Gypsies are in the news again. Dramatically, because a couple of them have been involved in murder cases and, more prosaically, because of a recent spotlighting of their continual clash with some county by-laws and state regulations. These laws control the rights of vagrants, the permissible period for roadside and common camping, child education, and so on. Some county authorities, in trying to enforce the law, have come under fire from the Gypsies' romantic sympathisers (who are often well enough endowed with worldly goods not to live in a caravan, nor sell clothes pegs for a living).
What is the background to this controversy? Where did these strange folk come from; what is their history? The safest theory is that they stem from the Doms, ancient outcast tribes in India who were musicians, dancers and metal workers. Some Persian monarch, it is recorded, transplanted such a group to the Tigris Valley and North Syria. In 855 A.D. the Byzantines moved them to the Balkans. All the while, they continued their old crafts of metal working, making music and dancing. Records from Greece and Rumania show them, in the 1340's, as serfs and personal slaves of the land-owning Boyars—which they continued to be, in Rumania, right up to 1850. The Turkish invasion of the Balkans caused a widespread emigration and some Gipsy bands, in the 1440's, were caught up in this, moving to Central and Northern Europe.
They seemed to have been under the protection of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Church. Some evidence indicates that a Papal order required them to do penance for embracing the Moslem faith whilst they were living under Turkish rule. It is all rather uncertain. Some authorities have them in Europe far earlier, descendants of the wandering metal workers and tinkers, standing apart from the tribes. Here, in fact, is the origin of the “Wayland Smith” legends.
The Gipsy custom of stealing and telling fortunes caused some townsfolk to doubt the sincerity of their penance and the story, like their welcome, were rather thin. All manner of harsh laws were enacted against them. In 1500 the Imperial State annulled the safe conduct which the Princes had issued to Gypsies. Italian states banished them. Some German states ordered all male Gypsies to be shot. Henry VIII forbade separate Gypsy courts and Elizabeth I for a time banished them under pain of death. The Commonwealth executed some simply because they were Gypsies; on the continent they lived in constant fear during the witchcraft manias. Strangely, the Inquisition gave them protection from these. Spain became very popular with the Romanies and many of them moved in, eventually to embrace Spanish names and manners.
The Gypsies were allowed to have their own courts, and to live under their own customs, because they were regarded as a separate race or nation. This was finished in the upheaval caused by the break-up of feudalism in Europe. Peasants were being thrown off the land, merchants were fighting the old feudal lords, aspiring ruling classes tussled with the Roman Church for its land and wealth. Dreadful wars laid Germany waste. Religious intolerance and bigotry with weird maniacal theories tore open the ideas of the Middle Ages. Serfs, landless peasants and unwanted soldiers took to the roads, trying to escape their states’ harsh laws and treatment by joining Gypsy bands. Thus, the Gypsies became connected, in people's minds, with criminals and outlaws and the word Gypsy became a synonym for ruffian and ne'er-do-well. England, France and Spain deported many Gypsies to the Americas; when Australia was discovered, many were shipped there. Such is the tenacity of the Gypsies that they stuck to their old ways in these distant lands—and many still continue to do so.
The Gypsies have shown no desire to uncover their origin. They have, in fact, been content to. be known in Europe as Egyptians; their headmen were referred to as “Counts of Little Egypt.” They were traced to India through originally, the work of an Hungarian named Valyi, who in 1763 noticed a similarity between the language of some Malabar Hindu friends and that of the Hungarian Gypsies. This started a more scientific study of the Romany language, which is now placed as stemming from Aryan, although so far nobody has been able to find the particular area from which such a dialect could have evolved directly.
Although some Gypsy customs have been modified by the areas in which they live, others have remained more or less constant. One of these is the matrilineal nature of their clans, which lays it down that men can only join a clan by marrying into it (although this custom is reversed in the case of the headmen). Property seems to be inherited by the men, although women can and do inherit it. The moral customs of a clan are decreed by the Tribal Mother. The Headman is—or was—elected to his position. The title of Gypsy King and Queen is in fact a misnomer conferred upon them by outsiders which the Gypsies, being sharp, have used to some advantage. The clans, when they reach any considerable size, tend to break up into new groups; it is doubtful if they still exist in the older form in developed countries such as Great Britain.
In spite of everything the Gypsies have clung to their existence to this day. Sometimes—especially in the Balkans and the Middle East—they have existed by doing work that was frowned upon by others; work like latrine cleaning and public hangings. In Spain they provided the bulk of the tobacco factory workers—which must upset a lot of romantic concepts about them. In Spain, also, they have achieved fame by their dancing skills. The industrialisation of Northern Europe has give them the somewhat higher standards of furnished caravans—higher only when compared to their brothers’ tattered tents. Their speciality —and in Hungary some built up fortunes by it—was horse dealing.
But one by one, the doors have been closing against the Gypsies. The horse is fast disappearing as a beast of burden. Mass produced metal and plastic ware is helping to kill the craft of tinkering. A trained mechanic, not a lore-stuffed Gypsy, is needed to repair a combine harvester. Hertfordshire, for example, as a county which accommodates lots of workers in well laid out, expensive dormitory suburbs and estates, is not very keen on having the roads and commons littered with old tins and burst mattresses left there, to boot, by non rate-paying Gypsies. This county, with its agriculture mainly consisting of market gardens, dairy farms and corn crops, worked by modern mechanisation, has little need for floating, seasonable labour. In contrast, Kent is famous for its hop fields and fruit farms. Even today, these need extra casual labour in season, especially for hop stringing and twining, in which Gypsies play no small part. Kent is trying to establish permanent camp sites for the Romanies—and is regarded, therefore, as a humane county by the starry-eyed Gypsy addicts. Even so, things are changing in the hop fields. New hop picking machines leave only one-third of the crop to be picked by hand. Hop-pickers have seen their numbers reduced over the last 20-odd years from 100,000 to 22,000.
It seems, then, that the days of the wandering Gypsies have not long to run. No tears for that: because they live a life on the move in caravans: it does not follow that theirs is an idyllic existence. They have to find some sort of work in order to live; in spite of their reputation as thieves, it is certain that the proceeds of stealing would not last them for long. And anybody who has picked fruit on piece rates will know that it is no more romantic or idyllic than work on a factory bench. Groups which try to exist by just plain begging rapidly degenerate into whining outcasts, devoid of human dignity. Many people wonder why anyone, even a tiny minority, should try to stand outside the world of hire purchase, mortgages, television and social hygiene.
For centuries, Gypsies have tried to hold themselves aloof. But as it has done with so many others, capitalism is about to catch up with them.
Jack Law
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