Flitch of bacon custom in the 13th century there are some who would date it to earlier Norman or Saxon times, one suggested date being 1104, the founding of the Little Dunmow Priory. This is partly because the flitch of Dunmow seems to have already been common knowledge in very early works such as the prologue to Chaucer's "Wife of Bath" and also in the "Visions of Pierce Plowman" by William Langland. Some would also read passages in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" as alluding to the Dunmow flitch. It is possible that the "flitch of bacon" custom was at one time quite widespread. There was
What Is a Nation? survive in adverse conditions. He gives some examples of countries like Turkey and Bohemia where there is rigid stratification, or where different communities are played off against one another, and where the homogenization of different groups could not take place, resulting in a failure of nationhood. This leads to one of the most frequently quoted statements in the essay: Yet the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things. No French citizen knows whether he is a Burgundian, an Alan, a Taifale, or a Visigoth, yet every