(no subject)

[haptalaon]

*musing*

I suppose there's a conceptual link, perhaps, between the common of the commonplace book, and the commons of socialist folklore and English tradition.

The Commons are a part of the landscape which nobody owns, exactly, but local people have 'Commoners Rights' to do certain activities there - gather firewood, feed their pigs, and that's where the term 'Commoner' as in 'ordinary, rather poor fellow' comes from. The Enclosure of the Commons is a key moment for capitalism being arse for everybody, as these commonly-owned and managed resources were claimed as the property of individual aristocrats who then charged money for ordinary, rather poor fellows to do what they'd been doing before for nothing.

“The whole earth shall be a common treasury for all, for the earth is the Lords”

Is the rabble-rousing words of semi-legendary firebrand Winstanley, whose community took back a piece of once-common land and tried to live there and grow crops in defiance of property laws (they were removed). Winstanlely wrote eloquent, heroic, beautiful religious tracts - expressing a kind of 17th century proto-socialism in the words of the Bible.

The connection I may be thinking of:

The common, land owned by none, held by all, is home to commonwealth of folklore, the commonwealth of imagination. I regard it as sacred. Mankind’s dream are a wilderness where monsters are free to roam, time itself may be dissolved and all our collected folklore is the surest guide to its ever shifting landscape - C.L. Nolan - Hookland

Ah but alas, let's see what the true derivation of the word is:

Commonplace" is a translation of the Latin term locus communis (from Greek tópos koinós, see literary topos) which means "a general or common topic", such as a statement of proverbial wisdom.

Well, it is our word now; we will make it mean whatever we like.