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"f
THE
SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
A HISTORY OF
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
TILL THE PERIOD OF
THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
BY
JOHN MITCHELL KEMBLE, M.A., F.C.P.S.
MKMBKE OP TDK EOYAL ACADRMT OF BCIKNCBt AT MUNICH, AND OV TUB BOYAL
ACADEMY OP SCIBNCB8 AT BBELIN, PKLLOW OP THE EOYAL SOCIETY OP HISTOET IN 8TOCEBOLM, AND OP THE BOYAL SOCIETY OP BISTOET IN COPENHAGEN, ETC. ETC. ETC.
*' Nubtlii et MtrenuE, iuxtEque dotem naturae sagaciaaima gens Soxonum, ab antiquin etiam
•criptoribus niemorata."
VOLUME I.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
PATERNOSTER ROW. 1849.
TO
THE QXJEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,
THIS HISTORY
OF THE PRINCIPLES WHICH HAVE GIVEN HER EMPIRE
ITS PREEMINENCE AMONG THE NATIONS OF EUROPE,
IS,
WITH HER GRACIOUS PERMISSION,
INSCRIBED BY
THE MOST HUMBLE AND DEVOTED
OF HER SERVANTS.
/
PREFACE.
The. following pages contain an account of the principles upon which the public and political life of our Anglosaxon forefathers was based, and of the institutions in which those principles were most clearly manifested. The subject is a grave and solemn one : it is the history of the childhood of our own age, — the explanation of its manhood.
On every side of us thrones totter, and the deep foundations of society are convulsed. Shot and shell sweep the streets of capitals which have long been pointed out as the chosen abodes of order : cavalry and bayonets cannot control populations whose loyalty has become a proverb here, whose peace has been made a reproach to our own mis- called disquiet. Yet the exalted Lady who wields the sceptre of these realms, sits safe upon her throne, and fearless in the holy circle of her do- mestic happiness, secure in the affections of a peo- ple whose institutions have given to them all the blessings of an equal law.
Those institutions they have inherited from a period so distant as to excite our admiration, and have preserved amidst all vicissitudes with an en-
vi PREFACE.
lightened will that must command our gratitude. And with the blessing of the Almighty, they will long continue to preserve them ; for our customs are founded upon right and justice, and are main- tained in a subjection to His will who hath the hearts of nations as well as of kings in His rule and governance.
It cannot be without advantage for us to learn how a State so favoured as our own has set about the great work of constitution, and solved the problem, of uniting the completest obedience to the law with the greatest amount of individual free- dom. But in the long and chequered history of our State, there are many distinguishable periods: some more and some less well known to us. Among those with which we are least familiar is the oldest period. It seems therefore the duty of those whose studies have given them a mastery over its details, to place them as clearly as they can before the eyes of their fellow-citizens.
There have never been wanting men who en- joyed a distinct insight into the value of our earliest constitutional history. From the days of Spelman, and Selden and Twisden, evea to our own, this country has seen an unbroken succession of laborious thinkers, who, careless of self-sacrifice, have devoted themselves to record the facts which were to be recovered from the darkness of the past, and to connect them with the progress of our poli- tical and municipal laws. But peculiar advantages over these men, to whom this country owes a large debt of gratitude, are now enjoyed by ourselves.
PREFACE. vii
It is only within eight years that the ** Ancient Laws and Ecclesiastical Institutes " of the Anglo- saxons have been made fully accessible to us^: within nine years only, upwards of fourteen hun- dred documents containing the grants of kings and bishops, the settlements of private persons, the conventions of landlords and tenants, the technical forms of judicial proceedings, have been placed in ourhands^; and to this last quarter of a century has it been given to attain a mastery never before attained over the language which our Anglosaxon ancestors spoke. To us therefore it more particu- larly belongs to perform the duty of illustrating that period, whose records are furnished to us so much more abundantly than they were to our pre- decessors ; and it seemed to me that this duty was especially imposed upon him whom circumstances had made most familiar with the charters of the Anglosaxons.
The history of our earliest institutions has come down to us in a fragmentary form : in a similar way
* Ancient Laws and Institutes of England; comprising Laws en- acted under the Anglosaxon Kings from iE^elbirht to Cnut, with an English translation of the Saxon : the Laws called Edward the Con- fessor's ; the Laws of William the Conqueror, and those ascribed to Henry the First ; also Monumenta Ecclesiastica Anglicana, from the seventh to the tenth century: and the ancient Latin version of the Anglosaxon Laws. With a copious Glossary, etc. (By B. Thorpe, Esq.). Printed by command of his late Majesty, King William the Fourth, under the direction of the Commissioners on the PubUc Records of the Kingdom, mdcccxl.
' Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici. Opera J. M. Kemble, M.A., vol. i. London, 1839; vol. ii. 1840; vol. iii. 1845; vol. iv. 1846; vol. v. 1847 ; vol. vi. 1848. PubUshed by authority of the Historical Society of England.
viii PREFACE.
has it here been treated, — in chapters, or rather essays, devoted to each particular principle or group of facts. But throughout these fragments a system is distinctly discernible : accordingly the chapters will be found also to follow a systematic plan.
It is my intention, at a future period, to lay before my countrymen the continuation of this History, embracing the laws of descent and pur- chase, the law of contracts, the forms of judicial process, the family relations, and the social con- dition of the Saxons as to agriculture, commerce, art, science and literature. I believe these things to be worthy of investigation, from their bearing upon the times in which we live, much more than from any antiquarian value they may be supposed to possess. We have a share in the past, and the past yet works in us ; nor can a patriotic citizen better serve his country than by devoting his ener- gies and his time to record that which is great and glorious in her history, for the admiration and instruction of her neighbours.
J. M. K.
London, December 2n(l, 1848.
CONTENTS.
VOL. I.
BOOK I.
THE ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT OF THE ANGLOSAXON
COMMONWEALTH.
Chapter Page
I. Saxon and Welsh Traditions 1
11. The Mark 35
III. TheGdorScir 72
IV. Landed Possession. The E«el, Hid or Alod . 88 V. Pefsonal Rank. The Freeman. The Noble . 122
VL The King 137
VII. The Noble by Service 162
Vm. TheUnfree. The Serf 186
IX. The Mutual Guarantee. Msegburh. Tithing.
Hundred 228
X. F8&h«e. Wergyld 267
XI. Folcland. B6cland. L^nland 289
XII. Heathendom 327
Appendix.
A. Marks 449
B. The Hid 487
C. Manumission of Serfs 496
D. Orcy's Guild at Abbotsbury 511
B. Lafenland 517
F. Heathendom 523
THE
SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
BOOK I.
THE ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT OF THE ANGLO-SAXON
COMMONWEALTH,
CHAFfER I.
SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS.
Eleven centuries ago, an industrious and consci- entious historian, desiring to give a record of the establishment of his forefathers in this island, could find no fuller or better account than this : '' About the year of Grace 445-446, the British inhabitants of England, deserted by the Roman masters who had enervated while they protected them, and ex- posed to the ravages of Picts and Scots from the extreme and barbarous portions of the island, called in the assistance of heathen Saxons from the conti- nent of Europe. The strangers faithfully performed their task, and chastised the Northern invaders; then, in scorn of the weakness of their employers, subjected them in turn to the yoke, and after vari- ous vicissitudes of fortune, established their own
VOL. I. B
•2 THE SAXOXS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
power upon the ruins of Roman and British civi- lization." The few details which had reached the historian taught that the strangers w^ere under the guidance of two brothers, Hengest and Hors : that their armament was conveyed in three ships or keels : that it consisted of Jutes, Saxons and An- gles : that their successes stimulated similar ad- venturers among their countrymen : and that in process of time their continued migrations were so large and numerous, as to have reduced Anglia, their original home, to a desert \
Such was the tale of the victorious Saxons in the eighth century : at a later period, the vanquished Britons found a melancholy satisfaction in adding details which might brand the career of their con- querors with the stain of disloyalty. According to these hostile authorities, treachery and fraud pre- pared and consolidated the Saxon triumph. The wiles of Hengest's beautiful daughter* subdued the mind of the British ruler ; a murderous violation of the rights of hospitality, which cut off the chief- tains of the Britons at the very table of their hosts, delivered over the defenceless land to the barba- rous invader* ; and the miraculous intervention of
> Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 14, 15. Gildas, Hist. § 14. Nennius, Hist. § 38.
' It is uncertain from the MSS. whether this lady is to be called Rouwen or Ronwen. The usual English tradition gives her name as Rowena ; if this be accurate, I presume our pagan forefathers knew something of a divine personage — Hro^w^n — possibly a dialectical form of the great and glorious goddess Hr^^ ; for whom refer to Chap- ter X. of this Book. ^
• The story of the treacherous murder perpetrated upon the Welsh chieftains docs not claim an English origin. It is related of the Old- saxons upon the continent, in connexion iiith the conquest of the Thuringians. See Widukiiid.
CH. 1.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 3
Germanus, the spells of Merlin and the prowess of Arthur, or the victorious career of Aurelius Am- brosius, although they delayed and in part avenged, yet could not prevent the downfal of their peopled Meagre indeed are the accounts which thus satis- fied the most enquiring of our forefathers ; yet such as they are, they were received as the undoubted truth, and appealed to in later periods as the earliest authentic record of our race. The acuter criticism of an age less prone to believe, more skilful in the ap- preciation of evidence, and familiar with the fleeting forms of mythical and epical thought, sees in them only a confused mass of traditions borrowed from the most heterogeneous sources, compacted rudely and with little ingenuity, and in which the smallest possible amount of historical truth is involved in a great deal of fable. Yet the truth which such tra- ditions do nevertheless contain, yields to the al- chemy of our days a golden harvest : if we cannot undoubtingly accept the details of such legends, they still point out to us at least the course we must pursue to discover the elements of fact upon which the Mythus and Epos rest, and guide us to the period and the locality where these took root and flourished.
From times beyond the records of history, it is certain that continual changes were taking place in the position and condition of the various tribes that peopled the northern districts of Europe. Into this great basin the successive waves of Keltic, Teutonic
' Conf. Nennius, Hist. 3/ seq, 46 seq, Beda, Hist. Ecc. i. 14, 15. Gildas, Hist. § 25.
b2
4 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [boob^ i.
and Slavonic migrations were poured, and here, through hundreds of years, were probably reproduced convulsions, terminated only by the great outbreak which the Germans call the wandering of the nations. For successive generations, the tribes, or even por- tions of tribes, may have moved from place to place, as the necessities of their circumstances de- manded ; names may have appeared, and vanished altogether from the scene ; wars, seditions, con- quests, the rise and fall of states, the solemn forma- tion or dissolution of confederacies, may have filled the ages which intervened between the first settle- ment of the Teutons in Germany, and their appear- ance in history as dangerous to the quiet of Rome. The heroic lays' may possibly preserve some sha- dowy traces of these events ; but of all the changes in detail w^e know nothing: we argue only that nations possessing in so preeminent a degree as the Germans, the principles, the arts and institu- tions of civilization, must have passed through a long apprenticeship of action and suflfering, and have learnt in the rough school of practice the wisdom they embodied in their lives.
Possessing no written annals, and trusting to the
' The Anglosaxon Traveller's Song contains a multitude of names which cannot be found elsewhere. Paulus Diaconus, and Jomandes have evidently used ancient poems as the foundation of their histories. The lays of the various Germanic cycles still furnish details respecting Hermanaric, Otachar, Theodoric, Hiltibrant and other heroes of this troubled period. But the reader who would judge of the fragmentary and unsatisfactory result of all that the ancient world has recorded of the new, had better consult that most remarkable work of Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstamme. Munich, 1837. He will there see how the profoundest science halts after the reality of ancient ages, and jitriyes in vain to reduce their manifold falsehood to a tnith.
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 6
poet the task of the historian, our forefathers have left but scanty records of their early condition ^ Nor did the supercilious or unsuspecting ignorance of Italy care to enquire into the mode of life and habits of the barbarians, until their strong arms threatened the civilization and the very existence of the empire itself. Then first, dimly through the twilight in which the sun of Rome was to set for ever, loomed the Colossus of the German race, gigantic, terrible, inexplicable ; and the vague at- tempt to define its awful features came too late to be fully successful. In Tacitus, the city possessed indeed a thinker worthy of the exalted theme ; but his sketch, though vigorous beyond expectation, is incomplete in many of the most material points : yet this is the most detailed and fullest account which we possess, and nearly the only certain source of information till we arrive at the moment when the invading tribes in every portion of the empire entered upon their great task of recon- structing society from its foundations. Slowly, from point to point, and from time to time, traces are recognized of powerful struggles, of national movements, of destructive revolutions : but the definite facts which emerge from the darkness of the first three centuries, are rare and fragmentary.
Let us confine our attention to that portion of the race which settled on our own shores.
The testimony of contemporaneous history as- sures us that about the middle of the fifth centurv,
' *' Celebrant carmiiiibus untiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est." Tac. Mor. Germ. cap. ii.
6 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
a considerable movement took place among the tribes that inhabited the western coasts of Ger- many and the islands of the Baltic sea. Pressed at home by the incursions of restless neighbours, and the urgency of increasing population, or yield- ing to the universal spirit of adventure, Angles, Saxons and Frisians crossed a little-known and dangerous ocean to seek new settlements in ad- jacent lands. Familiar as we are with daring deeds of maritime enterprise, who have seen our flag float over every sea, and flutter in every breeze that sweeps over the surface of the earth, we cannot contemplate without astonishment and admiration, these hardy sailors, swarming on every point, tra- versing every ocean, sweeping every aestuary and bay, and landing on every shore which promised plunder or a temporary rest from their fatigues. The wealth of Gaul had akeady attracted fearful visitations, and the spoils of Roman cultivation had been displayed before the wondering borderers of the Elbe and Eyder, the prize of past, and incen- tive to future activity. Britain, fertile and defence- less, abounding in the accumulations of a long career of peace, deserted by its ancient lords, un- accustomed to arms\ and accustomed to the yoke,
' This is asserted both by Gildas and Nenmus, and it is not in itself improbable. The Romans did sometimes attempt to disarm the na- tions they subdued : thus Probus with the Alamanni. Vopisc. cap. 14. Malmsbury's account of the defenceless state of Britain was probably not exaggerated. He says : " Ita cum tyranni nullum in agris praeter semibarbaros, nullum in urbibus praeter ventri deditos reliquissent, Bri- tannia omni patrocinio iuTcnilis vigoris viduata, omni exercitio artium exinanita, conterminarum gentium inhiationi diu obnoxia fuit." Gest. Reg. lib. i. § 2.
^
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 7
at ODce invited attack and held out the prospect of a rich reward : and it is certain that at that period, there took place some extensive migration of Ger- mans to the shores of England \ The expeditions known-to tradition as those of Hengest, MlVi, Cissa, Cerdic and Port, may therefore have some foun- dation in fact ; and around this meagre nucleus of truth were grouped the legends which afterwards Served to conceal the poverty and eke out the scanty stock of early history. But I do not think it at all probable that this was the earliest period at which the Germans formed settlements in Eng- land.
It is natural to believe that for many centuries a considerable and active intercourse had prevailed between the southern and eastern shores of this island, and the western districts of Gaul. The first landing of Julius Caesar was caused or justified by the assurance that his Gallic enemies recruited their armies and repaired their losses, by the aid of their British kinsmen and allies^ ; and the merchants of the coast, who found a market in Britain, reluc- tantly furnished him with the information upon which the plan of his invasion was founded^. When
' Prosper Tyro, a.d. 441, says, " Theodosii xviii. Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus yariis cladibus eventibusque latae [?laceratae] in di- tionem Saxonum rediguntur." See also Procop. Bel. Got. iv. 20. The f<mner of these passages might however be understood without the as- sumption of an immigration, which the movements of Attila render probable.
» Bell. GaU. iii. 8. 9 ; iv. 20.
* Especially the Veneti : rroi/xoi yap ^aav koXvciv r6v tls rijv /3/»ct- ravun^y wXovv, ;(p<ofifvoi r^ tixnopi^, Strabo, bk. iv. p. 271. Conf. Bell. Gall. iv. 20.
S THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
the fortune and the arms of Rome had prevailed over her ill-disciplined antagonists, and both con- tinent and island were subject to the same all-em- bracing rule, it is highly probable that the ancient bonds were renewed, and that the most familiar intercourse continued to prevail. In the time of Strabo the products of the island, com, cattle, gold, silver and iron, skins, slaves, and a large descrip- tion of dog, were exported by the natives, no doubt principally to the neighbouring coasts, and their commerce with these was sufficient to justify the imposition of an export and import duty \ As early as the time of Nero, London, though not a colony, was remarkable as a mercantile station^, and in all human probability was the great mart of the Gauls. There cannot be the least doubt that an active com- munication was maintained throughout by the Kel- tic nations on the different sides of the channel ; and similarly, as Grerman tribes gradually advanced along the lines of the Elbe, the Weser, the Maes and the Rhine, occupying the countries which lie upon the banks of those rivers, and between them and the sea, it is reasonable to suppose that some offsets of their great migrations reached the oppo- site shores of England^. As early as the second
> Book iv. p. 278. ^ Xacit. Ann. xiv. 33.
' Caesar notices the migrations of continental tribes to Britain : he says, '* Britanniae pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insula ipsa memoria proditum dicunt ; maritima pars ab iis qui praedae ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgis transierant ; qui omnes fere iis nomini- bus civitatum adpellantur, quibus orti ex eivitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello inlato ibi remanserunt, atque agros colcre coeperunt." Bell. Gall, y. 12,
CH. 1.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 9
century, Chauci are mentioned among the inhabit- ants of the south-east of Ireland ^ and although we have only the name whereby to identify them with the great Saxon tribe, yet this deserves considera- tion when compared with the indisputably Keltic names of the surrounding races. The Coritavi, who occupied the present counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Rutland, Northampton, Nottingham and Derby, were Germans, according to the Welsh tradition itself^, and the next following name KarvevyXavol, though not certainly German, bears a strong re- semblance to many German formations^.
