guarantee to either get them back or pay compensation for them. Only later did the word become associated with criminals and extortion.
Graham Robb also discovered an interesting thing in these lists of legal complaints and resolutions. Many of the raiders’ names appear only once, leading to the possibility that the raids were more of a one-time right of passage for clan members than a regular part of their lives. This idea is further supported by the fact that the documents mention very few murders, and most of those were committed by a single criminal gang outside the clan structure. The raids were designed to bolster clan strength and cohesion by theft and destruction, but killing was apparently not part of the plan.
The clans considered themselves neither English nor Scottish, but were willing to claim either nationality as it suited their interests. However, they got caught up in the game of thrones as the two nations used them to further their own plans. Both England and Scotland were cynically willing to use the clan rivalries to their own advantage, by terrorizing the people and destabilizing the local power structures.
Within those fifty square miles, by parliamentary decrees issued by both countries in 1537 and 1551, ‘all Englishmen and Scottishmen are and shall be free to rob, burn, spoil, slay, murder and destroy, all every such person and persons, their bodies, property, goods and livestock...without any redress to be made for same.’ By all accounts they availed themselves of the privilege. Under Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James V, and James VI, the Debatable Land had been the bloodiest region in Britain. (p. 3)
The old system of local laws and compensation broke down. English Wardens declared blackmail punishable by death even though the local farmers found it helpful and wanted it to continue, and raids became bloodier, more violent, and more frequent, often extending deep into the opposing side’s territory and towns.
It was only after the unification of the two kingdoms that peace began to settle on the region. A formal survey divided the Debatable Land between the two nations, and common laws and law enforcement, which included hanging a number of the clan leaders, brought the raids to an end. Today, only a hazy memory remains of these times, perpetuated by dramatic but inaccurate local history and museum displays. The Border Reivers themselves, who were thugs and thieves and occasional murderers, have been raised to the status of folk heroes. For this they largely have Sir Walter Scott to thank, by romanticizing their exploits and publishing their supposedly ancient ballads (many of which he is suspected of having written himself).
The last part of the book takes a surprising detour into ancient maps and even King Arthur. Ptolomy’s map of the British Isles has long been dismissed as mostly fiction, but Robb was able to show that by using simple drawing software to distort the maps so that the distances between points were corrected, the overall map becomes surprisingly accurate, allowing previously unidentifiable Roman settlements to be correctly plotted and fit into the available histories.
He also raises the possibility that the Arthurian legends stem from a Scottish invasion of Roman Britain about 180 AD. Certainly something happened around that time, as previously undefended Roman towns across England hastily raised walls and improved their defenses. There was even a Roman general of that time whose name could be the basis for Arthur. It is an intriguing idea, and Robb backs it up with some evidence and some clever extrapolation, but it is not widely accepted by historians.
This is an interesting book, about an area few people are familiar with. It is well written and well researched. Anyone with an interest in British history would enjoy reading it.
January 4, 2018
Fascinating stuff, showing once again how the United Kingdom is a modern construct that has no right or reason to last forever. Also fascinating for how the London-based power used the 'create mayhem' tactic on its own citizens that it continues to use on foreign entities it wishes to destabilize and profit from today.
June 24, 2020
I did struggle with this one. For me , the book seemed to take too many routes - memoir, historical research paper, nature /landscape journal . I always tend to sigh when authors take the 'aren't northerners quirky' route ,when writing about places they move to , from the south ,to settle down. Finding a large house, formerly owned by a government minister, to buy and then try and emerse into the local 'ways'. Generally locals are going about their lives working , driving buses , working in shops...doing stuff to live and haven't got time to be well versed in the minutiae of their local history. Does that make them like characters in a 1950s film , that are quirky and a tad humorous. I found a part in the final paragraph rather patronising, when he was sharing his opinions about the European referendum result , and the decisions of the local Cumbrians to vote out. Suggesting that northern english working classes were less informed , often poorly educated , compared to the more enlightened Scots. This lack of knowledge ,he informed us, was in part due to local Cumbrian papers that praised young people for staying at home , rather than going to university. How this could have been the explanation for people making their own opinions on the referendum? I am Northern ,went to uni in the South , came back North, have done well and can make informed decisions about regional and national issues. I think my fellow northerners, who did not have this 'privilege' are more than capable of also making their own decisions .I was neither a Brexiter or a remainer , more an undecider -not through lack of information , more as a result of the irritating noises coming from either side. What I do believe in , is people should not be patronised for what they decide . Also he found people who didn't know how to get more information about the vote , I guess he could have 'educated ' them. Speaking to one local lady that said ' information seemed a rare commodity' for her in Cumbria. Well that explains it all then -phew! The opinions about the Scottish referendum were much less patronisng , I suppose, in case these old reiver families might come and get him , living as he did , in a big house ,in the debatable lands! Easy to point fingers at the northern english and to toady up with the Scots. All ,told the research on the historical parts was very detailed (for that the 3 stars but for the northern english stuff a 2 stars), though the maps needed to be at the front . I missed them until the very end . Also many interesting historical facts that i would have liked him to pursue more .
March 30, 2018
Fascinating material, well written, but lacks a bit in terms of structure. Oxford professor relocates to the English/Scottish border north of Carlisle. (The border actually runs through his new garden) to find that he is actually on the edge of something of an anomalous zone, a sort of agreed no man's land that until the C16th was neither England nor Scotland. The book really falls into three parts. A sort of first person bit about moving to a new location and embarking on a completely different life style (there are lots of long bike rides and a certain mount of tramping through bogs); a middle section which gives a good account of the history of the area; and a third part in which the author offers a major re-interpretation of Ptolemy's early map of Great Britain, and a theory that King Arthur was a Scottish (if the word meant anything then) figure fighting against the Romans. The middle section was good, and the last section is of some substance, but different in tone to the rest of the book.
