Flitch of bacon custom original stones on which the couple knelt had been removed and the chair on which they were carried if successful is kept permanently in Little Dunmow Priory. However, replacements for both of these have been provided for the modern ceremony. The modern trials are held in the town of Great Dunmow rather than the location of the original custom at Little Dunmow, a smaller nearby village. Dunmow claims to be the only location to have continued the "flitch of bacon" custom into the 21st century. Although the flitch ceremony at Dunmow is generally held to have originated with the Fitzwalters
What Is a Nation? and continues to be invoked. Political historian Karl Deutsch, in a quote sometimes mistakenly attributed to Renan, said that a nation is "a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours". Benedict Anderson's 1983 work Imagined Communities, which states that a nation is an "imagined political community", argues that Renan contradicts himself when he says French people must have forgotten the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, yet does not explain what it is. In other words, Renan assumes that all his readers will remember the very massacre he says they have forgotten.