Without, however, laying more stress upon these facts than they will fairly warrant, let us proceed to other considerations which render it probable that a large admixture of German tribes was found
^ Ptolemy, bk. ii. c. 2. It is true that Ptolemy calls them KavKoi, but this mode of spelling is not unexampled, and is found in even so correct a writer as Strabo. The proper form is Kavxoi. Latin authors occasionally write Cauci for Chauci, and sometimes even Cauchi : see Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstamme, p. 138. It is right to add that Zeuss, whose opinion on such a point is entitled to the highest consideration, hesitates to include these KavKoi among Germanic tribes (p. 199). The Mavdirioi, placed also by Ptolemy in Ireland, can hardly be Germans.
' Ptolemy, bk. ii. c. 3. fi€ff otg Kopiravol, cV ols mSKtis XlvBop, poyc* €iTa KaTvrvxkavol, cV oh n6Ktis acikrjvcu' [al. craXtovai.] OvpdKdvtop. Others have preferred the form Koptravol, but the authority of the best manuscripts, not less than the analogy of the names Ingaevones, Iscae- vones, Chamavi, Batavi, confirms the earlier reading. According to the Triads, these Coritavi (Coriniaidd) had migrated from a Teutonic marsh- land. Thorpe's Lappenberg, i. 15. The word is thus in all probability f'erlved from Hor, lutum^ Horiht, lutosus ; equivalent to the " aquosa Fresonum arva." Vit. Sci. Sturm. Pertz. ii. 372. " Saxones, gentem oceani, in littoribus et paludibus inviis sitam." Oros. vii. 32.
' Chatuarii, Hea'Sobeardan. Hea'Sorsemes. However Catu is a ge- nuine British prefix.
10 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
in England long previous to the middle of the fifth century. It appears to me that the presence of Roman emperors recruiting the forces with which the throne of the world was to be disputed, from among the hardiest populations of the continent, must not only have led to the settlement of Teu- tonic famiUes in this island, but also to the main- tenance, on their part, of a steady intercourse with their kinsmen who remained behind. The military colony, moreover, which claimed to be settled upon good arable land, formed the easiest and most ad- vantageous mode of pensioning the emeriti; and many a successful Caesar may have felt that his own safety was better secured by portioning his Ger- man veterans in the fruitful valleys of England, than by settling them as doubtful garrisons in Lombardy or Campania.
The fertile fields which long before had merited the praises of the first Roman victor, must have of- fered attractions enough to induce wandering Sax- ons and Angles to desert the marshes and islands of the Elbe, and to call Frisian adventurers over from the sands and salt-pools of their home. If in the middle of the fifth century Saxons had esta- blished regular settlements at Bayeux * ; if even before this time the country about Grannona bore the name of Littus Saxonicum*, we may easily be-
^ Saxones Baiocassini. Greg. Turon. t. 27 ; x. 9.
' Chrannona in littore Saxonico. Notit. Imp. Occid. c. 86. Dii Cbesne Hist. i. p. 3. The Totingas, who have left their name to Toot- ing in Surrey, are recorded also at T6tingah&m in the county of Bou- logne. Leo. Rectitud. p. 26.
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 11
lieve that at still earlier periods other Saxons had found over the intervening ocean a way less dan- gerous and tedious than a march through the ter- ritories of jealous or hostile neighbours, or even than a coasting voyage along barbarous shores defended by a yet more barbarous population. A north-east wind would, almost without effort of their own, have carried their ships from Helgoland and the islands of the Elbe, or from Silt and Rom- sey\ to the Wash and the coast of Norfolk. There seems then every probability that bodies more or less numerous, of coast-Grermans, perhaps actually of Saxons and Angles, had colonized the eastern shores of England long before the time generally assumed for their advent*. The very exigencies of military service had rendered this island familiar to the nations of the continent : Batavi, under their own national chieftains, had earned a share of the Roman glory, and why not of the Roman land, in
* Ptolemy calls the islands at the mouth of the Elbe, S<i{dva>y y^orot rptU. Zeuss considers these to be Fohr, Silt and Nordstrand. Die Deutschen, p. 150. Lappenberg sees in them. North Friesland, Eider- stedt, Nordstrand, Wickingharde and Bodngharde. Thorpe, Lap. i. 87. It seems hardly conceivable that Frisians, who occupied the coast as early as the time of Caesar, should not have found their way by sea to Britain, especially when pressed by Roman power : see Tac. Ann. xiii. 54.
' Hengest defeated the Picts and Scots at Stamford in Lincolnshire, not far from the Nene, the Witham and the Welland, upon whose banks it is nearly certain that there were Grerman settlements. Widukind's story of an embassy from the Britons to the Saxons, to entreat aid, is thus rendered not altogether improbable : but then it must be under- stood of Saxons already established in England, and on the very line of march of the Northern invaders, whom they thus took most effectually in flank. Compare Geoffry's story of Vortigem giving Hengest lands in Lincolnshire, etc.
12 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
Britain » ? The policy of the Emperor Marcus An- toninus, at the successful close of the Marcomannic war, had transplanted to Britain multitudes of Ger- mans, to serve at once as instruments of Roman power and as hostages for their countrymen on the frontier of the empire*. The remnants of this once powerful confederation cannot but have left long and lasting traces of their settlement among us ; nor can it be considered at all improbable that Carau- sius, when in the year 287, he raised the standard of revolt in Britain, calculated upon the assistance of the Germans in this country, as well as that of their allies and brethren on the continent^. Nineteen
* Tac. Hist. iv. 12, about a.d. 69. ** Diu G^rmanicis bellis exerciti; mox aucta per Britanniam gloria, transmissis illuc cobortibus, quas vetere institute, nobilissimi popularium regebant."
' Die. Cas. Ixxi. Ixxii. Gibbon, Dec. cap. ix. At a later, period, Probus settled Vandals and Burgundians here : Zosimus tells us (Hist. Nov. i. 68) : Saovs di {Sivras olos T€ yryoptv Actv, cis Bprrraviav irapc- irf/A\|rf y* ol T^v vrjo'ov oLc^crai/rcr, iiravaardvros Kark ravra rwhi, y€y6vaai fiaa-Cktl xp^ci/AOt- Procopius even goes so far as to make Belisarius talk of Goths in Britain, but the context itself proves that this deserves very little notice. Bell. Got. ii. 6.
' Carausius was a Menapian : but in the third century the inhabit- ants of the Menapian tenitory were certainly Teutonic. Aurelius Victor calls him a Batavian : see Gibbon, Dec. cap. xiii. Carausius, and after him Allectus, maintained a German force here : " Omnes enim illos, ut audio, campos atque coUes non nisi teterrimorum hostium corpora fusa texerunt. Ilia barbara aut imitatione barbariae olim cultu vestis, et prolixo crine rutilantia, tunc vero pulvere et cruore foedata, et in diver-
808 situs tracta, sicuti dolorem vulnerum fiierant secuta, iacuerunt
Enimvero, Caesar invicte, tanto deorum immortalium tibi est addicta consensu omnium quidem quos adortus fueris hostium, sed praecipue intemecio Francorum, ut illi quoque milites vestri, qui per errorem ne- bulosi, ut paullo ante dixi, maris abiuncti ad oppidum Londiniense pervenerunt, quidquid ex mercenaria ilia multitudine barbarorum prae- lio super^erat, cum direpta civitate, fiigam capesscre cogitarent, passim tota urbe confecerint." Eumen. Paneg. Const, cap. 18, 19.
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 13
years later the death of Constantius delivered the dignity of Caesar to his son Constantine : he was solemnly elected to that dignity in Britain, and among his supporters was Crocus, or as some read Erocus, an Alamannic king who had accompanied his father from Germany ^ Still later, under Va- lentinian, we find an auxiliary force of Alamanni serving with the Roman legions here.
By chronological steps we have now approached the period at which was compiled the celebrated document entituled 'Notitia utriusque imperii'*. Even if we place this at the latest admissible date, it is still at least half a century earlier than the ear- liest date assigned to Hengest. Among the im- portant ofiicers of state mentioned therein as admi- nistering the affairs of this island, is the Comes Lit- toris Saxonici per Britannias ; and his government, which extended from near the present site of Ports-
* Aurel. Vict. cap. 41 . Lappenberg, referring to this fact (Thorpe, i. 47)» asks, " May not the name Erocus be a corruption of Ertocus, a La- tinization of the old- Saxon Heritogo, duxl " I think not ; for an Ala- man would have been called by a high and not low German name, He- rizohho, not Heritogo. I think it much more likely that his name was Chrohho or Hr6ca, a rook,
' Pancirolus would date this important record in a.d. 438. Gibbon, however, refutes him and places it between 395 and 407. Dec. cap. xvii. I am inclined to think even this date inaccurate, and that the Romans did not maintain any such great establishment in Britain, as that herein described, at so late a period. For even Ammianus tells us in 364, '* Hoc tempore Picti, Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis," (Hist. xxvi. 4), which is hardly consist tent with a flourishing state of the Roman civil and military rule. The actual document we possess may possibly date from 390 or 400, but it refers to the arrangements of an earlier time, and to an organization of Roman power in more palmy days of their dominion.
14 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. LbooJ^ '•
mouth to Wells in Norfolk \ was supported by va- rious civil and military establishments, dispersed along the whole sea-board. The term Littus Sax- onicum has been explained to mean rather the coast visited by, or exposed to the ravages of, the Sax- ons, than the coast occupied by them : but against this loose system of philological and historical in- terpretation I beg emphatically to protest : it seems to have arisen merely from the uncritical spirit in which the Saxon and Welsh traditions have been adopted as ascertained facts, and from the impos- sibility of reconciling the account of Beda with the natural sense of the entry in the Notitia : but there seems no reason whatever for adopting an excep- tional rendering in this case, and as the Littus Sax- onicum on the mainland was that district in which members of the Saxon confederacy were settled, the Littus Saxonicum per Britannias unquestionably obtained its name from a similar circumstance^.
' The document itself may be consulted in Graevius, vol. vii. The *' littus Saxonicum per Brittannias" extended at least from the Portus Adumi to Branodunum, that is, from the neighbourhood of Portsmouth to Branchester on the Wash. In both these places there were civil or mihtary officers under the orders of the Comes littoris Saxonici.
^ Professor Leo, of Halle, has called attention to a remarkable re- semblance between the names of certain places in Kent, and settlements of the Alamanni upon the Neckar. A few of these, it must be admitted, are striking, but the majority are only such as might be expected to arise frt)m similarities of surface and natural features in any two coun- tries settled by cognate populations, having nearly the same language, religious rites and civil institutions. Even if the fact be admitted in the fullest extent, it is still unnecessary to adopt Dr. Leo's hypothesis, that the coincidence is due to a double migration from the shores of the Elbe. Rectitud. sing, person, pp. 100-104. It has been already
CH. i] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 15
Thus far the object of this rapid sketch has been to show the improbability of our earliest records being anything more than ill-understood and con- fused traditions, accepted without criticism by our first annalists, and to refute the opinion long enter- tained by our chroniclers, that the Grermanic set- tlements in England really date from the middle of the fifth century. The results at which we have arrived are far from unimportant ; indeed they seem to form the only possible basis upon which we can ground a consistent and intelligible account of the manner of the settlements themselves. And, be it remembered, that the evidence brought forward upon this point are the assertions of indifferent and impartial witnesses; statesmen, soldiers, men of letters and philosophers, who merely recorded events of which they had full means of becoming cognizant, with no object in general save that of stating facts appertaining to the history of their empire. Moreover, the accounts they give are pro- bable in themselves and perfectly consistent with other well-ascertained facts of Roman history. Can the same praise be awarded to our own meagre national traditions, or to the fuller, detailed, but pal-
itated that Constantius was accompanied to Britain by an Alamannic king; and I cannot doubt that under Valentinian, a force of Alamanni
•erred in this country. Ammianus says: " Valentinianus in Ma-
criani locum, Bucinobantibus, quae contra Moguntiacum gens est Ala- manna, regem Fraomarium ordinavit: quem pauUo postea, quoniam recens excursus eundem penitus vastaverat pagum, in Britannos trans- latum potestate tribuni, Alamannorum praefecerat numero, multitudine, â–¼iribusque ea tempestate florenti." Hist. zxix. c. 4. The context renders it impossible that this *' numerus Alamannorum " should have been anything but genuine Germans.
16 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [booic i.
pably uncritical assertions of our conquered neigh- bours? I confess that the more I examine this question, the more completely I am convinced that the received accounts of our migrations, our subse- quent fortunes, and ultimate settlement, are devoid of historical truth in every detail.
It strikes the enquirer at once with suspicion when he finds the tales supposed peculiar to his own race and to this island, shared by the Grer- manic populations of other lands, and with slight changes of locality, or trifling variations of detail, recorded as authentic parts of their history. The readiest belief in fortuitous resemblances and co- incidences gives way before a number of instances whose agreement defies all the calculation of chances. Thus, when we find Hengest and Hors approaching the coasts of Kent in three keels, and ^Ui effecting a landing in Sussex with the same number, we are reminded of the Gothic tradition which carries a migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Gepidae, also in three vessels, to the mouths of the Vistula, certainly a spot where we do not readily look for that recurrence to a trinal calcula- tion, which so peculiarly characterizes the modes of thought of the Cymri. The murder of the British chieftains by Hengest is told totidem verbis by Widukind and others, of the Oldsaxons in Thurin- gia*. Geoffry of Monmouth relates also how Hen-
^ Widukind in Leibnitz, Rer. Bruntw. i. 73, 74 ; Rq)gow, Sachsensp. iii. 44, § 2. It is amusing enough to see how the number of ships increMet as people began to feel the absurdity of bnnging over con* quering armies in such very small flotillas.
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 17
gest obtained from the Britons as much land as could be enclosed by an ox-hide ; then, cutting the hide into thongs, enclosed a much larger space than the grantors intended, on which he erected Thong castle ' — a tale too familiar to need illustra- tion, and which runs throughout the mythus of many nations. Among the Oldsaxons the tradi- tion is in reality the same, though recorded with a shght variety of detail. In their story, a lapfuU of earth is purchased at a dear rate from a Thurin- gian ; the companions of the Saxon jeer him for his imprudent bargain ; but he sows the purchased earth over a large space of ground, which he claims and, Vy the aid of his comrades, ultimately wrests from the Thuringians «.
To the traditional history of the tribes peculiarly belong the genealogies of their kings, to which it will be necessary to refer hereafter in a mythological point of view. For the present it is enough that I call attention to the extraordinary tale of Offa, who occurs at an early stage of the Mercian table, among the progenitors of the Mercian kings. This story, as we find it in Matthew Paris's detailed ac- count ^, coincides in the minutest particulars with a
' Galf. Monum. H. Brit. vi. 11. Thong castle probably gave a turn to the ftory here which the Oldsaxon legend had not. The classical tale of Dido and Byrsa is well known to every schoolboy : Ragnor Lodbrog adopted the same artifice. Rag. Lodb. Saga. cap. 19, 20 : nay the Hindoos declare that wc obtained possession of Calcutta by similar means.
* Widuk. tfi loc, citat,, also Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, No. 547> 369, and Deutsche Rechtsalt. p. 90, where several valuable examples are cited : it is remarkable how many of these are Thuringian.
* Vit. Offae Primi, edited by Watts.
VOL. I. C
18 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
tale told by Saxo Grammaticus of a Danish prince bearing the same name\
The form itself in which details, which profess to be authentic, have been preserved, ought to se- cure us from falling into error. They are romantiCi not historical; and the romance has salient and characteristic points, not very reconcilable with the variety which marks the authentic records of fact. For example, the details of a long and doubtful struggle between the Saxons and the Britons are obviously based upon no solid foundation ; the dates and the events are alike traditional, — the usual and melancholy consolation of the vanquished. In pro^* portion as we desert the older and apply to later sources of information, do we meet with success- ful wars, triumphant British chieftains, vanquished Saxons, heroes endowed with supernatural powers and blessed with supernatural luck. Gildas, Nen- nius and Beda mention but a few contests, and even these of a doubtful and suspicious character ; Geoffry of Monmouth and gossipers of his class on the contrary, are full of wondrous incidents by flood and field, of details calculated to flatter the pride or console the sorrow of Keltic auditors : the successes which those who lived in or near the times described, either pass over in modest silence or vaguely insinuate^ under sweeping generalities, are impudently related by this fabler and his copy- ists with every richness of narration. According to him the invaders are defeated in every part of the
' Saxo Gramm. bk. iv. p. 59 seq.