July 2, 2020
A fascinating, insightful read on "The Debatable Land," a contentious wedge of territory between England and Scotland that was once roamed by Romans, reivers, and these days, by likewise independent sorts. It is a land rich in history--and many mysteries. This is a book that doesn't come up with answers, but thoughtful, scholarly perspectives on a geography little changed over centuries.
June 5, 2020
I read this book very slowly, not because I wasn't enjoying it but because I found it totally absorbing and wanted to spin it out as long as possible. In 2010 the author and his wife upped sticks from Oxford to head as far north in England as you can go. A stretch of the Scottish/English border runs through their garden. The aim was to move closer to family in Scotland and to find somewhere to write and to cycle, a passion for both husband and wife. Graham Robb soon discovered that the river which runs around their property once marked another border, that of the Debatable Land, a piece of territory he describes as being a buffer between Scotland and England in the days when the two countries were often at war with each other.
On his cycling trips in the surrounding area he began to unearth fascinating stories of a sometimes forgotten, sometimes contested history. This was the area of the feared Border Reivers, people with names such as Armstrong, Elliott, Henderson, Nixon, Maxwell and Graham. There's a bloody history here, with much fighting and destruction going over decades and centuries.
This wasn't always a straightforward Scotland versus England fight. There were cross-border marriages too, even though there was a period when such unions were deemed to be illegal. In 1587, a Scotsman who had married an Englishwoman was arrested by the warden (or governor/law officer) on the Scottish side of the border. He handed the young husband over to his English counterpart. Although the wife had given birth to a child only a couple of months before, she and her husband were hanged together in the market place at Haltwhistle in the very north of England.
Ever more fascinated by the area, Graham Robb investigated its history right back to when the Romans were in Britain.
This is a wonderful book, erudite, beautifully written, mysterious and evocative of bygone days in the Debatable Lands.
On his cycling trips in the surrounding area he began to unearth fascinating stories of a sometimes forgotten, sometimes contested history. This was the area of the feared Border Reivers, people with names such as Armstrong, Elliott, Henderson, Nixon, Maxwell and Graham. There's a bloody history here, with much fighting and destruction going over decades and centuries.
This wasn't always a straightforward Scotland versus England fight. There were cross-border marriages too, even though there was a period when such unions were deemed to be illegal. In 1587, a Scotsman who had married an Englishwoman was arrested by the warden (or governor/law officer) on the Scottish side of the border. He handed the young husband over to his English counterpart. Although the wife had given birth to a child only a couple of months before, she and her husband were hanged together in the market place at Haltwhistle in the very north of England.
Ever more fascinated by the area, Graham Robb investigated its history right back to when the Romans were in Britain.
This is a wonderful book, erudite, beautifully written, mysterious and evocative of bygone days in the Debatable Lands.
June 30, 2020
A bit of a vexing read - Robb writes some things well - it flows nicely, there's a good feel to the descriptive dialogue, but there's a lot that jars. In the early chapters there's an increasing feel that the author likes the place he's moved to but not necessarily the inhabitants - every local he mentions seems to be a weirdo or stupid, and that it's largely written for the perspective of Southerners. The arrogance and contempt of the author comes through in this book. There's almost a religious zeal in the revisionist tone that he's trying to use and it appears that there's a lot of cherry picking of certain evidence and ignoring others to fit his narrative. Some of it is obviously bollocks - trying to stoke up a non-existent rivalry between the football fans of Newcastle and Carlisle (really?) brings into question quite a bit of what else he claims - reiving as a jolly jape to make livestock fitter? I liked the passages about Ptolemy's map of Britain and reassigning coordinates to assign lost place names, but given how dubious some of his other claims are, it's difficult to accept his theories without a lot more substance. Given the time period, that may not be possible, but there's definitely a lot that's questionable about his claims on more recent time periods that give pause.
August 24, 2019
The topic was pretty interesting and at times I found the book enjoyable, but the writing is hard to follow unless you know the area well. I think it needed some much better maps... and not sure why they were all buried at the end. The author also kind of skips around. The debatable lands sounds like an interesting place to visit. I think it underscores the idea that borders are hardly as fixed or as segregating as we imagine. The author's musings on the Scottish independence vote and Brexit are telling.
April 12, 2022
This was an interesting nonfiction book, very personal and quirky, focusing in on a small pocket of land on the border between Scotland and England through many different lenses. It is part memoir, part travelogue, part history, and part socio-political commentary on the Scottish independence referendum and Brexit. The history parts jump around between ancient indiginous tribes, Romans, "Arthurian" legends, the dark ages and medieval settlements, the "reivers" (thieves and livestock rustlers) of the 16th centry, on down to today.
The framing narrative is that the author (already a very successful author of popular histories) and his wife move to a new house in a remote, wild area in a bend of a river on the border between England and Scotland, where they can indulge their love of bicycling and don't own a car. As a historian by training and temperament, Robb can't help digging into the past of their new home and making keen observations of archeological remains while they explore the area by bike and bus and on foot and get to know their new neighbors. For a long time the book jumps around so much from one genre to another and back and forth between different historical periods and the present, that I felt like it didn't hold together so well. But Robb keeps dropping hints that there are exciting discoveries in the offing and a mystery or two that are going to be solved, and it is pretty fun in the end when he does deftly untie a couple of knotty problems that have baffled historians for centuries and even millennia. It's also fun that he does an excellent job of making rather technical details of his discoveries comprehensible for the likes of us amateur history fans.
Recommended particularly for those with an interest in Scottish history, Roman Britain, and the historical basis of Authurian legends.
The framing narrative is that the author (already a very successful author of popular histories) and his wife move to a new house in a remote, wild area in a bend of a river on the border between England and Scotland, where they can indulge their love of bicycling and don't own a car. As a historian by training and temperament, Robb can't help digging into the past of their new home and making keen observations of archeological remains while they explore the area by bike and bus and on foot and get to know their new neighbors. For a long time the book jumps around so much from one genre to another and back and forth between different historical periods and the present, that I felt like it didn't hold together so well. But Robb keeps dropping hints that there are exciting discoveries in the offing and a mystery or two that are going to be solved, and it is pretty fun in the end when he does deftly untie a couple of knotty problems that have baffled historians for centuries and even millennia. It's also fun that he does an excellent job of making rather technical details of his discoveries comprehensible for the likes of us amateur history fans.
