ABSTRACT
Throughout these disgracefully anomalous areas the ploughlands were enclosed by fences, which as a rule surrounded each parcel: these were permanent enclosures made of durable material, clearly meant to last. They usually took the form of quick-set hedges, sometimes, as in the west, mounted on high banks of earth known as fosses-in these parts the fosse (ditch) of standard French is called douve. When viewed from a distance, this wealth of foliage-hedges often include bushes and trees-creates the illusion of a 'moving forest' sprinkled with isolated clearings, to borrow an eighteenth century description. 49 Hence the old name bocage, spontaneously applied in popular speech to enclosed regions in direct antithesis to the champagnes and plaines so evocative of open vistas. Writing c. I I 70, the Norman poet Wace describes a gathering of peasants as coming
cil del bocage e cil del plain, some from enclosed, some from open country.