OH. 1.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 19
island^ nay even expelled from it ; army after army is destroyed^ chieftain after chieftain slain ; till he winds up his enormous tissue of fabrications with the defeat, the capture and execution of a hero whose very existence becomes problematical when tested by the severe principles of historical criti- cism, and who, according to the strict theory of our times, can hardly be otherwise than enrolled among the gods, through a godlike or half-godlike form\
It is no doubt probable that the whole land was not subdued without some pains in different quarters ; that here and there a courageous leader or a favourable position may have enabled the aborigines to obtain even temporary successes over the invaders : the new immigrants were not likely to find land vacant for their occupation among their kinsmen who had long been settled here, though well-assured of their co-operation in any
^ Woden in the gentile form of a horse, Hengest, equtis admissarius, the brother of Hors, and father of a line in which names of horses form a distinguishing part of the royal appellatives. It is hardly necessary to remind the classical reader of Poseidon in his farourite shape, the shape in which he contended with Athene and mingled with Ceres. In these remarks on Geoffry and his sources, I do not mean to deny the obligation under which the reader of romance has been laid by him ; only to reject everything like historical authority. It is from the countrymen of Gteoffry that we have also gained the marvellous •aperstructure of imagination which has supplied the tales of that time, " when Charlemagne with all his peerage fell by Fontarabia," and which ii recognised by history in the very short entry, " In quo proeUo Eggi- hardus regiae mensae praepositus, Anselmus comes palatii, et Hruod- landiift, Brittanici limitis praefectus, cum aliis compluribua interfi- ctuntor." Einhart. vit. Karol. § 9. Pertz, ii. 448. Let us be grateful for the Orlando Innamorato and Furioso, but not make history of them.
c 2
20 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
attempt to wrest new settlements from the British. But no authentic record remains of the slow and gradual progress that would have attended the con- quest of a hrave and united people, nor is any such consistent with the accounts the British authors have left of the disorganized and disarmed condi- tion of the population. A skirmish, carried on hy very small numbers on either side, seems generally to have decided the fate of a campaign. Steadily from east to west, from south to north, the sharp axes and long swords of the Teutons hewed their way : wherever opposition was offered, it ended in the retreat of the aborigines to the mountains, — fortresses whence it was impossible to dislodge them, and from which they sometimes descended to attempt a hopeless effort for the liberty of their country or revenge upon their oppressors. The ruder or more generous of their number may have preferred exile and the chances of emigration to subjection at home* ; but the mass of the people, accustomed to Roman rule or the oppression of native princes*, probably suffered little by a change of masters, and did little to avoid it. At even a later period an indignant bard could pour out his patriotic reproaches upon the Loegrians who had
^ Many beyond a doubt found a refuge in Brittany among their brethren and co-religionists who had long been settled there. Conf. Ermold. Nigel, bk. iii. y. 11. in Pertz, ii. 490. The Cumbrians and Welsh had probably been as little subdued by the Bomans as they were by the Saxons.
' Gildas does not spare the native princes: see Epist. quaerul. passim ; and when every excuse has been made for the exaggerations of an honest zeal, we must believe the condition of the people to have been bad in the extreme.
CH. 1.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 21
condescended to become Saxons. We learn that at first the condition of the British under the German rule was fair and easy, and only rendered harsher in punishment of their unsuccessful attempts at rebellion* ; and the laws of Ini, a Westsaxon king, show that in the territories subject to his rule, and bordering upon the yet British lands, the Welsh- man occupied the place of a perioedan rather than a Mlote ^ Nothing in fact is more common, or less true, than the exaggerated account of total exter- minations and miserable oppressions, in the tradi- tional literature of conquered nations ; and we may very safely appeal even to the personal appearance of the peasantry in many parts of England, as evi- dence how much Keltic blood was permitted to sub- sist and even to mingle with that of the niling Ger- mans ; while the signatures to very early charters supply us with names assuredly not Teutonic, and therefore probably borne by persons of Keltic race, occupying positions of dignity at the courts of Anglosaxon kings ^.
^ " Quorum illi qui Northwallos, id est Aquilonales Britones diceban- tor, parti Westsazonum regum obvenerant. Illi quondam consuetis iervitiia seduli, diu nil asperum retulere, sed tunc rebellionem medi- tantes, Kentuuinus rex tarn anxia caede perdomuit, ut nihil ulterius fperarent. Quare et ultima malorum aceessit captivis tributaria func- tio ; ut qui antea nee solam umbram palpabant libertatis, nunc iugum subiectionis palam ingemiscerent." Malmsb. vit. Aldh. Ang. Sac. ii. 14.
« Leg. Ini, § 32, 33.
* See a tract of the author's in the Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute, 1845, on Anglosaxon names. From some very interesting papers read by the Rev. R. Gamett before the Philological Society in 1843, 1844, we learn that a considerable proportion of the words which denote the daily processes of agriculture, domestic life, and generally indoor and outdoor service, are borrowed by us from the Keltic.
22 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
From what has preceded it will be inferred that I look upon the genuine details of the Grerman conquests in England as irrevocably lost to us. So extraordinary a success as the conquest of this island by bands of bold adventurers from the con- tinent, whose cognate tribes had already come into fatal collision with not only the Gallic provincials, but even the levies of the city itself S could hardly have passed unnoticed by the historians of the em- pire : we have seen however that only Prosper Tyro and Procopius notice this great event, and that too in terms which by no means necessarily imply
Philolog. Trans, i. 17U seq. The amount of Keltic words yet current in English may of course be accounted for in part, without the hypo- thesis of an actual incorporation ; but many have unquestionably been borrowed, and serve to show that a strong Keltic element was permitted to remain and influence the Saxon. That it did so especially in local names is not of much importance, as it may be doubted whether con- quest ever succeeded in changing these entirely, in any country.
^ I borrow from Hermann Miiller's instructive work, Der Lex Salica und der Lex Angliorum et Werinorum Alter und Heimat, p. 269, the following chronological notices of the Franks in their relations to the Roman empire : —
A.D. 250. Franks, the inhabitants of marshes, become known by their predatory excursions.
2S0. Franks, transplanted to Asia, return.
287. Franks occupy Batavia; are expelled.
29 L Franks in the Gallic provinces.
306. Constautine chastises the Franks. They enjoy consideration in the service of Rome.
340. Wars and treaties with the Franks.
356. Julian treats with the Franks on the lower Rhine.
358. He treats with Franks in Toxandria.
359. Salic Franks in Batavia.
395. Stilicho treats with the Franks.
408. The Vandals invading Gaul are defeated by the Franks.
414. War with the Franks.
416. The Franks possess the Rhine-land.
437. Chlojo bursta into G«ul and takes Cambray.
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 23
a state of things consistent with the received ac- counts. The former only says indefinitely, that about 44 1 9 Britain was finally reduced under the Saxon power ; while Procopius clearly shows how very imperfect, indeed fahulous, an account he had received ^ Could we trust the accuracy and cri- tical spirit of this writer, whom no less a man than Gibbon has condescended to call the gravest histo- rian of his time, we might indeed imagine that we had recovered one fact of our earliest history, which brought with it all the attractions of romance. An Angle princess had been betrothed to Radig^r, prince of the Varni, a Teutonic tribe whose seats are subsequently described to have been about the shores of the Northern Ocean and upon the Rhine, by which alone they were separated from the Franks*. Tempted however partly by motives of policy, partly perhaps by maxims of heathendom, he deserted his promised bride and ofiTered his hand to Theodechild, the widow of his father, and sister of the Austrasian Theodberht^. Like the epic he- roine Brynhildr, the deserted lady was not disposed
> Prooop. Bel. Got iv. 20.
' Odafn/oi fiiv imfp "larpov norc^thv ibpwTcu, di^xovcri dc &XP^ ^^ '^ *QK€ap6v rby apKr^ov icac norafiov 'Frjvoy, Bairtp avrovs tc diopi{€i Koi ^pdyyovs nal rSKka ZBvrj, ^ ravrn tdpvirrai' olrrot Swavret, oaoi r6 rraXcuoy Ofi^l *Prjpoy €K(xr^p»$€V vorafibv ^Krjvro^ 2diov fjJv rtvos 6v6paroi cfraoroi
lurdkayxavov enrl Koii^r d€ TtppLOPoX tKoKovvTO &Travrts,,.Ovapvoi dc
icoi Opayyoi rovrl fi6vov tov 'Privov to vdmp ficra^ txpvaiv, Bel. Got. W, 20.
* Procopius tells us that this was done by the dying father's advice, And in oontonanoe with the law of the people. 'Padiycp dc 6 Yrair (vvoc- iti{c(r^ t;^ firfTpvi^ t6 \tHirov rj avrov, KO^avcp 6 irdrpws rip-lv c<^if;(ri vdfws. Ibid. Conf. Bed. H. £. ii. 5.
24 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
to pass over the affront thus offered to her charms. With an immense armament she sailed for the mouth of the Rhine. A victory placed the faithless bridegroom a prisoner in her power. But desire of revenge gave place to softer emotionSi and the tri- umphant princess was content to dismiss her rival and compel her repentant suitor to perform his en- gagement.
To deny all historical foundation to this tale would perhaps be carrying scepticism to an un- reasonable extent. Yet the most superficial exa- mination proves that in all its details, at least, it is devoid of accuracy^ The period during which the events described must be placed ^ is between the years 534 and 547 ; and it is very certain that the Varni were not settled at that time where Proco- pius has placed them^: on that locality we can only look for Saxons. It is hardly necessary to say that a fleet of four hundred ships, and an army of one hundred thousand Angles, led by a woman, are not data upon which we could implicitly rely in calculating either the political or military power of any English principality at the commencement of the sixth century ; or that ships capable of carrying two hundred and fifty men each, had hardly been launched at that time from any port in England. Still I am not altogether disposed to deny the pos-
^ The yean 534 and 547 are the extreme terms of Theodberht's reign. See Gib. Dec. bk. 38.
' Thii fact, which has escaped the accurate, and generally merciless, criticism of Gibbon, is very clearly proved by 2^euss, Die Deutschen, etc. pp. 361, 362.
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 25
sibility of predatory expeditions from the more set- tled parts of the island, adjoining the eastern coasts. Gregory of Tours tells us that about the same time as that assigned to this Angle expedition, Theodoric the Frank, assisted by Sueves, Saxons and even Bavarians, cruelly devastated the territory of the Thuringians ; and although it woul4 be far more natural to seek these Saxons in their old settle- ments'upon the continent, we have the authority of Ruodolf or Meginhart, that they were in fact in- habitants of this islands
But if such difficulties exist in dealing with the events of periods which are within the ascertained limits of our chronological system, and which have received the illustration of contemporary history, what shall we say of those whereof the time, nay
' The passage is sufficiently important to deserve transcription at length. " Saxonum gens, sicut tradit antiquitas, ab Anglis Britanniae incoUs egressa, per Oceanum navigans Germaniae litoribus studio et necessitate quaerendarum sedium appulsa est, in loco qui vocatur Ha- duloha, eo tempore quo Thiotricus rex Francorum contra Irminfridum, generum suum, ducem Thuringorum, dimicans, terram eorum ferro vas- tavit et igni. £t cum iam duobus proeliis ancipiti pugna incertaque victoria miserabili suorum caede decertassent, Tliiotricus spe vincendi frustratus, misit legatos ad Sazones, quorum dux erat Hadugoto. Au- divit enim causam adventus eorum, promissisque pro victoria habitandi sedibus, conduxit eos in adiutorium ; quibus secum quasi iam pro liber- tate et patria fortiter dimicantibus, superavit adversarios, vastatisque indigenis et ad intemitionem pene deletis, terram eorum iuxta pollid- tationem victoribus delegavit. Qui earn sorte dividentes, cum multi ex eis in bello cecidissent, et pro raritate eorum tota ab eis occupari non potuit, partem illius, et cam quam maxime quae respicit orientem, co- lonis tradebant, singuli pro sorte sua, sub tributo exercendam. Caetera vero loca ipsi possiderunt." Transl. Sci. Alexand. Pertz, ii. 674. This was written about 863. Possibly some ancient and now lost epic had recorded the wars of the Saxon HeatSogeit.
26 THE' SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
even the locality is unknown ? What account shall we render of those occurrences, which exist for us only in the confused forms given to them by suc- cessive ages ; some, mischievously determined to reduce the abnormal to rule, the extraordinary to order, as measured by their narrow scheme of ana- logy? Is it, not obvious that to seek for historic truth in such traditions, is to be guilty of violating every principle of historic logic ? Such was the course pursued by our early chroniclers, but it is not one that we can be justified in repeating. In their view no doubt, the annals of the several Saxon kingdoms did supply points of definite information ; but we are now able to take the measure of their credulity, and to apply severer canons of criticism to the facts themselves which they believed and re- corded. If it was the tendency and duty of their age to deliver to us the history that they found, it is the tendency and duty of ours to enquire upon what foundation that history rests, and what amount of authority it may justly claim.
The little that Beda could collect at the begin- ning of the eighth century, formed the basis of all the subsequent reports. Though not entirely free from the prejudices of his time, and yielding ready faith to tales which his frame of mind disposed him willingly to credit, he seems to have bestowed some pains upon the investigation and critical apprecia- tion of the materials he collected. But the limits of the object he had proposed to himself, viz. the ecclesiastical history of the island, not only imposed upon him the necessity of commencing his detailed
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 27
narrative at a comparatively late period \ but led him to reject much that may have been well known to him, of our secular history. The deeds of pagan and barbarous chieftains offered little to attract his attention or command his sympathies ; indeed were little likely to be objects of interest to those from whom his own information was generally derived. Beda's account, copied and recopied both at home and abroad, was swelled by a few vague data from the regnal annals of the kings ; these were probably increased by a few traditions, ill understood and ill applied, which belonged exclusively to the epical or mythological cycles of our own several tribes and races, and the cognate families of the continent ; and finally the whole was elaborated into a mass of inconsistent fables, on the admission of Cymric or Armorican tales by Norman writers, who for the most part felt as little interest in the fate of .the Briton as the Saxon, and were as little able to ap- preciate the genuine history of the one as of the other race. Thus Wdden, Bseldseg, Geit, Scyld, Scedf and Bedwa gradually found their way into the royal genealogies ; one by one, Brutus, Aurelius Ambrosius, Uther Pendragon and Arthur, Hen** gest, Hors and Vortigern, all became numbered among historical personages ; and from heroes of respective epic poems sunk down into kings and
' Beda attempts to give some account of the early state of Britain previous to the arrival of Augustine ; a few quotations from Solinus, Gildas, and a legendary life of St. Germanus, comprise however nearly the whole of his collections. Either he could find no more information, or he did not think it worthy of belief. He even speaks doubtfully of the tele of Hengest. Hist. Eod. i. 15.
28 THE' SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
warriors, who lived and fought and died upon the soil of England.
We are ignorant what fasti or mode even of reckoning the revolutions of seasons prevailed in England, previous to the introduction of Chris- tianity. We know not how any event before the year 600 was recorded, or to what period the me- mory of man extended. There may have been rare annals : there may have been poems : if such there were they have perished, and have left no trace behind, unless we are to attribute to them such scanty notices as the Saxon chronicle adds to Beda's account. From such sources however little could have been gained of accurate information either as to the real internal state, the domestic progress, or development of a people. The dry, bare en- tries of the chronicles in historical periods may supply the means of judging what sort of annals were likely to exist before the general introduction of the Roman alphabet and parchment, while, in all probability, runes supplied the place of letters, and stones, or the &eecA-wood from which their name is derived, of hooks. Again, the traditions embo- died in the epic, are pre-eminently those of kings and princes : they are heroical, devoted to cele- brate the divine or half-divine founders of a race^ the fortunes of their warlike descendants, the man- ners and mode of life of military adventurers, not the obscure progress, household peace and orderly habits of the humble husbandman. They are full of feasts and fighting, shining arms and golden goblets : the gods mingle among men almost their
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 29
equals, share in the same pursuits, are animated by the same passions of love, and jealousy and hatred ; or, blending the divine with the mortal nature, be- come the founders of races, kingly because derived from divinity itself. But one race knows little of another or its traditions, and cares as little for them. Alliances or wars alone bring them in contact with one another ; and the terms of intercourse between the races will for the most part determine the cha- racter under which foreign heroes shall be admitted into the national epos, or whether they shall be admitted at all. All history then, which is founded in any degree upon epical tradition (and national history is usually more or less so founded) must be to that extent imperfect, if not inaccurate ; only when corrected by the written references of con- temporaneous authors, can we assign any certainty to its records ^
Let us apply these observations to the early events of Saxon history : of Kent indeed we have the vague and uncertain notices which I have men- tioned : even more vague and uncertain are those of Sussex and Wessex. Of the former, we learn that in the year 477, -^Ui with three sons, Cymen, Wlencing and Cissa, landed in Sussex ; that in the year 485 they defeated the Welsh, and that in 491 they destroyed the population of Anderida *. Not another word is there about Sussex, before the ar-
^ The Homeric poems and those of the Edda are obvious examples : but nothing can be more instructive than the history which Livy and Saxo Grammaticus have woven out of similar materials.
' Sax. Chron. under the respective dates.
aO THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
rival of Augustine, except a late assertion of the military pre-eminence of ^Ui among the Saxon chieftains. The events of Wessex are somewhat better detailed ; we learn that in 495 two nobles, Cerdic and Cyneric, came to England, and landed at Cerdices ora, where on the same day they fought a battle : that in 501 they were followed by a noble named Port, who with his two sons Bieda and Msegla made a forcible landing at Portsmouth: and that in 508 they gained a great battle over a British king, whom they slew together with five thousand of his people, in 514 Stuff and Wihtgar, their nephews, brought them a reinforcement of three ships ; in 519 they again defeated the Britons, and established the kingdom of Wessex. In 527 a new victory is recorded : in 530, the Isle of Wight was subdued and given to Wihtgar ; and in 534, Cerdic died, and was succeeded by Cyneric, who reigned twenty-six years \ In 544 Wihtgar died. A victory of Cyneric in 552 and 556, and Ceawlin's accession to the throne of Wessex are next recorded. Wars of the Westsaxon kings are noted in 568, 571, 577, 584. From 590 to .595 a king of that race named Ce61 is mentioned: in 591 we learn the expulsion of Ceawlin from power : in 593 the deaths of Ceawlin, CwicheUn and Crida are men- tioned, and in 597, the year of Augustine's arrival, we learn that Ce61wulf ascended the throne of Wessex. '
Meagre as these details are, they far exceed what
' Cerdic and CyneHc landed in 495, after forty years Cerdic diet, and Cyneric reigns twenty-six more!