Recommended particularly for those with an interest in Scottish history, Roman Britain, and the historical basis of Authurian legends.
May 12, 2023
Starts anecdotally with Robin Hood-type figures (The Reivers) living in a lawless wilderness between England and Scotland. Ends with an analysis of Ptolemy's 2nd Century map of the world and one of the inspirations for King Arthur, all written with the backdrop of the 2014 Scottish Referendum. Unexpectedly brilliant
December 19, 2021
Graham Robb's "The Debatable Land" explores a region along the western end of the English-Scottish border that traditionally was unclaimed by either kingdoms. Ancient laws prohibited building structures in the area and the empty forests and hills became a throughfare for reivers and thieves. The book is a modern exploration of the region after Robb bought a home there, and also a historic exploration of the region.
I was really engaged in portions of this book, but also really bored by others. Robb's modern explorations were handicapped by the lack of any map as detailed as his narrative.
In sections it felt like every sentence I was going to the one modern map looking for different places, only to realize after a minute that they wern't there. It's hard to be engrossed in the story when this kept happening, and hard to care about a place the author didn't feel warranted noting. Each chapter could have easily had a map of the debatable lands with those discussed marked and it would have made it a much more enjoyable read.
The one section I found really interesting was the author's work with the Ptolemy's map and the Hostoria Brittonum's Arthur connections. Ptolemy created a map of the world using reference points that was pretty accurate except for outer edges of the Roman empire like the British Isles. The author found that the likely scenario was that the map was based on data from other reference documents with different scales. Using other data he was able to reformat the map and identify locations and connect them to known Roman sites. This work also allowed Robb to nine battles attributed to a great British chieftain, likely the "real king Arthur" These chapters almost felt tacked on to the rest of the book and could've easily been their own story.
I was really engaged in portions of this book, but also really bored by others. Robb's modern explorations were handicapped by the lack of any map as detailed as his narrative.
In sections it felt like every sentence I was going to the one modern map looking for different places, only to realize after a minute that they wern't there. It's hard to be engrossed in the story when this kept happening, and hard to care about a place the author didn't feel warranted noting. Each chapter could have easily had a map of the debatable lands with those discussed marked and it would have made it a much more enjoyable read.
The one section I found really interesting was the author's work with the Ptolemy's map and the Hostoria Brittonum's Arthur connections. Ptolemy created a map of the world using reference points that was pretty accurate except for outer edges of the Roman empire like the British Isles. The author found that the likely scenario was that the map was based on data from other reference documents with different scales. Using other data he was able to reformat the map and identify locations and connect them to known Roman sites. This work also allowed Robb to nine battles attributed to a great British chieftain, likely the "real king Arthur" These chapters almost felt tacked on to the rest of the book and could've easily been their own story.
December 23, 2020
Stopped listening at 30%. I was hoping for a history of the Scottish/English border, but this is weighed down by what I found to be a very uninteresting personal narrative about the author moving to the area from Oxford and experiencing rural life. I just do not care about his new twee country life without a car, or his bike trips. The treatment of the locals is sort of patronizing and the attempts to connect modern life in the region to its medieval history seemed like a pretty serious reach. At the point where I stopped listening the author had provided plenty of cute vignettes and observations about the locals, but he never let them speak for themselves. If he had, they probably wouldn't have said what he wanted them to say. Also, because the book does try to touch on current affairs, the author's politics came through occasionally. I found them to be typical smug professional class views that don't engage very deeply with the effects of politics on the lives of regular people in the area. That aspect would also have been greatly improved if the author had chosen to write a straight-forward history of the area without making himself a character in it. Leaving his personal anecdotal observations out of it probably would have allowed him to draw more interesting conclusions about the place in the present day.
February 7, 2019
Occasionally interesting material but lacked a driving purpose to the writing. It ultimately read as a succession of names and dates, written by an outsider, with a vague repetitive feel. The first three parts at least felt coherent; the fourth (essentially on Roman maps and Arthurian legend) felt like the subject for another book. Wasn’t what I hoped for, which in retrospect is probably because I was anticipating an engaging, lightly academic tone with touches of a cycling travelogue woven around the history of this fascinating area of the UK.
July 4, 2018
Review title: That's not debatable
Turns out, writes Robb, there is a 15 mile stretch of the western edge of the border between these two countries, with an area expanding about 5 miles north to south that for centuries was officially "The Debatable Lands": claimed, policed, and governed by neither national government. Robb, a historian born in Manchester to Scottish parents, had lived his whole life in the UK without knowing about this area either until he and his wife, seeking to move closer to his mother in Scotland, bought a house splendidly isolated in this netherworld:
Like any good historian would, he began to investigate all the geographic, documentary and material sources he could find about his new home, including circumnavigation and criss-crossing by bicycle (they don't own a car, a distinctive that their new neighbors quickly used to identify them).
As it also turns out, the name applied to this region, "The Debatable Land" is an etymological mixup. The earliest documents referred to it as the 'batable' land, from the obsolete verb 'to batten', meaning to fatten up livestock, so the "batable land' was land good for fattening cattle . By the 1800s, with the old word fallen out of use, writers including the famous Scottish novelist Walter Scott, assumed 'batable' was a shortened form of "debatable"; the new name stuck (p. 83-84). Another linguistic contribution from the region is the term blackmail, from the collective noun 'black' then used to refer to cattle and oxen (which were usually black) and the old Norse word 'mal' which meant 'rent'; hence blackmail was money "paid for the protection and recovery of cattle" in the Debatable Land, and only acquired its sinister and criminal connotation later (p. 80).