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 31
IB related of Northumberland , Essex, or East- anglia. In 547 we are told that Ida began to reign in the first of these kingdoms ; and that he was 8uc«« ceeded in 560 by ^lli : that after a reign of thirty years \ he died in 588 and was succeeded by JEVeU TIC, who again in 593 was succeeded by MVelfriV, This is all we learn of Northumbria ; of Merciai Essex, Eastanglia, and the innumerable kingdoms that must have been comprised under these general appellations, we hear not a single word.
If this be all that we can now recover of events, a gro^t number of which must have fallen within the lives of those to whom Augustine preached , what credit shall we give to the inconsistent ac- counts of earlier actions ? How shall we supply the almost total want of information respecting the first settlements ? What explanation have we to give of the alliance between Jutes, Angles and Saxons which preceded the invasions of England ? What knowledge will these records supply of the real number and quality of the chieftains, the lan- guage and blood of the populations who gradually spread themselves from the Atlantic to the Frith of Forth ; of the remains of Roman cultivation, or the amount of British power with which they had to contend ? of the vicissitudes of good and evil for- tune which visited the independent principalitieSt before they were swallowed up in the kingdoms of
' The chronology is inconsistent throughout, and it is inconceivahle that it should have heen otherwise. Beda himself assigns different dates to the arrival of the Saxons, though it is the Kra from which he frequently reckons.
32 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
the heptarchy, or the extent of the influence which they retained after that event ? On all these several points we are left entirely in the dark; and yet these are facts which it most imports us to know, if we would comprehend the growth of a society which endured for at least seven hundred years in England, and formed the foundation of that in which we live.
Lappenberg has devoted several pages of his elaborate history ^ to an investigation of the Kent- ish legends, with a view to demonstrate their tra- ditional, that is unhistorical, character. Hq has shown that the best authorities are inconsistent with one another and with themselves, in assigning the period of Hengest's arrival in England. Care- fully comparing the dates of the leading events, as given from the soundest sources, he has proved be* yond a doubt, that all these periods are calculated upon a mythical number 8, whose multiples recur in every year assigned. Thus the periods of twenty- four, sixteen, eight and particularly forty years meet us at every turn ; and a somewhat similar tendency may, I think, be observed in the earlier dates of Westsaxon history cited in a preceding page. It is also very probable that the early ge- nealogies of the various Anglosaxon kings were arranged in series of eight names, including always the great name of W6den*.
The result of all these enquiries is, to guard
^ Thorpe's Lappenb. i. 7S seq.
^ Beowulf, iL Postscript to the Preface, junrii.
CH. I.] SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS. 33
against plausible details which can only mislead us. If we endeavour to destroy the credit of tradi- tions which have long existed, it is only to put something in their place, inconsistent with them, but of more value : to reduce them to what they really are, lest their authority should render the truth more obscure, and its pursuit more difficult than is necessary ; but to use them wherever they seem capable of guiding our researches, and are not irreconcileable with our otlier conclusions.
Far less in the fabulous records adopted by hi- storians, than in the divisions of the land itself, according to the populations that occupied it, and the rank of their several members, must the truth be sought. The names of the tribes and families have survived in the localities where they settled, while their peculiar forms of customary law have become as it were melted together into one gene- ral system ; and the national legends which each of them most probably possessed, have either perished altogether, or are now to be traced only in proper names which fill up the genealogies of the royal families ^ To these local names I shall return
' Ge&t; the eponymus of a race, Geatas, is found in the common genealogy previous to W6den ; his legend is alluded to in the Codex Exoniensis, pp. 377> 378, together with those of Deodrlc, W^and and Eormanrlc. Witta in the Kentish line is found in the Traveller's Song, 1. 43. Offa in the Mercian genealogy occurs in the same poem, 1. 69, in the fine epos of Be6wulf, and in Saxo Grammaticus. Fin the son of Folcwalda is one of the heroes of Be6wulf. Sc}'ld, Sceaf and Bedwa are found in the same poem, etc. These facts render it prohable that many other, if not all the names in the genealogies were equally derived from the peculiar national or gentile legends, although the epic poems in which they were celebrated being now lost, we are un- able to point to them aa we have done to others.
VOL. I. D
84 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
hereafter ; they will furnish a strong confirmation of what has heen advanced in this chapter as to the probability of an early and wide dispersion of Teutonic settlers in Britain.
35
CHAPTER II.
THE MARK.
All that we learn of the original principles of settlement, prevalent either in England or ou the continent of Europe, among the nations of Ger- manic blood, rests upon two main foundations; first, the possession of land ; second, the distinction of rank ; and the public law of every Teutonic tribe implies the dependence of one upon the other principle, to a greater or less extent. Even as he who is not free can, at first, hold no land within the limits of the community, so is he who holds no land therein, not fully free, whatever his personal rank or character may be. Thus far the Teutonic settler differs but little from the ancient Spartiate or the comrade of Romulus.
The particular considerations which arise from the contemplation of these principles in their progres- sive development, will find their place in the seve* ral chapters of this Book : it deals with land held in community, and severalty ; with the nature and accidents of tenure ; with the distinction and privi^ leges of the various classes of citizens, the free, the noble and the serf ; and with the institutions by which a mutual guarantee of life, honour and peace- ful possession was attempted to be secured among
d2
36 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
the Anglosaxons. These are the incunabula^ first principles and rudiments of the English law* ; and in these it approaches, and assimilates to, the sy- stem which the German conquerors introduced into every state which they founded upon the ruins of the Roman power.
As land may be held by many men in common, or by several households, under settled conditions, it is expedient to examine separately the nature and character of these tenures : and first to enquire into the forms of possession in common ; for upon this depends the political being of the state, its constitutional law, and its relative position towards other states. Among the Anglosaxons land so held in common was designated by the names Mark, and Ga or Shire.
The smallest and simplest of these common di- visions is that which we technically call a Mark or March (mearc) ; a word less frequent in the Anglo- saxon than the German muniments, only because the system founded upon what it represents yielded in England earlier than in Germany to extraneous influences. This is the first general division, the next in order to the private estates or alods of the Markmen : as its name denotes, it is something marked out or defined, having settled boundaries ; something serving as a sign to others, and distin- guished by signs. It is the plot of land on which a greater or lesser number of free men have set- tled for purposes of cultivation, and for the sake of mutual profit and protection ; and it comprises a
' " Incunabula et rudimenta virtutis." Cic. de Off.
CH. 11.] THE MARK. 37
portiou both of arable land and pasture, in propor- tion to the numbers that enjoy its produced
However far we may pursue our researches into the early records of our forefathers, we cannot dis- cover a period at which this organization was unknown. Whatever may have been the original condition of the German tribes, tradition and his- tory alike represent them to us as living partly by agriculture, partly by the pasturing of cattle*. They had long emerged from the state of wandering herdsmen, hunters or fishers, when they first at- tracted the notice, and disputed or repelled the power, of Rome. The peculiar tendencies of vari- ous tribes may have introduced peculiar modes of placing or constructing their habitations; but of no German population is it stated, that they dwelt in tents like the Arab, in waggons like the Scy- thian, or in earth-dug caverns like the troglodytes of Wallachia : the same authority that tells of some who lived alone as the hill-side or the fresh spring pleased them^, notices the villages, the houses and even the fortresses, of others.
' " Agri pro numero cultorum, ab universis per vices occiipantur, quos mox inter se secundum dignationem partiuntur ; facilitatem particndi camporum spatia praestant." Tac. Germ. 26.
' " Sola terrae segcs imperatur," they raise com, but not fruits or vegetables. Tac. Germ. 26. " Frumenti modum dominus, aut pecoris, aut vestis, ut colono, iniungit ; et servus hactenus paret." Ibid. 25. Hordeum, and frumentum. Ibid. 23.
' ** Colunt discrcti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut ncmus placuit. Vicos locant, non in nostrum morem, connexis et cohacrentibus aedili- ciis; suam quisque domum spatio circumdat." Tac. Germ. 16. When Tacitus speaks of caverns dug in the earth, it is as granaries (which may to this day be seen in Hungary) or as places of refuge firom sud- den invasion.
d8 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
Without commerce, means of extended commu- nication, or peaceful neighboui*8, the Germans can- not have cultivated their fields for the service of strangers : they must have been consumers, as they certainly were raisers, of bread- com ; early docu- ments of the Anglosaxons prove that considerable quantities of wheat were devoted to this purpose. Even the serfs and domestic servants were entitled to an allowance of bread, in addition to the supply of flesh ^ ; and the large quantities of ale and beer which we find enumerated among the dues payable from the land, or in gifts to religious establish- ments, presume a very copious supply of cereales for the purpose of malting^. But it is also certain that our forefathers depended very materially for subsistence upon the herds of oxen, sheep, and especially swine, which they could feed upon the unenclosed meadows, or in the wealds of oak and beech which covered a large proportion of the land. From the moment, in short, when we first learn anything of their domestic condition, all the Ger- man tribes appear to be settled upon arable land, surrounded with forest pastures, and having some kind of property in both.
^ On xii mdn'Sum 'Su scealt sillan 'Sinum )>e6waii men vii hund hlafa ^j XX hlafa, butan morgemettum ^ nonmettum : in the course of twelve months thou shalt give thy J>e6w or serf, seven hundred and twenty loaves, besides morning meals and noon meals. Sal. and Sat. p. 192. We should perhaps read seven hundred and thirty, which would give daily two loaves, probably of rye or barley. Compare the allowances mentioned in the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum. Anc. Laws. Thorpe, i. 432 seq,
^ So from the earliest times : ** Potui humor ex hordeo aut frumento in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus." Tac. Germ. 23.
CH. ii.J THE MARK. 39
Caesar, it is true, denies that agriculture was much cultivated among the Germans, or that pro- perty in the arable land was permitted to be perma- nent^ : and, although it seems impolitic to limit the efforts of industry, by diminishing its reward, it is yet conceivable that, under peculiar circumstances, a warlike confederation might overlook this obvi- ous truth in their dread of the enervating influences of property and a settled life. There may have been difficulty in making a new yearly division of land, which to our prejudices seems almost impos- sible ; yet the Arab of Oran claims only the produce of the seed he has sown* ; the proprietor in the Jaghire district of Madras changes his lands from year to year^ ; the tribes of the Afghans submit to a new distribution even after a ten years' possession has endeared the field to the cultivator* ; Diodorus tells us that the Vaccaeans changed their lands yearly and divided the produce* ; and Strabo attri- butes a similar custom to one tribe at least of the Illyrian Dalmatians, after a period of seven ^.
But so deeply does the possession of land enter into the principle of all the Teutonic institutions, that I cannot bring myself to believe in the accu-
1 "Agriculturae non student: maiorqiie pars victus eorura in lacte, caseo, came consistit : neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habct proprios ; sed magistititus ac priucipes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusquc hominum, qui una coierint, quantum, et quo loco visum est, agri adtribuunt, atquc anno post alio transire cogunt. Eius rei multas adferunt causas; nc, adsidua consuetudine capti, studium belli gerundi agricultura commuteut; '* etc. Bell. Gall. vi. 22.
' The administration of Oran. Times newspaper, Aug. 24th, 1844.
3 Fifth Rep., Committee, 1810, p. 723,cited in Mill's Brit. India,i.315.
< Elphinstone's Caubul, ii. 17, 18, 19.
* Diodorus, v. 34. ** Strabo, bk. vii. p. 316.
40 TUE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
racy of Caesar's statement. Like his previous rash and most unfounded assertion respecting the Ger- man gods, this may rest only upon the incorrect information of Gallic provincials : at the utmost it can be applied only to the Suevi and their warlike allies S if it be not even intended to be confined to the predatory bands of Ariovistus^ encamped among the defeated yet hostile Sequani*. The equally well-known passage of Tacitus, — " arva per annos mutant, et superest ager^/' — may be most safely rendered as applying to the common mode of cul- ture ; " they change the arable from year to year, and there is land to spare ;" that is, for commons and pasture : but it does not amount to a proof that settled property in land was not a part of the Teutonic scheme ; it implies no more than this, that within the Mark which was the property of all, what was this year one man's corn-land, might the next be another man's fallow ; a process very in- telligible to those who know anything of the system of cultivation yet prevalent in parts of Germany, or have ever had any interest in what we call Lam- mas Meadows.
Zeuss, whose admirable work^ is indispensable to the student of Teutonic antiquity, brings toge- ther various passages to show that at some early period, the account given by Caesar may have conveyed a just description of the mode of life in
' Hanides, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes and Sedusii. BeU. GaU. i. 51.
« Bell. Gall. i. 31. ^ Xac. Germ. 26.
* Die Deutschen und die Nachbantamme, von Kaspar Zeu88. Miin- chen. 1837.
GH. II.] THE MARK. 41
Germany K He represents its inhabitants to himself as something between a settled and an unsettled people. What they may have been in periods pre- vious to the dawn of authentic history, it is impos- sible to say ; but all that we really know of them not only implies a much more advanced state of civilization, but the long continuance and tradition of such a state. We cannot admit the validity of Zeuss' reasoning, or escape from the conviction that it mainly results from a desire to establish his etymology of the names borne by the several con- federations, and which requires the hypothesis of wandering and unsettled tribes^.
' He cites the passage from Caesar which I have quoted, and also Bell. Gall. iv. 1, which still applies only to the Suevi. His next evi- dence is the assertion of Tacitus just noticed. His third is from Plu- tarch's Aemil. Paul. c. 12, of the Bastamae : IMpts ov y€<apy€iv €t^€s, ov nkfiy, ovK air6 Troc/xviODV Cu^ V€fiovT€S, aXX' iv tpyov Koi fiiav rc;^io;y fi€- Xrr&PTfs, d(\ fxdxfO'Oai koi Kparuv tS>v airrvrarroyLfvtov, A people with- out agriculture or commerce, and who live only on fighting, may he left undisturbed in the realm of dreams with which philosophers are con- versant. Zeuss proceeds to reason upon the analogy of examples de- rived from notices of Britons, Kelts and Wends, in Strabo, Polybius and Dio Cassius. See p. 52, etc.
' Thus, according to his view, Suevi (Su6p, Swaef ) denotes the wan- derers ; Wandal also the wanderers. Assuredly if nations at large par- took of such habits, single tribes could not have derived a name from the custom. How much more easy would it be, upon similar et}'molo- gical grounds, to prove that the leading Teutonic nations were named from their weapons ! Saxons from seaxy the long knife ; Angles from angoly a hook; Franks from/ranca, a javelin; Langobards and Hea"!^ bards from barda, the axe or halberd; nay even the general name itself, Germans, from gdrman (Old Germ, k&man) the javelin- or goad- man. Yet who would assert these to be satisfactory derivations ? Zahn, whose services to Old German literature cannot be overrated, speaks wisely when he calls the similarity of proper names, a rock '* on which uncritical heads are much in the habit of splitting." Vorrede zu Ulphilas, p. 3.
42 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
The word Mark has a legal as well as a territo- rial meaning : it is not only a space of land, such as has been described, but a member of a state also ; in which last sense it represents those who dwell upon the land, in relation to their privileges and rights, both as respects themselves and others. But the word, as applied even to the territory, has a twofold meaning : it is, properly speaking, em- ployed to denote not only the whole district occu- pied by one small community* ; but more especiaUy those forests and wastes by which the arable is en- closed, and which separate the possessions of one tribe from those of another «. The Mark or boun- dary pasture-land, and the cultivated space which it surrounds, and which is portioned out to the se- veral members of the community, are inseparable ;
' If a man be emancipated, his lord shall still retain the right to his mund and wergyld, sy ofer mearce iSfkr he wille, be he over the mark wherever he may be, be he out of the district where he may. LI. Wihtr. § 8. Thorpe, i. 38.
' Grimm is of opinion that the word Marc itself originally denoted
forest, and that the modem sense is a secondary one, derived from the
fact of forests being the signs or marks of communities. Deut. Granz-
alterthiimer. Berl. 1844. There can be no doubt that forests were so :
in Old Norse the two ideas, and the words by which they are expressed,
flow into one another : Mork (f ) is silva, Mark (n) is limes. In the
£dda and Sogur, Myrkyi'Sr is the common name for a wood : thus,
sem f>esb. her kom saman, ri'Sa )>eir i sk6g Hn er Myrkvi'Sr heitir,
hann skilr Utinaland ok Rei1$gota land ; they rode to the forest which
is called Myrkvi'Sr (mearcwidu in Anglosaxon) which separates Huna
land from Rcidgota land. Fomm. Sog. i. 496. Though given here as
a proper name, it is unquestionably a general one. Conf. £dda, Vo-
lund. cv. I.
meyjar flugu sunnan
myrkvi^ igognum.
and so in many passages. The darkness of the forest gives rise also to the adjective murky.
CH. II.] THE MARK. 43
however different the nature of the property which can be had in them, they are in fact one whole ; taken together, they make up the whole territorial possession of the original cognatio, kin or tribe. The ploughed lands and meadows are guarded by the Mark ; and the cultivator ekes out a subsistence which could hardly be wrung from the small plot he calls his own, by the flesh and other produce of beasts, which his sons, his dependents or his serfs mast for him in the outlying forests.