And as it again turns out (Robb masterfully unfolds the history like a mystery as he himself peeled back the layers of obscurity surrounding his new home), the boundaries of the region were in fact not debatable at all, but well known to those who used it for its intended purposes of fattening livestock and providing a buffer between the two countries who often were at odds over their shared border. He realizes in his research that in spite of what seemed like a declaration of anarchy by the two countries, the region was actually self-governed by self-interested and economically viable if mostly invisible social controls:
Working backwards through history, Robb uncovers answers to the mysteries of the boundaries, the governance, and the reputation of The Debatable Land. He finds a precisely-drawn map from the 16th century that was used to resolve the diplomatic tangle around the region during the unification conferences. Then he reaches back to Ptolemy in the second century who drew the first world map, including the English and Irish islands, from both military and shipfaring reports and early longitude and latitude recordings. By experimenting with the undocumented scales of the data, Robb is able to align the map to known features of the border region, and then, in a tentative but plausible and fascinating linkage, to the possibly historical King Arthur!
The blending of historical and geographical detective work is interesting throughout, Robb's casual writing and lifestyle attractive, and the parallels to current events enlightening. There are pictures and diagrams of the map evidence in the appendices, so you will need a book mark to flip back and forth often to that section. But that's a small price to pay for an undebatably interesting history.
Turns out, writes Robb, there is a 15 mile stretch of the western edge of the border between these two countries, with an area expanding about 5 miles north to south that for centuries was officially "The Debatable Lands": claimed, policed, and governed by neither national government. Robb, a historian born in Manchester to Scottish parents, had lived his whole life in the UK without knowing about this area either until he and his wife, seeking to move closer to his mother in Scotland, bought a house splendidly isolated in this netherworld:
Within those fifty square miles, by parliamentary decrees issued by both countries in 1537 and 1551, all 'Englishmen and Scottishmen are and shall be free to rob, burn, spoil, slay, murder and destroy, all and every such person and persons, their bodies, property, goods, and livestock . . . without any redress to be made for the same.' (p. 4)
Like any good historian would, he began to investigate all the geographic, documentary and material sources he could find about his new home, including circumnavigation and criss-crossing by bicycle (they don't own a car, a distinctive that their new neighbors quickly used to identify them).
As it also turns out, the name applied to this region, "The Debatable Land" is an etymological mixup. The earliest documents referred to it as the 'batable' land, from the obsolete verb 'to batten', meaning to fatten up livestock, so the "batable land' was land good for fattening cattle . By the 1800s, with the old word fallen out of use, writers including the famous Scottish novelist Walter Scott, assumed 'batable' was a shortened form of "debatable"; the new name stuck (p. 83-84). Another linguistic contribution from the region is the term blackmail, from the collective noun 'black' then used to refer to cattle and oxen (which were usually black) and the old Norse word 'mal' which meant 'rent'; hence blackmail was money "paid for the protection and recovery of cattle" in the Debatable Land, and only acquired its sinister and criminal connotation later (p. 80).
And as it again turns out (Robb masterfully unfolds the history like a mystery as he himself peeled back the layers of obscurity surrounding his new home), the boundaries of the region were in fact not debatable at all, but well known to those who used it for its intended purposes of fattening livestock and providing a buffer between the two countries who often were at odds over their shared border. He realizes in his research that in spite of what seemed like a declaration of anarchy by the two countries, the region was actually self-governed by self-interested and economically viable if mostly invisible social controls:
The Debatable Land had been the eye of the storm, an unpopulated but well-managed country, governed only by ancient tradition. . . . The boundaries of the Debatable Land, however, had been vivid and consistent. (p. 106-107)
Working backwards through history, Robb uncovers answers to the mysteries of the boundaries, the governance, and the reputation of The Debatable Land. He finds a precisely-drawn map from the 16th century that was used to resolve the diplomatic tangle around the region during the unification conferences. Then he reaches back to Ptolemy in the second century who drew the first world map, including the English and Irish islands, from both military and shipfaring reports and early longitude and latitude recordings. By experimenting with the undocumented scales of the data, Robb is able to align the map to known features of the border region, and then, in a tentative but plausible and fascinating linkage, to the possibly historical King Arthur!
The blending of historical and geographical detective work is interesting throughout, Robb's casual writing and lifestyle attractive, and the parallels to current events enlightening. There are pictures and diagrams of the map evidence in the appendices, so you will need a book mark to flip back and forth often to that section. But that's a small price to pay for an undebatably interesting history.
August 28, 2018
Not for every reader, certainly, but it appealed to me because I have been all around this area on the edge of southwestern Scotland on both the English and Scottish sides, but I never knew it existed. The Debatable Land is kind of a no-man's land that belonged to neither country when historian and author Graham Robb moved there with his wife. Their house is remote and only reachable by walking and bicycling and the catching the 127 bus to Carlisle or other larger towns.
They explored the area in a systematic way, while Robb researched the history through interviews, old manuscripts, poems, and so on. There was more detail than I needed at points, but there were fascinating accounts of current residents, reivers and their raids to steal cattle in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the hidden landscapes. One of the most interesting things was his discovery of an ancient war (in the 180s) between the Britons and the occupying Romans; he did this in two parts, the first by analyzing old maps and using a mathematical system to correct the coordinates and aligning them with known archeological locations and then finding an ancient poem that described the war, lining up battles along the forts on his corrected map.
Working in the votes to separate and free Scotland (defeated) and to separate and free Great Britain from the EU (succeeded) rounded out the book nicely and showed how residents now were really divided along national lines, with the border not as fluid as thought.
They explored the area in a systematic way, while Robb researched the history through interviews, old manuscripts, poems, and so on. There was more detail than I needed at points, but there were fascinating accounts of current residents, reivers and their raids to steal cattle in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the hidden landscapes. One of the most interesting things was his discovery of an ancient war (in the 180s) between the Britons and the occupying Romans; he did this in two parts, the first by analyzing old maps and using a mathematical system to correct the coordinates and aligning them with known archeological locations and then finding an ancient poem that described the war, lining up battles along the forts on his corrected map.
Working in the votes to separate and free Scotland (defeated) and to separate and free Great Britain from the EU (succeeded) rounded out the book nicely and showed how residents now were really divided along national lines, with the border not as fluid as thought.
November 29, 2023
This book was recommended to me by my father-in-law, Tom. It sounded intriguing because we visited that part of the country, near Carlisle in Cumbria, earlier this summer, and had started to fantasize about living there. It’s about a 50-square-mile stretch of land, known as the Debatable Land, on the border between Scotland and England that stretches north-east from the Solway Firth to Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway. It was a semi-independent buffer zone between the two countries. In the Middle Ages people were forbidden from settling there but they were allowed to graze their horses and cattle between sunrise and sunset. This is where the area gets its name from; it’s not because the territory was in dispute: “battable” meaning capable of cultivation; fertile; productive. It was the realm of Border Reivers: chaotic clans of sheep and cattle rustlers called the Armstrongs and Grahams (amongst others). I’m interested in border regions (see my previous dabbling in the history of the Berlin Wall) and the fluidness of national and regional identity. This book therefore promised much but, like the landscape it describes, got a bit bogged down in the middle. For my tastes, there was a bit too much history and not enough travelogue; and sometimes the historian got the better of Graham Robb and took him off too far away from the core of his subject. The final third of the book seems like it should have been included in an earlier book on Celtic Britain but that he didn’t want to trouble his editors and publishers to include at the last minute, so it was stuck in this book, which, he repeatedly tells us at the beginning, he had no intention of writing.
The audiobook’s narrator, Saul Reichlin, is a pleasant companion and does a good job putting on Cumbrian and Scottish accents and capturing the author’s tone.
The audiobook’s narrator, Saul Reichlin, is a pleasant companion and does a good job putting on Cumbrian and Scottish accents and capturing the author’s tone.
March 12, 2021
It's always a treat for me when I read a book where the author makes original discoveries based on solid historical evidence. From his new home base just outside the 'debatable' land Robb recounts his adventures of walking, cyclings and exploring via local bus service this particular piece of land mostly known as the home of the Border Reiver clans. Robb's deep knowledge of Celtic history allow him to see past the mythologized recent past into the deeper past. We learn from him how the area came to be known as 'debatable' and how this is rooted in the pre-Roman past when this land was the home of ancient Celtic tribes. Moving forward Robb documents his use of Ptolemy's map coordinates (the original maps having once been housed in the Alexandrian Library) and a poem from the Historia Brittonum to locate 'Arthurian' battle sites in the region. Exiting stuff.
June 7, 2022
A fascinating study of a region that is filled with history and forgotten law. The author has done an excellent job of reviving stories and legends that were long forgotten, in an area close to home for me. I found the references to recent political debates a bit contrived, as others have said. The history speaks for itself and modern context isn't needed here. Despite that complaint, I loved this and can see myself referring back to it during journeys back to the region that was the debatable land, to see some of these sites in person.
March 7, 2021
I picked this up through a remainder house because it reminded me of an old friend who travels to odd corners of the world--and this is one. It's the story of the author's discovery of a corner of the borderlands with a unique history. He takes his time telling the story but he is a good writer and he has a knack for sifting the evidence. I found his conclusions about the history of the area to be logical and compelling. It also contains some useful photographs and an extensive and very necessary set of maps in the back. I found myself bookmaking the maps as often as the text. If you like learning about oddities of history and geography you will like it.
January 2, 2020
A great deal of information about a place that I've never really considered . . . and now I'm thinking about it all the time.
July 19, 2020
Fascinating history of the region along the border of England and Scotland. I am also a fan of Graham Robb’s writing and the variety of historical topics he explores in his books.
July 2, 2021
As someone from the Debatable lands (but moved south) I was surprised to find this in the local library and had to give it a read.
On positives
- there really is a dearth of material on the region so for this to exist in the first place is a treat.
- it’s well written and while there is the odd bit of patronising (as others have noted, when he mentions the Brexit referendum in particular), it’s easily forgivable
- the first part (more travelogue than history) does *get* the region. I note some other reviews have mentioned this as a bit “silly northerners” but knowing the area and the people, there are certainly some wilder examples he could have picked up on!
Negatives
- the structure is a bit odd. It’s fine to have a book that’s part travelogue, part history but it isn’t that clear when things are what - you just turn a page and it’s a bit of a different book
- the history part is also a little unfocused. The reivers are rattled through quickly with more focus on lifestyle (and those administering the region) than the actual reivers themselves.
- I found it very English-focused. No mention of traditions such as common ridings , etc that carry on in the Borders to this day? That stuck out to me as quite anomalous (this may be because I’m from the Scottish side and had a reivers meeting point on our land). It felt very precise about things on the English side and much less so about the northern boundaries.
- having to go forward 150+ pages to see the maps is annoying, especially as those maps are wedged between the main content and appendices
That’s not to say this book wasn’t enjoyable - the fact that it’s something about a subject there just isn’t much written about outweighs most of these negative points - but it definitely has flaws that a reader should be aware of (and that someone reading from far away may not realise).
On positives
- there really is a dearth of material on the region so for this to exist in the first place is a treat.
- it’s well written and while there is the odd bit of patronising (as others have noted, when he mentions the Brexit referendum in particular), it’s easily forgivable
- the first part (more travelogue than history) does *get* the region. I note some other reviews have mentioned this as a bit “silly northerners” but knowing the area and the people, there are certainly some wilder examples he could have picked up on!
Negatives
- the structure is a bit odd. It’s fine to have a book that’s part travelogue, part history but it isn’t that clear when things are what - you just turn a page and it’s a bit of a different book
- the history part is also a little unfocused. The reivers are rattled through quickly with more focus on lifestyle (and those administering the region) than the actual reivers themselves.