Let us first take into consideration the Mark in its restricted and proper sense of a boundary. Its most general characteristic is, that it should not be distributed in arable, but remain in heath, forest, fen and pasture. In it the Markmen — called in Germany Markgenossen, and perhaps by the Anglo- saxons Mearcgeneatas — had commonable rights ; but there could be no private estate in it, no* hid or blot, no xT^gog or haeredium. Even if under pecu- liar circumstances, any markman obtained a right to essart or clear a portion of the forest, the por- tion so subjected to the immediate law of property ceased to be mark. It was undoubtedly under the protection of the gods ; and it is probable that within its woods were those sacred shades espe- cially consecrated to the habitation and service of the deity K
* Tacitus says of the Semnones : " Stato tempore in silvam augiiriis patrum et prisca formidine sacrain omnes ciiisdem sanguinis populi legationibus cocimt, caesoque publice hominc celebrant barbari ritus horrenda primordia. Est et alia luco reverentia. Nemo nisi vinculo ligatus ingreditur, ut minor et potestatem numinis prae se ferens. Si forte prolapsus est, attolli et insurgere baud licitum, per humum evol-
44 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
If the nature of an early Teutonic settlement, which has nothing in common with a city, be duly considered, there will appear an obvious necessity for the existence of a mark, and for its being main- tained inviolate. Every community, not sheltered by walls, or the still firmer defences of public law, must have one, to separate it from neighbours and protect it from rivals : it is like the outer pulp that surrounds and defends the kernel. No matter how small or how large the community, — it may be only a village, even a single household, or a whole state, — it will still have a Mark, a space or boun- dary by which its own rights of jurisdiction are limited, and the encroachments of others are kept oflf\ The more extensive the community which
vuntur : eoque omnis supentitio respicit, tanquam inde initia gentis, ibi regnator omnium deus, cetera subiecta atque parentia." Germ. 39. Again: "Apud Nahanarvalos antiquae religionis lucus ostenditm'." Ibid. 43. Without asserting the existence of the Mark among the Greeks with all the peculiar German characteristics, we may borrow from them an illustration and definition of its nature. Between the territories of the Athenians and Megareans lay a tract of land, the cul- tivation of which by the latter formed the pretext or justification of the excommunication launched against them by "Olympian" Pericles, which ultimately led to the Peloponesian war, and the downfal of Athens. The Athenians, Thucydides tells us, refused to rescind their intemperate decree, emicakovpTts ifrepyacrlav Mryap€v<ri rrjs yrjs ttjs Upas Koi TTJs dopiarov' (Lib. i. 139), where the Scholiast explains dopi-' arrov by ov <nr€ipop.€vrjs. Sacred and not divided into plots for cultivation by the plough, is the exact definition of a Teutonic Mark. Compare Xoipios vairrj (silva porcina) between Laconia and Messenia. Paus. iv. 1. In the legend of St. Gu'Sldc, the saint is said to occupy the desert wilder- ness, mearclond, the mark (Codex Exoniensis, p. 112, 1. 16), and this is accurately defined as idel *j semen, ^'Selrihte feor, empty and uninha' bited, in which there were no rights of property. Ibid. p. 115. 1. 9.
^ Caesar appears to have understood this. He says : " Civitatibus maxima laus est, quam latissimas circum sc vastatis finibus solitudines
CH. II.] THE MARK. 45
is interested in the Mark, the more solemn and sacred the formalities by which it is consecrated and defended ; but even the boundary of the pri- vate man's estate is under the protection of the gods and of the law. '* Accursed," in all ages and all legislations, "is he that removeth his neighbour's landmark." Even the owner of a pri- vate estate is not allowed to build or cultivate to the extremity of his own possession, but must leave a space for eaves*. Nor is the general rule abro- gated by changes in the original compass of the communities ; as smaller districts coalesce and be- come, as it were, compressed into one body, the smaller and original Marks may become obliterated and converted merely into commons, but the public mark will have been increased upon the new and extended frontier. Villages tenanted by Heardingas or Modingas may cease to be separated, but the larger divisions which have grown up by their union, Meanwaras, Meegsetan or Hwiccas* will still have a boundary of their own ; these again may be lost in the extending circuit of Wessex or Mercia ; till
habere. IIoc proprium virtutis existimant, expulsos agris finitumos cederc, neque quemquam prope auderc consistere : simul hoc se fore tudores arbitrantur, repentinae inciirsionis timore sublato." This is true, but in the case of most settlements the necessity of maintaining extensive pasture-grounds must have made itself felt at a very early perio<1.
' £fe8e. Goth. Uhiswa. The name for this custom was Yfesdrype, Eavesdrip, In a charter of the year 868 it is said : *' And by the cus- tom (foices folcriht) two feet space only need be left for eavesdrip on this land." Cod. Dipl. No. 296. In Greece the distances were solemnly regulated by law : see Plut. Solon, cap. 23.
' The people in the hundreds of East and West Meon ; in Hereford- shire ; and in Worcester and Gloucester.
46 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
a yet greater obliteration of the Marks having been produced through increasing population, internal conquest, or the ravages of foreign invaders, the great kingdom of England at length arises, having wood and desolate moorland and mountain as its mark against Scots, Cumbrians and Britons, and the eternal sea itself as a bulwark against Prankish and Frisian pirates^ .
But although the Mark is waste, it is yet the property of the community : it belongs to the free- men as a whole, not as a partible possession : it may as little be profaned by the stranger, as the arable land itself which it defends^. It is under the safeguard of the public law, long after it has ceased
* To a very late period, the most powerfiil of our nobles were the Lords Marchers or Lords of the Marches of Wales and Scotland. Harald was lord of the Marches against the Welsh. And so the here- ditary Markgraves or Counts of the Mark, Marchiones, have become kings in Germany and Italy. Our only Markgraviats by land could be against the Welsh on the west, the Picts and Scots on the north. There were undoubtedly others among the Saxons while their king- doms remained unsettled : but not when once the whole realm became united under uEtSelst^n. The consolidation of the Enghsh power has put down all but transmarine invaders; hence the sea is become our Mark, and the commanders of our ships, the Margraves. But^ as Blackstone rather beautifully says, ** water is a wandering and uncer- tain thing," and our Margraves therefore estabUsh no territorial autho- rity. The reader is referred to Donniges, Deutsches Staatsrecht, p. 297, seq,, for a very good account of the Marches of the German Empire.
' If a stranger come through the wood, he shall blow his horn and shout : this will be evidence that his intentions are just and peacefid. But if he attempt to sUnk through in secret, he may be slain, and shall lie unavenged. Ini. § 20,21. Thorpe, i. 114, 116. If the death-blow under such circumstances be pubhcly avouched, his kindred or lord shall not even be allowed to prove that he was not a thief : othena'isc, if the manslaughter be concealed. This raises a presumption in law against the slayer, and the dead man's kindred shall be admitted to their oath that he was guiltless.
OB. II.] THE MARK. 47
to be under the immediate protection of the gods : it is unsafe, full of danger ; death lurks in its shades and awaits the incautious or hostile visitant :
eal wiet "Siet mearclond all the markland was
morSre bewunden, with death surrounded,
fe6ndes f&cne : the snares of the foe* :
punishments of the most frightful character are de- nounced against him who violates it^ ; and though, in historical times, these can be only looked upon as comminatory and symbolical, it is very possible that they may be the records of savage sacrifices believed due, and even offered, to the gods of the violated sanctuary. I can well believe that we too had once our Diana Taurica. The Marks are called accursed ; that is accursed to man, accursed to him that does not respect their sanctity : but they are sacred, for on their maintenance depend the safety of the community, and the service of the deities whom that community honours^. And even when the gods have abdicated their ancient power, even to the very last, the terrors of superstition come in aid of the enactments of law : the deep forests and
* Cod. Vercel. And. 1. 38.
' Grimm has given examples of these, hut they are too horrible for quotation. They may be read in his Deutsche Rechtsalterthumer, pp. 618, 619, 620.
' 1 am inclined to think that the cwealmstow or place of execution was properly in the mark ; as it is indeed probable that all capital punishments among the Germans were originally in the nature of sacii- fices to the gods. W^hen Juhana is about to be put to death, she is taken to the border, londmearce neah, nigh to the landmark. Cod. Exon. p. 280. Prometheus hung in the n^poros €prjfila : though per- haps there is another and deeper feeling here, — that the friend of man
ihould suffer in the desert
" where no man comes.
Nor hath come, since the making of the world 1 "
48 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
marshes are the abodes of monsters and dragons ; wood-spirits bewilder and decoy the wanderer to destruction : the Nicors house by the side of lakes and marshes^ : Grendel, the man-eater, is a ** mighty stepper over the mark*": the chosen home of the firedrake is a fen®.
The natural tendency, however, of this state of isolation is to give way ; population is an ever-ac- tive element of social well-being : and when once the surface of a country has become thickly stud- ded with communities settled between the Marks, and daily finding the several clearings grow less and less sufficient for their support^, the next step is the destruction of the Marks themselves, and the union of the settlers in larger bodies, and under altered circumstances. Take two villages, placed on such clearings in the bosom of the forest, each having an ill-defined boundary in the wood that separates them, each extending its circuit wood- ward as population increases and presses upon the land, and each attempting to drive its Mark further *" into the waste, as the arable gradually encroaches upon this. On the first meeting of the herdsmen, one of three courses appears unavoidable : the com- munities must enter into a federal union ; one must
> Be6w. 1. 2822.
^ Be6w. 1. 2695. micle mearcstapan.
' " Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen
Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen."
Shaksp. Coriol. act iv. so. 1. * " Fadlitatem partiendi camporum spatiapraestant." Tac. Gterm.26. But as the space diminishes, so also dhninishes the stability of a form of society founded upon its existence.
CH. II.] THE MARK. 49
attack and subjugate the other; or the two must coalesce into one on friendly and equal terms ^ The last-named result is not improbable, if the gods of the one tribe are common to the other : then perhaps the temples only may shift their places a little. But in any case the intervening forest will cease to be Mark, because it will now lie in the centre, and not on the borders of the new commu- nity. It will be converted into common pasture, to be enjoyed by all on fixed conditions ; or it may even be gradually rooted out, ploughed, planted and rendered subject to the ordinary accidents of arable land : it will become folcland, public land, applicable to the general uses of the enlarged state, nay even divisible into private estates, upon the established principles of public law. And this pro- cess will be repeated and continue until the family becomes a tribe, and the tribe a kingdom ; when the 'intervening boundary lands, cleared, drained and divided, will have been clothed with golden harvests, or portioned out in meadows and com- mon pastures, appurtenant to villages ; and the only marks remaining will be the barren mountain and moor of the frontiers, the deep unforded rivers, and the great ocean that washes the shores of the continent.
^ History supplies numerous illustrations of this process. Rome grew out of the uniou of the Rhamnes and Luceres with the Sabines : and generally speaking in Greece, the origin of the nokis lies in what may be called the compression of the Kafuu, The ayopa is on the space of neutral ground where all may meet on equal terms, as the Russians and Chinese trade at Kiachta : but then when the noKis has grown up, the ayopa is in its centre, not in its suburbs.
VOL. I. E
60 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
Christianity, which destroys or diminishes the holiness of the forests, necessarily confines the gua- rantee of the Mark to the public law of the state. Hence when these districts become included within the limits of Christian communities, there is no difficulty in the process which has been described : the state deals with them as with any other part of its territory, by its own sovereign power, according to the prevalent ideas of agricultural or political oeconomy ; and the once inviolate land may at once be converted to public uses, widely different from its original destination, if the public advantage re* quire it. No longer necessary as a boundary, from the moment when the smaller community has be- come swallowed up and confounded in the larger, it may remain in commons, be taken possession of by the state as folcland, or become the source of even private estates, and to all these purposes we find it gradually applied. In process of time it seems even to have become partible and appurte- nant to private estates in a certain proportion to the arable ^ : towards the close of the tenth century I find the grant of a mill and millstead, '' and there- to as much of the markland as belongeth to three hydes"'.
The general advantage which requires the main- tenance of the Mark as public property, does not however preclude the possibility of using it for
* Most likely as commons are distributed now, under enclosure-bills ; allotments being made in fee, as compensation for commonable rights.
' And se mylenh^m *j se myln tfserto, *! "Sss mearclandes 8w4 mycel swd t6 him hidon geb>Tat$. an. 982. Cod. Dipl. No. 633.
CR. il] the mark. 61
public purposes, as long as the great condition of indivisibility is observed. Although it may not be cleared and ploughed, it may be depastured, and all the herds of the Markmen may be fed and masted upon its wilds and within its shades. While it still comprises only a belt of forest, lying between small settlements, those who live contiguous to it, are most exposed to the sudden incursions of an enemy, and perhaps specially entrusted with the measures for public defence, may have peculiar privileges, extending in certain cases even to the right of clearing or essarting portions of it. In the case of the wide tracts which separate king- doms, we know that a comprehensive military or- ganization prevailed, with castles, garrisons and governors or Margraves, as in Austria, Branden- burg and Baden, Spoleto and Ancona, Northum- berland and the Marches of Wales. But where clearings have been made in the forest, the holders are bound to see that they are maintained, and that the fresh arable land be not encroached upon ; if forest-trees spring there by neglect of the occu- pant, the essart again becomes forest, and, as such, subject to all the common rights of the Markmen, whether in pasture, chase or estovers ^
The sanctity of the Mark is the condition and guarantee of its indivisibility, without which it can- not long be proof against the avarice or ambition
' Estoveria, In this case, small wood necessary for household pur- poses, as Housebote, Hedgebote and Ploughbote, the materials for re-i pairing house, hedge and plough. But timber trees are not included. See Stat. West. 2. cap. 25 ; and 20 Car. II. c. 3.
e2
62 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
of individuals : and its indivisibility is^ in turn, the condition of the service which it is to render as a bulwark, and of its utility as a pasture. I therefore hold it certain that some solemn religious ceremo- nies at first accompanied and consecrated its limi- tation ^ What these may have consisted in, among the heathen Anglosaxons, we cannot now discover, but many circumstances render it probable that Woden, who in this function also resembles 'Ep^nc, was Jhe tutelary god* : though not absolutely to the exclusion of other deities, Tiw and Frea appearing to have some claim to a similar distinction^ But however its limit was originally drawn or driven, it was, as its name denotes, distinguished by marks or signs. Trees of peculiar size and beauty, and carved with the figures of birds and beasts, perhaps even with runic characters, served the purpose of limitation and definition^ : striking natural features,
^ '' Silvam auguriis patnim et pnsca formidine sacram." Tac. Germ. 39. See Moser, Osnabrtickische Geschichte. i. bT, seq.
' 'Epfirjt, in this one sense Mercurius, is identical with W6den. Both invented letters; both are the wandering god; both are Odysseus. The name of W6den is preserved in many boundary places, or chains of hiUs, in every part of England. See chap. idi. of this Book. The W6n6c (Cod. Dipl. No. 495), the W6nstoc (ibid. Nos. 287, 657), I have no hesitation in translating by W6den's oak, W6den'8 post. Scyldes tre6w (ibid. No. 436) may also refer to Woden in the form of Sc^ld, as Hnices [>om (ibid. No. 268) may record the same god in his form of Hnicor, or Hnic.
' Teowes [»om, Tiw's thorn. Cod. Dipl. No. 174. Tiwes mhe, Tiw's lake. n)id. No. 262. Frigedoeges tre6w (ibid. No. 1221), the tree of Frigedseg, a name I hold equivalent to Frea or Fricge.
* The boundaries of the Anglosaxon charters supply a profusion of evidence on this subject. The trees most frequently named are the oak, ash, beech, thorn, elder, lime and birch. The heathen biurial- place or mound is singularly frequent. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 247> 335, 476.
cu. II.] THE MARK. 53
a hill, a brook , a morass, a rock, or the artificial mound of an ancient warrior, warned the intruder to abstain from dangerous ground, or taught the herdsman how far he might advance with impu- nity. In water or in marshy land, poles were set up, which it was as impious to remove, as it would have been to cut or burn down a mark-tree in the forest.
In the second and more important sense of the word, the Mark is a community of families or households, settled on such plots of land and forest as have been described. This is the original basis upon which all Teutonic society rests, and must be assumed to have been at first amply competent to
The charter No. 126 has these words : " Deinde vero ad alios monticu- los, postea vcro ad viam quae dicitur Fif ac, recto itinere ad easdem fif 4c, ac proinde autem ad )>reom gemscraD.'* Here the boundaries of three several districts lay close to a place called Five Oaks. That the . trees were sometimes marked is clear from the entries in the bounda- ries : thus, in the year 931, t6 'Ssere gemearcodan sec set Alerbuman, the marked oak. Cod. Dipl. No. 1102. "Sa gemearcodan sefse, the marked eaves or edge of the wood. Ibid. Also, on "Sa gemearcodan lindan. Ibid. No. 1317. Cyrstelmsel iic, or Christ cross oak. Ibid. No. 118. At Addlestone, near Chertsey, is an ancient and most vene- rable oak, called the Crouch (crux, crois), that is Cross oak, which tradition declares to have been a boundary of Windsor forest. The same thing is found in Circassia. See Bell, ii. 58. The mearcbe&m, without further definition is common : so the mearctre6w. Cod. Dipl. No. 436. The mearcbr6c. Ibid. No. 1102. Artificial or natural stone posts are implied by the constantly recurriug hdran stinas, grsegan stdnas, hoary or grey stones. Among Christians, crosses and obelisks have replaced these old heathen symbols, without altering the nature of the sanction, and the weichbild, or mark that defines the limits of a jurisdiction, can, in my opinion, mean only the sacred sign. On this point see Haltaus. Gloss, in voce, whose derivation from wic, oppidum, is unsatisfactory. See too Eichhom, Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsge- achichte, ii. 76. § 224 a. note c : with whose decision Grimm and I coincide.
54 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
all the demands of society in a simple and early stage of development : for example, to have been an union for the purpose of administering justice, or supplying a mutual guarantee of peace, security and freedom for the inhabitants of the district. In this organization, the use of the land, the woods and the waters was made dependent upon the ge- neral will of the settlers, and could only be enjoyed under general regulations made by all for the be- nefit of all. The Mark was a voluntary association of free men, who laid down for themselves, and strictly maintained, a system of cultivation by which the produce of the land on which they set- tled might be fairly and equally secured for their service and support ; and from participation in which they jealously excluded all who were not born, or adopted, into the association. Circum- stances dependent upon the peculiar local confor- mation of the district, or even on the relations of the original parties to the contract, may have caused a great variety in the customs of different Marks ; and these appear occasionally anomalous, when we meet with them still subsisting in a different order of social existence ^ ; but with the custom of one Mark) another had nothing to do, and the Mark- men, within their own limit, were independent, sufficient to their own support and defence, and seised of full power and authority to regulate their own affairs, as seemed most conducive to their own
^ For example in Manors, where the territorii^iifisdictioQ of a lord has usurped the place of the old Markmoot, but not availed entirely to destroy the old Mark-rights in the various commons.