- I found it very English-focused. No mention of traditions such as common ridings , etc that carry on in the Borders to this day? That stuck out to me as quite anomalous (this may be because I’m from the Scottish side and had a reivers meeting point on our land). It felt very precise about things on the English side and much less so about the northern boundaries.
- having to go forward 150+ pages to see the maps is annoying, especially as those maps are wedged between the main content and appendices
That’s not to say this book wasn’t enjoyable - the fact that it’s something about a subject there just isn’t much written about outweighs most of these negative points - but it definitely has flaws that a reader should be aware of (and that someone reading from far away may not realise).
February 7, 2023
There's four or more different books going on here: a history of Liddesdale and the Borders, a memoir/travelogue of moving to and exploring this area, a treatise on interpretation of Ptolemy's geography, and a speculation on the possible historic basis of some Arthurian history.
The problem is that they don't come together into a coherent whole, so the book is more a series of digressions. Just when something is getting interesting, it ends for something else to come in instead.
It's a shame because the section at the heart of the book with tales of the reiver families of the border is interesting and I wanted more of it.
The problem is that they don't come together into a coherent whole, so the book is more a series of digressions. Just when something is getting interesting, it ends for something else to come in instead.
It's a shame because the section at the heart of the book with tales of the reiver families of the border is interesting and I wanted more of it.
July 10, 2018
Parts of this book were fascinating, and parts of it weren't. Overall, the topic was interesting and one that I knew nothing about. I've been through part of the area - Carlisle, and across to Jedburgh, and I've been to Hadrian's Wall. I hope that the area can remain wild and remote, but I fear for its overdevelopment. While there were many maps and illustrations, many of the maps were very hard to read and even indecipherable. Definitely a lot of research went into the history of the area.
February 13, 2018
The subject is of great interest to me, and last year I drove (sorry, no bikes) through the area and visited the Hermitage. The books strongly evokes the feeling of the area, and it is good to have a non-sentimental view f the reivers. But at the end I felt the book to be a bit of a mess, and the detective work felt tacked on, rather than part of a clear argument. But perhaps there can be no clear argument to be made.
February 26, 2020
I have loved or at least been engaged with others of Robb's books; this one struck me as a bit tedious, a bit trying-to0-hard, a bit off. A shame - the idea seemed fascinating, and Robb on home ground I thought would be fab. For me, rather meh.
September 25, 2020
What drew me to this book? Well, I gave it as a gift to a (Scottish) friend last Christmas. At a superficial level, I have nursed a curiosity about the history between England and Scotland, over the years – no great surprise there, as I was born and raised in England.
Secondly, whenever I taught history in high school here in Illinois, I tried whenever I could to help my students understand that the disciplines of history and geography are closely linked. For example, trying to understand what would drive anyone to scale the world’s tallest peaks (like Mount Everest) is impossible without an understanding of the climate and geography of the Himalayas.
Robb’s geographic focus is on an area of land ‘The Debatable Land’, situated between between the – often shifting – border that separates England and Scotland.
A strength of the book is Robb’s skill in bringing to life the essentially lawless nature of this area over many centuries. Unless I completely misread the book, Robb is basically saying that the law happens to be whatever family, or group, or clan says it is at that particular time. For many years the ‘law’ was laid down by a shifting band of people called ‘reivers’, people united by family links who made a living from the Debatable Land by robbing and plunder.
I found Robb’s narrative challenging, maybe precisely because the ‘Debatable Land’ for many hundreds of years shifted boundaries and borders and lacked a central, governing authority.
Robb’s description of the landscape, the weather, the customs of the people – both past and present – does give the reader a sense of place and culture.
The portions I found most compelling and engrossing occurred when Robb wrote about he and his wife’s experiences in present day Carlisle and the immediate area, presumably including ‘The Debatable Land’.
In particular, I was struck by the stark comparisons he describes about life living in London and then the area around Carlisle. Despite the often wild, wet and windy conditions – or maybe even because of them – Robb portrays the local sympathetically, as often warm and personable people, willing to stop in the street and to enquire after one’s, health, or the health of a family member.
Unsurprisingly, this is not the case in London: people single-mindedly navigate their way down the street, gaze fixed resolutely on a screen or on the ground beneath their feet, avoiding eye-contact at any cost.
Compare this with the charming scenes sketched by Robb of families – often of more than one generation – ambling down the high street in Carlisle, frequently stopping to talk to other families, in no apparent hurry to be anywhere else.
Reading this, I found myself thinking about the concept of isolation; of how in a major city such as London, populated by millions, people barely bother to pass the time of day, smile, or exchange greetings.
Isolation as experienced in the area of The Debatable Land and the towns around and within it, is more spatial in nature, where one can be cut off from others due to inclement weather. However, that predicament can be borne if one knows that the nearest help is more than willing to come to one’s aid – which may not be the case in the city.
Robb’s descriptions of the Debatable Land and its inhabitants over many hundreds of years is vivid; the same applies to the unpredictable nature of the weather, and its effect on the people who have inhabited the land for centuries.
For me the most relatable part of Robb’s book occurred in the last chapter, ‘Polling Stations’, in which he writes of his shock at the outcome of the Brexit referendum. Perhaps this can be taken as the central theme of the book: the transient nature of political entities, the sometimes temporary nature of borders that shift over time, disgorging and taking in people.
As this is a book about the impact of geography on a land and its people, as much as it is a treatise on culture and history, it is fitting – not to mention helpful – that Robb includes a number of maps and other graphic material at the end of the book, presumably intended to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of ‘The Debatable Land’.
Secondly, whenever I taught history in high school here in Illinois, I tried whenever I could to help my students understand that the disciplines of history and geography are closely linked. For example, trying to understand what would drive anyone to scale the world’s tallest peaks (like Mount Everest) is impossible without an understanding of the climate and geography of the Himalayas.
Robb’s geographic focus is on an area of land ‘The Debatable Land’, situated between between the – often shifting – border that separates England and Scotland.
A strength of the book is Robb’s skill in bringing to life the essentially lawless nature of this area over many centuries. Unless I completely misread the book, Robb is basically saying that the law happens to be whatever family, or group, or clan says it is at that particular time. For many years the ‘law’ was laid down by a shifting band of people called ‘reivers’, people united by family links who made a living from the Debatable Land by robbing and plunder.
I found Robb’s narrative challenging, maybe precisely because the ‘Debatable Land’ for many hundreds of years shifted boundaries and borders and lacked a central, governing authority.
Robb’s description of the landscape, the weather, the customs of the people – both past and present – does give the reader a sense of place and culture.
The portions I found most compelling and engrossing occurred when Robb wrote about he and his wife’s experiences in present day Carlisle and the immediate area, presumably including ‘The Debatable Land’.
In particular, I was struck by the stark comparisons he describes about life living in London and then the area around Carlisle. Despite the often wild, wet and windy conditions – or maybe even because of them – Robb portrays the local sympathetically, as often warm and personable people, willing to stop in the street and to enquire after one’s, health, or the health of a family member.
Unsurprisingly, this is not the case in London: people single-mindedly navigate their way down the street, gaze fixed resolutely on a screen or on the ground beneath their feet, avoiding eye-contact at any cost.
Compare this with the charming scenes sketched by Robb of families – often of more than one generation – ambling down the high street in Carlisle, frequently stopping to talk to other families, in no apparent hurry to be anywhere else.
Reading this, I found myself thinking about the concept of isolation; of how in a major city such as London, populated by millions, people barely bother to pass the time of day, smile, or exchange greetings.
Isolation as experienced in the area of The Debatable Land and the towns around and within it, is more spatial in nature, where one can be cut off from others due to inclement weather. However, that predicament can be borne if one knows that the nearest help is more than willing to come to one’s aid – which may not be the case in the city.
Robb’s descriptions of the Debatable Land and its inhabitants over many hundreds of years is vivid; the same applies to the unpredictable nature of the weather, and its effect on the people who have inhabited the land for centuries.
For me the most relatable part of Robb’s book occurred in the last chapter, ‘Polling Stations’, in which he writes of his shock at the outcome of the Brexit referendum. Perhaps this can be taken as the central theme of the book: the transient nature of political entities, the sometimes temporary nature of borders that shift over time, disgorging and taking in people.
As this is a book about the impact of geography on a land and its people, as much as it is a treatise on culture and history, it is fitting – not to mention helpful – that Robb includes a number of maps and other graphic material at the end of the book, presumably intended to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of ‘The Debatable Land’.
August 10, 2019
Graham Robb has a fine feeling for what lies beneath what we’re looking at. He also does a great deal of research and takes nothing for granted. So he explodes a lot of myths about the Border Reivers, who they were, where they lived and what they did. He knows that bards and balladeers won’t bite the hand that feeds them: he knows that rulers and governments don’t like what they can’t control: and he knows most people are happy with a good story that confirms their prejudices.
So he takes a good hard look at the small piece of land once called “debatable” that lies between England and Scotland, and tells us many things, first of all that the name doesn’t imply doubt but simply means “cultivable”. He goes on to point out that lack of ownership didn’t mean lack of law—quite the opposite. He says it was once clearly understood that all had the right to graze their livestock on the land, but only during the day. They were not to spend the night, and no-one was to live there. Theft and despoliation by “reivers” or rustlers was regulated at well-known times and places, and besides reiving was a seasonal thing and maybe even helped improve the quality of the herds and flocks.
That last may be a stretch—Mr Robb is clearly more of a cartographer than an anthropologist—but when he claims that things worked reasonably well until the Border became a matter of international diplomacy, he has plenty of evidence.
He is also after bigger game than just the reivers, though he has plenty of good stories about Johnnie Armstrang, Kinmont Willie and the like, not to mention the high and mighty who pursued them, tried to use them and ended up with “gallows and pit,” and mass deportations. He closes the book with an extended discussion of a possible connection with King Arthur, no less, and a “British” invasion of Roman Britannia that might have taken place in about 180 A.D. This is clearly his “passion” as we say nowadays, (he has written a whole book on Celtic culture across Europe) and he backs up his thesis with many maps and diagrams, maybe one too many for some readers. He is at his best when he has his nose to the ground in his small territory, the Debatable Land, where he finds enough to keep him and his readers busier than bad guys on a dark night.
So he takes a good hard look at the small piece of land once called “debatable” that lies between England and Scotland, and tells us many things, first of all that the name doesn’t imply doubt but simply means “cultivable”. He goes on to point out that lack of ownership didn’t mean lack of law—quite the opposite. He says it was once clearly understood that all had the right to graze their livestock on the land, but only during the day. They were not to spend the night, and no-one was to live there. Theft and despoliation by “reivers” or rustlers was regulated at well-known times and places, and besides reiving was a seasonal thing and maybe even helped improve the quality of the herds and flocks.
That last may be a stretch—Mr Robb is clearly more of a cartographer than an anthropologist—but when he claims that things worked reasonably well until the Border became a matter of international diplomacy, he has plenty of evidence.
He is also after bigger game than just the reivers, though he has plenty of good stories about Johnnie Armstrang, Kinmont Willie and the like, not to mention the high and mighty who pursued them, tried to use them and ended up with “gallows and pit,” and mass deportations. He closes the book with an extended discussion of a possible connection with King Arthur, no less, and a “British” invasion of Roman Britannia that might have taken place in about 180 A.D. This is clearly his “passion” as we say nowadays, (he has written a whole book on Celtic culture across Europe) and he backs up his thesis with many maps and diagrams, maybe one too many for some readers. He is at his best when he has his nose to the ground in his small territory, the Debatable Land, where he finds enough to keep him and his readers busier than bad guys on a dark night.