CH. II.] THE MARK. 56
advantage. The Court of the Markmen, as it may be justly called, must have had supreme jurisdic- tion, at first, over all the causes which could in any way affect the interests of the whole body or the individuals composing it : and suit and service to such court was not less the duty, than the high privilege, of the free settlers. On the continent of Germany the divisions of the Marks and the extent of their jurisdiction can be ascertained with consi- derable precision ; from these it may be inferred that in very, many cases the later courts of the great landowners had been in fact at first Mark- courts, in which, even long after the downfall of the primaeval freedom, the Lord himself had been only the first Markman, the patron or defender of the simple freemen, either by inheritance or their election \ In this country, the want of materials precludes the attainment of similar certainty, but there can be no reason to doubt that the same pro- cess took place, and that originally Markcourts existed among ourselves with the same objects and powers. In a charter of the year 971, Cod. Dipl. No. 568, we find the word Mearcmdt, which can there mean only the place where such a court, m6t
^ Numerous instances may be found in Grimm's valuable work, Die Deutschen Weistbiimer, 3 vols. 8vo. Tbese arc tbe presentments or Terdicts of sucb courts, from a very early period, and in all parts of Germany. It is deeply to be lamented that the very early customs found in the copies of Court Roll in England have not been collected and published. Such a step could not possibly affect the interests of Lords of Manors, or their Stewards ; but the collection woidd fiumish invaluable materials for law and history. We shall have to refer here- after to the Advocatus or Vogt, the elected or hereditary patron of these and similar aggregations.
56 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
or meeting was held : while the mearcbeorh^ which is not at all of rare occurrence, appears to denote the hill or mound which was the site of the court, and the place where the free settlers met at stated periods to do right between man and man^
It is not at all necessary that these communities should have been very small ; on the contrary, some of the Marks were probably of considerable extent, and capable of bringing a respectable force into the field upon emergency : others, no doubt, were less populous, and extensive : but a hundred heads of houses, which is not at all an extravagant sup- position, protected by trackless forests, in a district not well known to the invader, constitute a body very well able to defend its rights and privileges.
Although the Mark seems originally to have been defined by the nature of the district, the hills, streams and forests, still its individual, peculiar and, as it were, private character depended in some degree also upon long-subsisting relations of the Markmen, both among themselves, and with regard to others. I represent them to myself as great fa- mily unions, comprising households of various de- grees of wealth, rank and authority : some, in direct descent from the common ancestors, or from the hero of the particular tribe : others, more distantly connected, through the natural result of increasing population, which multiplies indeed the members of
' Mcarcbeorh, the Mark^hill, seems too special a name to express some hill or other, which happened to lie in the boundaiy. A Kentish charter names the gem6tbeorh (Cod. Dipl. No. 364. an. 934), but this is indefinite, and might apply to the Shiremoot.
CH. II.] THE MARK. 67
the family, but removes them at every step further from the original stock : some, admitted into com- munion by marriage, others by adoption; others even by emancipation ; but all recognizing a bro- therhood, a kinsmanship or sibsccaft i ; all standing together as one unit in respect of other, similar communities ; all governed by the same judges and led by the same captains ; all sharing in the same religious rites, and all known to themselves and to their neighbours by one general name.
The original significance of these names is now perhaps matter of curious, rather than of useful enquiry. Could we securely determine it, we should, beyond doubt, obtain an insight into the antiquities of the Germanic races, far transcending the actual extent of our historical knowledge ; this it is hope- less now to expect : ages of continual struggles, of violent convulsions, of conquests and revolutions, lie between us and our forefathers : the traces of their steps have been effaced by the inexorable march of a different civilization. This alone is cer- tain, that the distinction must have lain deeply rooted in the national religion, and supplied abun- dant materials for the national epos. Much has been irrecoverably lost, yet in what remains we recognize fragments which bear the impress of for- mer wealth and grandeur. Bedwulf, the Traveller's Song, and the multifarious poems and traditions
' Refer to Caesar's expression cognatio, in a note to p. 39. It is remarkable that early MS. glossaries render the word fratrueles by gekmdan, which can only be translated, *' those settled upon the same land;" thus identifying the local with the family relations.
58 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
of Scandinavia, not less than the scattered named which meet us here and there in early German history, offer hints which can only serve to excite regret for the mass which has perished. The king- doms and empires which have exercised the pro* foundest influence upon the course of modern civi* lization, have sprung out of obscure communities whose very names are only known to us through the traditions of the poet, or the local denomina- tions which record the sites of their early settle- ments.
Many hypotheses may be formed to account for these ancient aggregations, especially on the conti* nent of Europe. Perhaps not the least plausible is that of a single family, itself claiming descent, through some hero, from the gods, and gathering other scattered families around itself; thus retain- ing the administration of the family rites of religion, and giving its own name to all the rest of the community. Once established, such distinctive ap- pellations must wander with the migrations of the communities themselves, or such portions of them as want of land and means, and excess of popula- tion at home, compelled to seek new settlements. In the midst of restless movements, so general and extensive as those of our progenitors, it can- not surprise us, when we find the gentile names of Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, re- produced upon our own shores. Even where a few adventurers — one only — bearing a celebrated name, took possession of a new home, comrades would readily be found, glad to constitute themselves
CH. uO THE MARK. 59
around him under an appellation long recognized as heroic : or a leader, distinguished for his skill, his Valour and success, his power or superior wealthy may have found little difficulty in imposing the name of his own race upon all who shared in his adventures. Thus Harlings and Weelsings, names most intimately connected with the great epos of the Germanic and Scandinavian races, are repro- duced in several localities in England : Billing, the noble progenitor of the royal race of Saxony, has more than one enduring record : and similarlyi I believe all the local denominations of the early settlements to have arisen and been perpetuated ^ So much light appears derivable from a proper in- vestigation of these names, that I have collected them in an Appendix (A.) at the end of this vo- lume, to the contents of which the reader's atten- tion is invited*.
> The Harlings, in Anglosaxon Herelingas (Tmr. Song, 1. 384) | Htf«> lunge, (W. Grimm, Detit. Heldensage, p. 280, etc.,) are found at Har- ling in Norfolk and Kent, and at Harlingtott (Herelingatun) in Bedford*- ihire and Middlesex. The Wselsingt, in Old Norse Vbliungar, the family of Bigurdr or Siegfried, reappear at Walsingham in Norfolk, Wolsing* ham in Northumberland, and Woolsingham in Durham. The Billings, at Billinge, Billingham, Billinghoe, Billinghurst, Billingden, Billington, and many other places, See Appendix A.
' These local denominations are for the most part irregular compo« sitions, of which the former portion is a patronymic in -ing or -lingj declined in the genitive plural. The second portion is a mere defini-^ tion of the locality, as -geat, -hyrst, -ham, -wic, -ttin^ -stede, and the like. In a few cases the patronymic stands alone in the nominatire plural, as T6tingas, Tooting, Surrey; Wdcingas, Woking, Surrey i Meallingas, MalUng, Kent ; WeSeringas, Wittering^ Sussex. In a still smaller number, the name of the eponymus replaces that of his descend- ants, as Finnes burh, Finsbury ; Waelses h4m, Walsham, in Norfolk i in which last name, as well as in Wslses eafora (Bedwulf^ h 17^7)$ we
6() THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
In looking over this list we are immediately struck with a remarkable repetition of various names, some of which are found at once in several counties ; and most striking are those which, like the examples already alluded to, give a habitation upon our own shores to the races celebrated in the poetical or historical records of other ages and other lands. There are indeed hardly any enquiries of deeper interest, than those whose tendency is to link the present with the past in the bonds of a mythical tradition ; or which present results of greater im- portance to him who has studied the modes of thought and action of populations at an early stage
have a record of the progenitor of the Waelaings, who is alike unknown to the Scandinavian and the German legends of that nohle race. In dealing, however, with these names, some amount of caution is neces- sary : it is hy no means enough that a word should end in -ing, to convert it into a genuine patron}'mic. On the contrary it is a power of that termination to denote the genitive or possessive, which is also the generative, case : and in some local names we do find it so used : thus iGt$elwulfing lond (Cod. Dipl. No. 179, a. 801) is exactly equivalent to iB^elwulfes lond, the estate of a duke ^"Selwulf, not of a family called .^^elwulfings. So again, tSset Folcwining lond (Cod. Dipl. No. 195, a. 811), iSxt Wynhearding lond (Cod. Dipl. No. 195, a. 811), imply the land of Folcwine, of Wynheard, not of marks or families called Folc- winings and Wynlieardings. Woolbedington, Wool Lavington, Bar- lavington, are respectively Wulfbsding tiin, Wulfl4fing ttin, Be6rUblng tdn, the ttin or dwelling of Wulflaf, Wulfbeed and BeorUif. Between such words and genuine patronymics the line must carefully he drawn, a task which requires both skill and experience : the best security is, where we find the patronymic in the genitive plural : but one can veiy generally judge whether the name is such as to have arisen in the way described above, tom a genitive singular. Changes for the sake of euphony must also be guarded against, as sources of error : thus Abing- don in Berks would impel us strongly to assume a family of Abingas ; the Saxon name ^bban dun convinces us that it was named from an iEbba (m) or ^bbe (f). Dunnington is not Duninga tdn, but Dunnan, that is Dunna*8 tdn.
CH. II.] THE MARK. 61
of their career. The intimate relations of mytho- logy, law and social institutions, which later ages are too apt scornfully to despise, or supers titiously to imitate, are for them, living springs of action : they are believed in, not played with, as in the majority of revivals^ from the days of Anytus and Melitus to our own ; and they form the broad foun- dation upon which the whole social polity is esta- blished. The people who believe in heroes, origi- nally gods and always god-born, preserve a remem- brance of their ancient deities in the gentile names by which themselves are distinguished, long after the rites they once paid to their divinities have fallen into disuse ; and it is this record of beings once hallowed, and a cult once offered, which they have bequeathed to us in many of the now unin- telligible names of the Marks. Taking these facts into account, I have no hesitation in affirming that the names of places found in the Anglosaxon charters, and yet extant in England, supply no trifling links in the chain of evidence by which we demonstrate the existence among ourselves of a heathendom nearly allied to that of Scandinavia.
The Waelsings, the Volsungar of the Edda, and Volsungen of the German Heldensage, have al- ready been noticed in a cursory manner : they are the family whose hero is Siegfried or Sigurdr^, the centre round which the Nibelungen epos circles. Another of their princes, Fitela, the Norse Sinfiotli,
' In BeiSwulf (1. 1/43), Siegfried is replaced by Sigmund, his father. Here occurs his patronymical appellation of Waelsing (1. 1747)> and Waelses eafora (1. 1787).
62 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
is recorded in the poem of Be6wulf * , and from him appear to have been derived the Fitelingas, whose name survives in Filling.
The HereUngas or Harlings have also been no- ticed ; they are connected with the same great cycle, and are mentioned in the Traveller's Song, 1. 224. As Harlingen in Friesland retains a record of the same name, it is possible that it may have wandered to the coast of Norfolk with the Bata- vian auxiliaries, numerus Batavorum^ who served under their own chiefs in Britain. The Swsefas, a border tribe of the Angles^, reappear at Swaflf- ham. The Brentings^ are found again in Brenting- by. The Scyldings and Scylfings*, perhaps the most celebrated of the Northern races, give their names to Skelding and Shilvington. The Ardings, whose memorial is retained in Ardingley, Ardington and Ardingworth, are the Azdingi^, the royal race of the Visigoths and Vandals : a name which confirms the traditipn of a settlement of Vandals in England. With these we probably should not confound the HeardingaSjWho have left their name toHardingham in Norfolk^. The Banings, over whom Becca ruled^, are recognized in Banningham; the Haelsings^ in
« Lines 1752, 1772. « Trav. S. 1.1 21.
• Bc6w. 1. 6610. < Ibid. 1. 60, 126, etc.
* See Zeuis, p. 461 and pp. 73, 74 ; especially his note upon p. 461^ where be brings forward a good deal of evidence in favour of the form Oeardingas.
' The Rune poem tajrs that Ing was first known among the East- danes, and that he was so named by the Heardings. This may refer to Norfolk: or must we read heardingas, beliatoresl See Anglos. Runes. Archseolog. xxviii. 327, seq,
' Trav. S. 1. 37. * Ihid. 1. 44.
eH. n.] THE MARK. 63
Helsington, and in the Swedish Helsingland': the Myrgings*, perhaps in Merring, and Merrington : the Handings ^y perhaps in Hunningham and Hun- nington : the Hdcings*, in Hacking : the Seringas^ meet as again in Sharington, Sherington and She- ringham. The Dyringas^ in Thorington and Thor- rington, are likely to be offshoots of the great Her- mandaric race, the Thyringi or Thoringi, now Thu- ringians, always neighbours of the Saxons. The Bleccingas, a race who probably gave name to Bleckingen in Sweden, are found in Bletchington, and Bletchingley. In the Gytingas, known, to us from Guiting, we can yet trace the Alamannic tribe of the Juthungi, or Jutungi. Perhaps in the Scy- tingas or Scydingas, we may find another Alaman- nic tribe, the Scudingi^, and in the Dylingas, an Alpine or Highdutch name, the Tulingi®. The Waeringas are probably the Norman Vaeringjar, whom we call Varangians. The Wylfingas^, another celebrated race, well known in Norse tradition, are recorded in Bedwalf *^ and the Traveller's Song".
These are unquestionably no trivial coincidences; they assure us that there lies at the root of our land- divisions an element of the highest antiquity ; one too, by which our kinsmanship with the North- german races is placed beyond dispute. But their analogy leads us to a wider induction: when we
1 Zeuu, p. 644. > Trav. S. 1. 45. * Ibid. 1. 46.
^ Ihid. 1. 57, perhaps the Chauci. ^ Ibid. 1. 150.
• Ibid. 1. 60. 7 Zeiws, p. 584. « Ibid. pp. 226, 22/.
» Cod. Dipl. No. 1135. WMfinga ford. »° Line* 916, 936.
^' Line 58. They are the Ylfingar of Norae tradition. Ilelg.Huud. 1,5.
64 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
examine the list of names contained in the Appen- dix, we see at once how very few of these are identi- fied with the names recorded in Bedwulf and other poems : all that are so recorded, had probably be- longed to portions of the epic cycle ; but there is nothing in the names themselves to distinguish them from the rest ; nothing at least but the happy acci- dent of those poems, which were dedicated to their praise, having survived. In the lapse of years, how many similar records may have perished ! And may we not justly conclude that a far greater number of races might have been identified, had the Ages spared the songs in which they were sung ?
" Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi ; sed omnes inlachiymabiles Urgentiir ignotique longa Nocte, carent quia vate sacro !"
Whatever periods we assume for the division of the land into Marks, or to what cause soever we attribute the names adopted by the several commu- nities, the method and manner of their dispersion remains a question of some interest. The Appen- dix shows a most surprising distribution of some particular names over several counties^ : but this seems conceivable only in two ways ; first, that the inhabitants of a Mark, finding themselves pressed
' iBscings in Essex, Somerset and Sussex : Alingd in Kent, Dorset, Devonshire and Lincoln : Ardings in Sussex, Berks and Northampton- shire : Arlings in Devonshire, Gloucestershire and Sussex : Banings in Hertfordshire, Kent, Lincohishire and Salop: Beadings in Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex and the Isle of Wight : Berings in Kent, De- vonshire, Herefordshire, Lincolnshire, Salop and Somerset : Billings in Bedfordshire, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, North- amptonshire, Northumberland, Salop, Sussex and the Isle of Wight, etc.
CH. II.] THE MARK. 65
for room at home, migrated to other seats, and established a new community under the old desig- nation ; or, secondly, that in the division of the newly conquered soil, men who had belonged to one community upon the continent, found themselves thrown into a state of separation here, either by the caprice of the lots, supposing their immigration simultaneous, or by the natural course of events, supposing one body to have preceded the other. Perhaps too we must admit the possibihty of a dispersion arising from the dissolution of ancient confederacies, produced by internal war. On the whole I am disposed to look upon the second hy- pothesis as applicable to the majority of cases ; without presuming altogether to exclude the action of the first and third causes. It is no doubt diffi- cult to imagine that a small troop of wandering strangers should be allowed to traverse a settled country in search of new habitations. Yet, at first, there must have been abundance of land, which conduct and courage might wring from its Keltic owners. Again, how natural on the other hand is it, that in the confusion of conquest, or the dila- tory course of gradual occupation, men once united should find their lot cast apart, and themselves divided into distant communities ! Nor in this can we recognize anything resembling the solemn plant- ing of a Grecian, far less of a Roman, colony ; or suppose that any notion of a common origin sur- vived to nourish feelings of friendship between bo- dies of men, so established in different lands. Even had such traditions originally prevailed, they must
VOL. I. F
66 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
soon have perished, when the Marks coalesced into the Gd or Shire, and several of the latter became included in one kingdom. New interests and duties must then have readily superseded maxims which belonged to an almost obsolete organiza- tion.