August 13, 2024
The three clever and possibly original ideas in The Debateable Land are hidden in a decent history and mediocre travelogue of a small valley on the English Scottish border. I would recommend the first few pages of Chapter 12, as well as Chapters 24 through 27. The rest of the book is very frustrating and difficult to follow. It has far too few maps for the millennias of occupation, too few footnotes for the extensive research and far too many characters, usually acting badly.
As for the clever and possibly original ideas, those are:
1. The term “Debatable Land” is derived from a much more ancient term “batable,” meaning fertile pasture in chapter 12.
2. A reasonably accurate map of ancient Britain and Ireland can be derived from Ptolemy’s atlas of five maps through fairly simple resizing and reorienting. This is discussed in Chapters 24 and 25 and shown in figures 7 through 13. The Debatable Land then is shown as the juncture of three Iron Age tribal lands, giving each tribe access to the Irish Sea.
3. The revised Ptolemaic map can be used to plot a very reasonable route for the Great Caledonian Invasion and shed light on the legend of King Arthur as a possible tribal king facing Roman legions in the second century. These are discussed in Chapters 26 and 27 and shown in figure 14 and 15.
The author clearly enjoys living and bicycling in a land that is tortured by the weather and geography. He is curious why the local families have little concern for the Scottish English border, while finding much evidence for longstanding respect for the border of the Debateable Land. He finds evidence in monuments like the prehistoric Lochmaben Stone that the Debateable Land has ancient origins as a neutral borderland. Around 1510, some local families move into the Debateable Land and become known for stealing livestock and occasional violence. The governments of Scotland and England set to control the area through wardens and complicated, often conflicting, alliances. To this day, the area is isolated by weather and geography while being drawn into larger political conflicts.
As for the clever and possibly original ideas, those are:
1. The term “Debatable Land” is derived from a much more ancient term “batable,” meaning fertile pasture in chapter 12.
2. A reasonably accurate map of ancient Britain and Ireland can be derived from Ptolemy’s atlas of five maps through fairly simple resizing and reorienting. This is discussed in Chapters 24 and 25 and shown in figures 7 through 13. The Debatable Land then is shown as the juncture of three Iron Age tribal lands, giving each tribe access to the Irish Sea.
3. The revised Ptolemaic map can be used to plot a very reasonable route for the Great Caledonian Invasion and shed light on the legend of King Arthur as a possible tribal king facing Roman legions in the second century. These are discussed in Chapters 26 and 27 and shown in figure 14 and 15.
The author clearly enjoys living and bicycling in a land that is tortured by the weather and geography. He is curious why the local families have little concern for the Scottish English border, while finding much evidence for longstanding respect for the border of the Debateable Land. He finds evidence in monuments like the prehistoric Lochmaben Stone that the Debateable Land has ancient origins as a neutral borderland. Around 1510, some local families move into the Debateable Land and become known for stealing livestock and occasional violence. The governments of Scotland and England set to control the area through wardens and complicated, often conflicting, alliances. To this day, the area is isolated by weather and geography while being drawn into larger political conflicts.
July 9, 2021
Graham Robb has written an engrossing account of an almost forgotten region in the Scottish Marches that, so far as is known, formed part of no state or kingdom for over 2,000 years and which was subject to only two laws: That no cattle nor sheep could pasture there overnight, and no permanent structures could be erected within it. The Debatable Land played a central role in a cattle-raiding culture in the Western Marches that might as well have come from the Tain bo Cuailnge (aka Cattle Raid of Cooley), and which gave to English words such as "reiver," "bereave" and "blackmail."
A rough code of honor ruled the Debatable Land on truce days, when reivers compensated victims for their losses under the eyes of Wardens from England and from Scotland. One would not be far wrong to consider the system as a kind of quasi-violent barter in which the loss of cattle was made good by the offer of crops.
This culture came to a bloody end, beginning in the sixteenth century; by the eighteenth century the Debatable Land was divided between England and Scotland, and all that was left of its culture were lays and romances, most notably the writings of Walter Scott.
Robb's account of this history is interwoven with his exploration of the modern-day Debatable Land on bicycle. His own adventures give a vivid impression of the physical world of the Land that made it a paradise for reivers, and the despair of any Wardens who tried to pursue them.
Although I give this book five stars, I have reservations about the final chapters, which are less about the Debatable Land than a speculative connection with the origins of the Arthurian legend. What Robb has to say on the matter is interesting, but I'm less than persuaded (as, I observe, are other reviewers.)
Setting that aside, this is an engrossing and well-written book. I would not have imagined that an account of bicycle exploration of a land that once stood apart from the rest of the world as we have come to know it since the advent of modernity would prove to be a page-turner, but this one is.
A rough code of honor ruled the Debatable Land on truce days, when reivers compensated victims for their losses under the eyes of Wardens from England and from Scotland. One would not be far wrong to consider the system as a kind of quasi-violent barter in which the loss of cattle was made good by the offer of crops.
This culture came to a bloody end, beginning in the sixteenth century; by the eighteenth century the Debatable Land was divided between England and Scotland, and all that was left of its culture were lays and romances, most notably the writings of Walter Scott.
Robb's account of this history is interwoven with his exploration of the modern-day Debatable Land on bicycle. His own adventures give a vivid impression of the physical world of the Land that made it a paradise for reivers, and the despair of any Wardens who tried to pursue them.
Although I give this book five stars, I have reservations about the final chapters, which are less about the Debatable Land than a speculative connection with the origins of the Arthurian legend. What Robb has to say on the matter is interesting, but I'm less than persuaded (as, I observe, are other reviewers.)
Setting that aside, this is an engrossing and well-written book. I would not have imagined that an account of bicycle exploration of a land that once stood apart from the rest of the world as we have come to know it since the advent of modernity would prove to be a page-turner, but this one is.
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