But in truth, to this question of dispersion and relationship, considered in its widest generality, there is no limit either of place or time : it derives, indeed, some of its charm from the very vagueness which seems to defy the efforts of the historian : and even the conviction that a positive and scien- tific result is unattainable, does not suffice to re- press the anxiety with which we strive to lift the veil of our Isis. The question of every settlement, large or small, ultimately resolves itself into that of the original migrations of mankind. Unless we can bring ourselves to adopt the hypothesis of autochthonous populations, — an hypothesis whose vagueness is not less than attaches to a system of gradual, but untraced, advances, — we must fall back from point to point, until we reach one start- ing-place and one origin. Every family that squats upon the waste, assumes the existence of two fami- lies from which it sprang: every household, com- prising a man and woman, if it is to be fruitful and continue, presupposes two such households ; each of these continues to represent two more, in a geo«- metrical progression, whose enormous sum and final result are lost in the night of ages. The solitary who wanders away into the uncultivated waste, and there by degrees rears a family, a tribe and a state^
OR. zz.] THE MARK. 67
takes with him the traditions, the dispositions, the knowledge and the ideas, which he had derived from others, in turn equally indebted to their pre- decessors. This state of society, if society it can be called, is rarely exhibited to our observation. The backwoodsman in America, or the settler in an Australian bush, may furnish some means of jud- ging such a form of civilization ; and the traditions of Norway and Iceland dimly record a similar pro- cess: but the solitary labourer, whose constant warfare with an exulting and exuberant nature does little more than assure him an independent exist- ence, has no time to describe the course and the result of his toils : and the progress of the moderq settler is recorded less by himself, than by a civi- lized society, whose offset he is ; which watches his fortunes with interest and judges them with in? telligence ; which finds in his career the solution of problems that distract itself, and never forgets that he yet shares in the cultivation he has left behind him.
Still the manner in which such solitary house- holds gradually spread over and occupy a country, must be nearly the same in all places, where they exist at all. The family increases in number ; the arable is extended to provide food ; the pasture is pushed further and further as the cattle multi- ply, or as the grasslands become less productive. Along the banks of the river which may have at- tracted the feelings or the avarice of the wanderer, which may have guided his steps in the untracked wilderness, or supplied the road by which he
f2
68 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
journeyed, the footsteps of civilization move up- ward : till, reaching the rising ground from which the streams descend on either side, the vanguards of two parties meet, and the watershed becomes their boundary, and the place of meeting for religi- ous or political purposes. Meantime, the ford, the mill, the bridge have become the nucleus of a vil- lage, and the blessings of mutual intercourse and family bonds have converted the squatters' settle- ment into a centre of wealth and happiness. And in like manner is it, where a clearing in the forest, near a spring or welP,— divine, for its uses to man, — has been made ; and where, by slow degrees, the separated families discover each other, and find that it is not good for man to be alone.
This description, however, will not strictly apply to numerous or extensive cases of settlement, al- though some analogy may be found, if we substi- tute a tribe for the family. Continental Germany has no tradition of such a process ; and we may not unjustly believe the records of such in Scandi- navia to have arisen from the wanderings of un- quiet spirits, impatient of control or rivalry, of cri- minals shrinking from the consequences of their guilt, or of descendants dreading the blood-feud inherited from ruder progenitors. But although systematic and religious colonization, like that of Greece, cannot be assumed to have prevailed, we may safely assert that it was carried on far more
' Water seeniB the indispeiisable condition of a settlement in any part of the world : hence, in part, the worship paid to it. It is the very key to the history of the East.
CH. II.] THE MARK. 69
regularly, and upon more strict principles than are compatible with capricious and individual settle* ment^ Tradition here and there throws light upon the causes by which bodies of men were im- pelled to leave their ancient habitations, and seek new seats in more fruitful or peaceful districts. The emigration represented by Hengest has been attributed to a famine at home, and even the grave authority of history has countenanced the belief that his keels were driven into exile: thus far we may assume his adventure to have been made with the participation, if not by the authority, of the parent state.
In general we may admit the division of a con* quered country, such as Britain was, to have been conducted upon settled principles, derived from the actual position of the conquerors. As an army they had obtained possession, and as an army they distributed the booty which rewarded their valour. That they nevertheless continued to occupy the land as families or cognationes, resulted from the method of their enrolment in the field itself, where each kindred was drawn up under an officer of its own lineage and appointment, and the several members of the family served together. But such a
' The solemn apportionment of lands and dwellings is nowhere more obvious, or described in more instructive detail, than in Denmark. Norway and the Swedish borderlands may have offered more nume- rous instances of solitary settling. The manner of distributing the village land is called S6l8kipt or S61skipti : the provisions of this law are given by Grimm, Rechtsalt. p. 539. There is an interesting account of the formalities used upon the first colonization of Iceland, in Geijer, Hist, of Sweden, i. 159. (German translation of 1826.)
70 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
distribution of the land as should content the various small communities that made up the whole force, could only be ensured by the joint authority of the leaders, the concurrence of the families themselves, and the possession of a sufficient space for their extension, undisturbed by the claims of former oc- cupants, and suited to the wants of its new masters. What difficulties, what jealousies preceded the ad- justment of all claims among the conquerors, we cannot hope to learn, or by what means these were met and reconciled : but the divisions themselves, so many of whose names I have collected, prove that, in some way or other, the problem was suc- cessfully solved.
On the natural clearings in the forest, or on spots prepared by man for his own uses ; in valleys, bounded by gentle acclivities which poured down fertilizing streams ; or on plains which here and there rose, clothed with verdure, above surround- ing marshes ; slowly and step by step, the warlike colonists adopted the habits and developed the cha- racter of peaceful agriculturists. The towns which had been spared in the first rush of war, gradually became deserted, and slowly crumbled to the soil, beneath which their ruins are yet found from time to time, or upon which shapeless masses yet remain, to mark the sites of a civilization, whose bases were not laid deep enough for eternity. All over Eng- land there soon existed a network of communities, the principle of whose being was separation, as re- garded each other : the most intimate union, as re- spected the individual members of each. Agricul-
CH. II.] THE MARK. 71
tural, not commercial, dispersed, not centralized, content within their own limits and little given to wandering, they relinquished in a great degree the hahits and feelings which had united them as mili- tary adventurers ; and the spirit which had achieved the conquest of an empire, was now satisfied with the care of maintaining inviolate a little peaceful plot, sufficient for the cultivation of a few simple households.
12
CHAPTER III.
THE GA' OR SCI'R.
Next in order of constitution, if not of time, is the union of two, three or more Marks in a federal bond for purposes of a religious, judicial or even political character. The technical name for such a union is in Germany, a Gau or Bant^ ; in Eng- land the ancient name Gd has been almost univer- sally superseded by that of Scir or Shire. For the most part the natural divisions of the country are the divisions also of the Ga ; and the size of this depends upon such accidental limits as well as upon the character and dispositions of the several collec- tive bodies which we have called Marks.
The Ga is the second and final form of unsevered possession ; for every larger aggregate is but the re- sult of a gradual reduction of such districts, under a higher political or administrative unity, different only in degree and not in kind from what prevailed individually in each. The kingdom is only a larger Gd than ordinary ; indeed the Ga itself was the original kingdom.
But the unsevered possession or property which
' Less usual are £iba and Para. The Norse Herrad may in some sense be compared with these divisions.
CH. HI.] THE GA' OR SCI'R. 73
we thus find in the Gd is by no means to be consi-^ dered in the same light as that which has been de- scribed in the Mark. The inhabitants are settled as Markmen, not as Gd-men : the cultivated land which lies within the limits of the larger commu- nity is all distributed into the smaller ones.
As the Mark contained within itself the means of doing right between man and man, i. e. its Mark- mdt ; as it had its principal officer or judge, and beyond a doubt its priest and place of religious ob- servances, so the County, Scir or Ga had all these on a larger and more imposing scale ; and thus it was enabled to do right between Mark and Mark, as well as between man and man, and to decide those difierences the arrangement of which trans- cended the powers of the smaller body. If the elders and leaders of the Mark could settle the mode of conducting the internal affairs of their dis- trict, so the elders and leaders of the Ga (the same leading markmen in a corporate capacity) could decide upon the weightier causes that affected the whole community ; and thus the Scirgemot or Shiremoot was the completion of a system of which the Mearcm6t was the foundation. Similarly, as the several smaller units had arrangements on a cor- responding scale for divine service, so the greater and more important religious celebrations in which all the Marks took part, could only be performed under the auspices and by the authority of the Gd. Thus alone could due provision be made for sacri- fices which would have been too onerous for a small and poor district, and an equalization of burthens
74 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
be effected ; while the machinery of government and efficient means of protection were secured.
At these great religious riles, accompanied as they ever were by the solemn Ding, placitum or court, thrice in the year the markmen assembled unbid- den : and here they transacted the ordinary and rou- tine business required. On emergencies however, which did not brook delay, the leaders could issue their peremptory summons to a bidden Ding, and in this were then decided the measures necessary for the maintenance and well-being of the commu- nity, and the mutual guarantee of life and honour. To the Gd then probably belonged, as an unsevered possession, the lands necessary for the site and maintenance of a temple, the supply of beasts for sacrifice, and the endowment of a priest or priests : perhaps also for the erection of a stockade or for- tress, and some shelter for the assembled freemen in the Ding. Moreover, if land existed which from any cause had not been included within the limits of some Mark, we may believe that it became the public property of the Ga, i. e. of all the Marks in their corporate capacity : this at least may be in- ferred from the rights exercised at a comparatively later period over waste lands, by the constituted authorities, the Duke, Count or King.
Accident must more or less have determined the seat of the Gd-jurisdiction : perhaps here and there some powerful leading Mark, already in the pos- session of a holy site, may have drawn the neigh- bouring settlers into its territory : but as the pos- session and guardianship of the seat of government
OH. III.] THE GA' OR SCFR. 75
could not but lead to the vindication of certain privileges and material advantages to its holders, it is not unreasonable to believe that where the Marks coalesced on equal terms, the temple-lands would be placed without the pecuUar territorial possession of each, as they often were in Greece, upon the e(r\aria or boundary-land. On the sum- mit of a range of hills, whose valleys sufficed for the cultivation of the markmen, on the watershed from which the fertilizing streams descended, at the point where the boundaries of two or three com- munities touched one another, was the proper place for the common periodical assemblages of the free men : and such sites, marked even to this day by a few venerable oaks, may be observed in various parts of England ^
The description which has been given might seem at first more properly to relate to an abstract poli- tical unity than to a real and territorial one : no doubt the most important quality of the Gd or Scir was its power of uniting distinct populations for public purposes : in this resppct it resembled the shire, while the sheriff's court was still of some im- portance ; or even yet, where the judges coming on their circuit, under a commission, hold a shire- moot or court in each^shire for gaol-delivery. Yet the Shire is a territorial division ^ as well as an abs- tract and merely legal formulary, although all the
' There are instances which show that the custom, afterwards kept up, of ** Trysting Trees/* was an ancient v^one. Probably some great trees marked the site of the several jurisdictions : I find mentioned the scirac, the himdredes tre6w and the mcarcbcdm.
* The Qau itself had a mark or boundary. Dent. Rechtsalt. p. 496.
76 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
land comprised within it is divided into parishes, hamlets, vills and liberties.
Strictly speaking, the Shire, apart from the units that make it up, possesses little more land than that which the town-hall, the gaol, or the hospital may cover. When for the two" latter institu- tions we substitute the fortress of the king, and a cathedral, which was the people's and not the bishop's, we have as nearly as possible the Anglo- saxon shire-property, and the identity of the two divisions seems proved. Just as the Ga {pagus) contains the Marks {vicos)^ and the territory of them all, taken together, makes up the territory of the Gd, so does the Shire contain hamlets, parishes and liberties, and its territorial expanse is distri- buted into them. As then the word Mark is used to denote two distinct things, — a territorial division and a corporate body, — so does the word Ga or Scir denote both a machinery for government and a district in which such machinery prevails. The number of Marks included in a single Gd must have varied partly with the variations of the land itself, its valleys, hills and meadows : to this cause may have been added others arising, to some extent, from the original military organization and distri- bution, from the personal character of a leader, or from the peculiar tenets and customs of a particular Mark. But proximity, and settlement upon the same land, with the accompanying participation in the advantages of wood and water, are ever the most active means of uniting men in religious and social communities ; and it is therefore reasonable
CH. III.] THE GA' OR SCI'R. 77
to believe that the influcDce most felt ia the ar- rangement of the several Gas was in fact a territo- rial one, depending upon the natural conformation of the country.
Some of the modern shire-divisions of England in all probability have remained unchanged from the earliest times ; so that here and there a now existent Shire may be identical in territory with an ancient Gd. But it may be doubted whether this observation can be very extensively applied : ob- scure as is the record of our old divisions, what little we know, favours the supposition that the ori- ginal Gas were not only more numerous than our Shires, but that these were not always identical in their boundaries with those Gas whose locality can be determined.
The policy or pedantry of Norman chroniclers has led them to pass over in silence the names of the ancient divisions, which nevertheless were known to them'. Wherever they have occasion to refer to our Shires, they do so by the names they still bear ; thus Florence of Worcester and Malms- bury, name to the south of the Humber, Kent, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Sussex, Southamp- ton, Surrey, Somerset, Devonshire, Cornwall, Glou- cester, Worcester, Warwick, Cheshire, Derby, Staf- ford, Shropshire, Hereford, Oxford, Buckingham,
^ '' £t ne longum faciam, sigillatim enumeratis provinciis quas vas- tayeruut, hoc sit ad summam complecti^ quod, cum numerentiur in Anglia tiiginta duo pagi, illi iam sedecim inTaserant, quorum nomina propter barbariem linguae scribere refugio." Gul. Meld. Gest. Reg. lib. ii. § 1G5.
78 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
Hertford, Huntingdon, Bedford, Northampton, Lei- cester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Cambridge, Norfolk, SuflFolk and Essex, comprising with Middlesex thirty-two of the shires, out of forty into which England is now distributed.
Yet even these names and divisions are of great antiquity : Asser, in his life of -Alfred, mentions by name, Berkshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey, Somerset, Sussex, Lincoln, Dorset, Devon, Wiltshire and Southampton, being a third of the whole number : unfortunately, from his work being composed in Latin and his consequent use of paga^ we cannot tell how many of these divisions were considered by him as Scir.
The Saxon Chronicles, during the period ante- rior to the reign of ^Elfred, seem to know only the old general divisions : thus we have Cantwara land, Kent^ ; Westseaxan, Su^seaxan, Eastseaxan, Middelseaxan, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex : Eastengle, Eastanglia : Nor^anhymbra land, Su- ^anhymbra land, Myrcna land, Northumberland, Southumberland, Mercia : Lindisware and Lindisse, Lincolnshire : Su^rige, Surrey ; Wiht, the Isle of Wight ; Hwiccas, the Hwiccii in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire*; Merscware, the people of Romney Marsh: Wilsaetan, Dornssetan and Sumor- ssetan, Wiltshire, Somersetshire and Dorsetshire^
^ The division of Kent into East Centingas and West Centingas is retained by the charters till late in the eleventh century.
- " Cirrenceaster adiit, qui Britannice Cairccri nominatur, quae est in nieridiana parte Iluicciorum." Asser, Vit. lEMtr, an. 879.
• WTierc the countrj- is considered as a territorial division, rather than with reference to the race that possesses it, instead of stttan or
CH. III.] THE GA' OR SCI'R. 79
But after the time of .Alfred, the different ma- nuscripts of the Chronicles usually adopt the word Scir, in the same places as we do, and with the same meaning. Thus we find, Bearrucscir, Bedanford- Bcir, Buccingahdmscir, Defenascir, Deorabyscir, Eoforwicscir, Gleawanceasterscir, Grantabrycgscir, Hamtunscir (Southampton), Hamtunscir (North- ampton), Heortfordscir, Herefordscir, Huntandun- scir, Legeceasterscir, Lindicolnascir, Oxnafordscir, Scrobbesbyrigscir (but also Scrobsetan), Snotinga- hamscir, Staeffordscir, Waeringwicscir or Wsering- scir, Wigraceasterscir, and Wiltunscir : Middel- seaxe, Eastseaxe, Su^seaxe, Su^rige and Cent re- main : Eastengle is not divided into Norfolk and Suffolk. Thus, out of the thirty-two shires south of the Humber, which Florence and Malmsbury mention, the Chronicles note twenty-six, of which twenty-one are distinguished as shires by the word scir.
In Beda nothing of the kind is to be found : the general scope of his Ecclesiastical History rendered it unnecessary for him to descend to minute details, and besides the names of races and kingdoms, he mentions few divisions of the land. Still he notices the Provincia Huicciorum : the Middelangli or Angli Mediterranei, a portion of the Mercians : the Mercii Australes and Aquilonales : the Regio Suder- geona or Surrey : the Regio Loidis or Elmet near York : the Provincia Meanwarorum, or Hundreds
setan, tketettlers, we have seete, the land settled ; thus Sumonaete. So Eastseaxe for Eastseaxan or Eustscaxna land; Cent for Centingas or Cantware ; Lindisse for Lindisware.
80 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
of East and West Meon in Southampton ; the Regio Gyrwiorum in which Peterborough lies, and dis- tinct from 'this, the Australes Gyrwii or South Gyrwians.
The Appendix to the Chronicles of Florence of Worcester supplies us with one or two names of small districts, not commonly found in other au- thors. One of these is the Mercian district of the Westangles or West Hecan, ruled over by Mere- wald ; in whose country were the Maegsetan, or people of Hereford, who are sometimes reckoned to the Hwiccas, or inhabitants of Worcester and Gloucester \ Another, the Middleangles, had its bishopric in Leicester : the Southangles, whose bi- shop sat at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, consequently comprised the counties down to the Thames. The Northangles or Mercians proper had their bishop in Lichfield. Lastly we know that Malmsbury in Wiltshire was in Provincia Septonia^
But we are not altogether without the means of carrying this enquiry further. We have a record of the divisions which must have preceded the dis- tribution of this country into shires : they are un- fortunately not numerous, and the names are gene- rally very difficult to explain : they have so long become obsolete, that it is now scarcely possible to identify them. Nor need this cause surprise, when we compare the oblivion into which they have fal-
^ '' Civitas Wigornia . . . . et tunc et nunc totius Hwicciae vel Mage- aetaniae metropolis extitit famoaa." App. Flor. Wigom., Episc. Hwic- ciorum.
3 Vit. Aldh. Whart. Ang. Sax. ii. 3.
CH. III.]
THE GA' OR SCI'R.
81
len with the sturdy resistance offered by the names of the Marks, and their long continuance through- out all the changes which have befallen our race. The Gas, which were only political bodies, became readily swallowed up and lost in shires and king- doms : the Marks, which had an individual being, and as it were personality of their own, passed easily from one system of aggregations to another, without losing anything of their peculiar character : and at a later period it will be seen that this indi- viduality became perpetuated by the operation of our ecclesiastical institutions.
A very important document is printed by Sir Henry Spelman in his Glossary, under the head Hida. In its present condition it is comparatively modern, but many of the entries supply us with information obviously derived from the most re- mote antiquity, and these it becomes proper to take into consideration. The document seems to have been intended as a guide either to the taxation or the military force of the kingdom, and professes to give the number of hides of land contained in the various districts. It runs as follows ':
|
Ilydas. |
Hydas. |
||
|
Myrcna continet |
30000 |
Lindesfarona . . |
, 7000 |
|
Woken setna . . |
7000 |
Sd« Gyrwa . , |
. 600 |
|
Westerna . . . |
7000 |
Nor^ Gyrwa . . |
600 |
|
Pecsetna . . . |
1200 |
East Wixna . , |
300 |
|
Elmedsetna . . |
600 |
West Wixna . . |
600 |
^ I have not adhered strictly to Spelman's copy, the details of which are in several cases incorrect, but have collated others where it seemed necessary.
VOL. I. O
82
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book i«
Spalda Wigesta . Herefinna . Sweordora Eysla . . Hwicca Wihtgara . Noxga ga . Ohtga gd . Hwynca . Cilternsetna Hendrica .
Hytlas.
600
900
1200
300
300
300
600
5000
2000
7000
4000
3000
|
HydM. |
|
|
Unecunga . . |
, 1200 |
|
Arosetaa . . |
600 |
|
Fearfinga . . |
300 |
|
Beliniga . . . |
600 |
|
Wi^eringa . . |
600 |
|
EastWiUa . . |
600 |
|
West WiUa . , |
600 |
|
EastEngle . . |
. 30000 |
|
East Seaxna. . |
. 7000 |
|
Cantwarena . . |
, 15000 |
|
Su^ Seaxna . |
. 7000 |
|
West Seaxna |
,1 00000 « |
The entries respecting Mercia, Eastanglia and Wessex could hardly belong to any period anterior to that of -ZElfred. For Mercia previous to the Danish wars must certainly have contained more than 30,000 hides : while Eastanglia cannot have reached so large a sum till settled by GuSorm^s Danes : nor is it easy to believe that Wessex, apart from Kent and Sussex, should have numbered one hundred thousand in the counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, with parts of Berk- shire, Somerset and Devon, much before the time of iE^elstan*. A remarkable variation is found between the amounts stated in this list and those given by Beda, as respects some of the en- tries : thus Mercia, here valued at 30,000 hides, is reckoned in the Ecclesiastical History at 12,000
^ The total sum thus reckoned is 243,600 hides.
' About the year 647> Wessex numbered only 9000 hides.
OH. III.] THE OA' OR SCrR. 83
only^ Hwiccas are reckoned at 300: they con- tained 600 hides; Wight, reckoned at 600, con- tained 1200. On the other hand Kent and Sussex are retained at the ancient valuation.
It is nevertheless impossible to doubt that the greater number of the names recorded in this list are genuine, and of the highest antiquity. A few of them can be recognized in the pages of very early writers: thus Gyrwa, Elmet, Lindisfaran, Wihtgare, and Hwiccas, are mentioned by Beda in the eighth century. Some we are still able to iden- tify with modern districts.
Mercia I imagine to be that portion of Burgred's kingdom, which upon its division by the victorious Danes in 874, they committed as a tributary royalty to Ce61wulf; which subsequently came into the hands of iElfred, by the treaty of Wedmor in 878, and was by him erected into a duchy under his daughter ^^elflsed, and her husband. Wocensetna may possibly be the Gd of the Wrocensetan, the people about the Wrekin or hill-country of Somer- set, Dorset and Devon. The Pecsetan appear to be the inhabitants of the Peakland, or Derbyshire : the Elmedsetan, those of Elmet, the ancient British Loidis, an independent district in Yorkshire : Lin- disfaran are the people of Lindisse, a portion of Lincolnshire : North and South Gyrwa were pro- bably in the Mark between Eastanglia and Mercia :
' The twelve thousand hides counted by Beda (Hist. Eccl. iii. 24) to the South and North Mercians may howeyer be ezclusiye of the West* angles and other parts of the great Mercian kingdom.
o2
84 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
as Peterborough was in North Gyrwa land, this must have comprised a part of Northamptonshire : and jESel^ry^ derived her right to Ely from her first husband, a prince of the South Gyrwians ; this district is therefore supposed to have extended over a part of Cambridgeshire and the isle of Ely. Spalda may be the tract stretching to the north-east of these, upon the river Welland, in which still lies Spalding. The Hwiccas occupied Worcestershire and Gloucestershire », and perhaps extended into Herefordshire, to the west of the Severn. The Wihtgaras are the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight ; and the Cilternsetan were the people who owned the hill and forest land about the Chilterns, verging towards Oxfordshire, and very probably in the Mark between Mercia and Wessex.
I fear that it will be impossible to identify any more of these names, and it does not appear pro- bable that they supply us with anything like a com- plete catalogue of the English Gas. Setting aside the fact, that no notice seems to be taken of Nor- thumberland, save the mention of the little princi- pality of Elmet, and that the local divisions of Eastanglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex and Wessex, are passed over in the general names of the kingdoms, we look in vain among them for names, known to us from other sources, and which can hardly have
' Cirencester was in the south of Hmccas. Gloucester, Worcester, and Pershore were all in this district. It was separated from Wiltshire in Wessex by the Thames, and the ford at Cricklade was a pass often disputed by the inhabitants of the border-lands.
CH. 111.] THE GA' OR SCFR. 85
been other than those of Gds. Thus we have no mention of the Tonsetan, whose district lay appa- rently upon the banks of the Severn'; of the Mean- ware, or land of the Jutes, in Hampshire ; of the Maegsetan, or West Hecan, in Herefordshire ; of the Merscware in West Kent ; or of the Gedingas, who occupied a tract in the province of Middlesex*. Although it is possible that these divisions are in- cluded in some of the larger units mentioned in our list, they still furnish an argument that the names of the Gds were much more numerous than they would appear from the list itself, and that this marks only a period of transition.
It is clear that when Malmsbury mentions thirty- two shires as making up the whole of England, he intends only England south of the Humber. The list we have been examining contains thirty-four entries ; of all the names therein recorded, one only can be shown to lie to the north of that river : from this however it is not unreasonable to suppose that the whole of England is intended to be com- prised in the catalogue. Even admitting this, we cannot but conclude that these divisions were more numerous than our shires, seeing that large districts, such as Mercia, Wessex and Eastanglia, are entered only under one general head respectively.
The origin of the Gd in the federal union of two or more Marks is natural, and must be referred to periods far anterior to any historical record : that of the division into Shires, as well as the period at which this arose, are less easily determined.
» Cod. Dipl. No. 261. « Cod. Dipl. No. 101.
86 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
But we have evidence that some division into shires was known in Wessex as early as the end of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century, since Ini provides for the case where a plaintiff cannot obtain justice from his shireman or judge ^ ; and the same prince declares that if an ealdorman com- pounds a felony, he shall forfeit his shire* ; while he further enacts that no man shall secretly with- draw from his lord into another shire*. As it will be shown hereafter that a territorial jurisdiction is inseparably connected with the rank of a duke or ealdorman, I take the appearance of these officers in Mercia, during the same early period, to be evi- dence of the existence of a similar division there. Its cause appears to me to lie in the consolidation of the royal power. As long as independent asso- ciations of freemen were enabled to maintain their natural liberties, to administer their own affairs un- disturbed by the power of strangers, and by means of their own private alliances to defend their terri- tories and their rights, the old division into Gas might continue to exist. But the centralization of power in the hands of the king implies a more ar- tificial system. It is more convenient for judicial and administrative purposes, more profitable, and more safe for the ruler, to have districts governed by his own officers, and in which a territorial unity shall supersede the old bonds of kinsmanship : cen- tralization is hardly compatible with family tradi- tion. The members of the Ga met as associated
' Ini, § 8. Thorpe, i. 106. « Ini, § 36. Thorpe, i. 124.
» Ini, § 39. Thorpe, i. 126.
CH. HI.] THE GA' OR SCI'R. 87
freemen, under the guidance of their own natural leaders, and formed a substantive unit or small state, which might, or might not, stand in relations of amity to similar states. The Shire was a poli- tical division, presided over by an appointed oflScer, forming part only of a general system, and no longer endowed with the high political rights of self-govern- ment, in their fullest extent. I can imagine the Gd, but certainly not the Shire, declaring war against a neighbour. As long as the Gd could maintain itself as a little republic, principality, or even king- dom, it might subsist unscathed : but as the smaller kings were rooted out, their lands and people in- corporated with larger unions, and powerful mon- archies rose upon their ruins, it is natural that a system of districts should arise, based entirely upon a territorial division. Such districts, without pecu- liar, individual character of their own, or principle of internal cohesion, must have appeared less dan- gerous to usurpation than the ancient gentile ag- gregations.
88
CHAPTER IV.
lANDED POSSESSION. THE EDEL, HFD OR ALOD.
Possession of a certain amount of land in the di- strict was the indispensable condition of enjoying the privileges and exercising the rights of a free- man ^ There is no trace of such a qualification as
^ Even till the latest period, personal property was not reckoned in the distinction of ranks, although land was. No amount of mere chat- tels, gold, silver, or goods, could give the Saxon franchise. See the ordinance Be Wergyldum, § 10. Be GeHnc'Sum, § 2. Thorpe, i. 189, 191. This is a fundamental principle of Teutonic law: "Ut nullum liherum sine mortali crimine liceat inservire, nee de haereditate sua cz- pellere ; sed liheri, qui iustis legibus deserviunt, sine impedimento hae- reditates suas possideant. Quamvis pauper sit, tamen libertatem suam non pcrdat, nee haereditatem suam, nisi ex spontanea voluntatc, se alicui tradere voluerit, hoe potestatem habeat faciendi." Lex Alam. Tit. I. cap. 1. Lex Baiovar. Tit. 6. cap. 3. § 1. Eichhom, i. 328, note d. Loss of land entailed loss of condition in England, long after the establishment of our present social system. A beautiful passage to this eflfect occurs in the play of " A Woman killed with kindness" : a gentleman refuses to part with his last plot of groimd, on this account :
" Alas, alas ! 't is all trouble hath left me To cherishe me and my poor sister's life. If this were sold, our names should then be quite Razed from the bedroll of gentility. You see what hard shift we have made to keep it Allied still to our own name. This palm, you sec. Labour hath glow'd within ; her silver brow. That never tasted a rough winter's blast Without a mask or fan, doth with a grace Defy cold winter and his storms outface I "
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HFD OR ALOD. 89
constituted citizenship at Athens or Rome : among our forefathers, the exclusive idea of the city had indeed no sway. They formed voluntary associa- tions upon the land, for mutual benefit ; the quali- fication by birth, as far as it could be of any im- portance, was inferred from the fact of admission among the community ; and gelondan^ or those who occupied the same land, were taken to be connected in bloods An inquiry into the pedigree of a man who presented himself to share in the perils of the conquest or the settlement, would assuredly have appeared superfluous ; nor was it more likely to be made, when secure enjoyment came to reward the labours of invasion. In fact the Germanic settle- ments, whether in their origin isolated or collective, are based throughout upon the idea of common property in land. It is not the city, but the coun- try, that regulates their form of life and social in- stitutions : as Tacitus knew them, they bore in ge- neral the character of disliking cities : " It is well enough known," he says, '* that none of the Ger- man populations dwell in cities ; nay that they will not even suffer continuous building, and house joined to house. They live apart, each by himself, as the woodside, the plain or the fresh spring at- tracted him"*. Thus the Germanic community is in some sense adstricta glebacy bound to the soil :
^ In MS. glossaries we find gehndan rendered hy fratrueles. In ad- vanced periods only can there be a distinction between the Jamily, and the local, distributions : Suidas, citing Xanthus^ says the Lydians made a solemn supplication to the gods, n-ayyci/ei re kqI vapdfifi€L See Nie- buhr on the Patrician Houses, i. 267 »
* Mor. Germ. c. 16.
90 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
its members are sharers in the arable, the forest and the marsh, the waters and the pastures : their bond of union is a partnership in the advantages to be derived from possession of the land, an individual interest in a common benefit.
The district occupied by a body of new settlers was divided by lot in various proportions \ Yet it is certain that not all the land was so distributed ; a quantity sufficient to supply a proper block of arable* to each settler, was set apart for divi* sion; while the surplus fitted for cultivation, the marshes and forests less suited to the operations of the plough, and a great amount of fine grass or meadow-land, destined for the maintenance of cat- tle, remained in undivided possession as commons. At first too, it is clear from what has been said in the second chapter, that considerable tracts were left purposely out of cultivation to form the marches or defences of the several communities. But those alone whose share in the arable demonstrated them
' The traces of this mode of distribution are numerous. Hengest foreibly occupying the Frisian territory, is said to do so, ehie^ unhlytaie, violently and without casting of lota. Be6w. 1. 2187, 2251. The Law of the Burgundians calls hereditary land, ** terra sortis titulo acquisita," in contradistinction to chattels taken by purchase. Lex Burg. Tit. 1. Cl^). 1, 2. £iohhom, i. «^0, 400, note a. Qodred, having subdued the Manxmen, divided their land among his followers by lot. '* Godredus sequenti die obtionem exercitui suo dedit, ut si mallent Manniam inter se dividere, et in ea habitare ; vel cunetam substantiam terrae aecipere, et ad propria remeare." Chron. Manniae. (Cott. MS. Jul. A. VII. fol. 32.) Upon the removal of St. Cu'Sberht'a relics to Durham, the first care waa to eradicate the forest that covered the land; the next, to dit* tribute the clearing by lot : ** eradicata itaque silva, et unicuique man* sionibus sorte distributis," etc. Simeon. Hist. Dunelm. Ecd. ^ 37.
^ Words denoting measures of land have very frequently reference to the plough : thus ge6c, furlang, sulung, aratrum, carucata« etc.
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HID OR ALOD. 91
to be members of the little state, could hope to par- ticipate in the advantages of the commons of pas- ture : Uke the old Roman patricians, they derived from their haeredium benefits totally incommensu- rate with its extent. Without such share of the arable, the man formed no portion of the state ; it was his franchise, his political qualification, even as a very few years ago, a freehold of inconsider- able amount sufficed to enable an EngUshman to vote, or even be voted for, as a member of the legislature, — to be, as the Greeks would call it, in the TToXireia, — a privilege which the utmost wealth in copyhold estates or chattels could not confer. He that had no land was at first unfree : he could not represent himself and his interests in the courts or assemblies of the freemen, but must remain in the mund or hand of another ^ — a necessary con- sequence of a state of society in which there is indeed no property but land, in other words, no market for its produce.
From the mode of distribution it is probable that each share was originally called Hlyt {aors, icXfpoc), it derived however another and more com- mon name from its extent and nature. The ordinary Anglosaxon words are Higid^ (in its contracted and almost vmiversal form Hid) and Hiwisc. The Latin equivalents which we find in the chronicles and charters are, familiar cassatus, mansttSy mansa,
^ irpooTorov y€ypd<f>3<u, to be enrolled under lome one's patronage : to be in his mund and borh, Shtt ov Kpcovro^ npoardrov yrypa^fuu, CEd.Tyr.411.
« Cod. Dipl. No. 240.
92 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
mansio^ manens and terra tributarii. The words Hid and Hiwisc are similar, if not identical, in meaning : they stand in close etymological relation to Higan, Hiwan, the family, the man and wife, and thus perfectly justify the Latin terms familia and cassatus^f by which they are translated. The Hid then, or Hide of land, is the estate of one household, the amount of land sufficient for the support of one family*. It is clear however that this could not be an invariable quantity, if the households were to be subsisted on an equal scale : it must depend upon the original quality and con- dition of the soil, as well as upon manifold contin- gencies of situation — climate, aspect, accessibility of water and roads, abundance of natural manures, proximity of marshes and forests, in short an end- less catalogue of varying details. If therefore the Hide contained a fixed number of acres all over England, and all the freemen were to be placed in a position of equal prosperity, we must assume that in the less favoured districts one Hide would not sufiBce for the establishment of one man, but that his allotment must have comprised more than that quantity. The first of these hypotheses may be very easily disposed of : there is not the slightest ground for supposing that any attempt was, or
^ Cassatus or Ccaatus, a married man. Span. Casado, Othello speaks of his unhoused free condition, that is, his bachelor state. It is by marriage that a man founds a house or family.
' Heniy of Huntingdon thus defines its extent : " Hida autem An- gUce Tocatur terra unius aratri cultura sufficiens per annum." lib. vi. an. 1008. But this is a variable amount on land of various qualities, as every ploughman well knows.
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HI'D OR ALOD. 93
could be, made to regulate the amount of individual possession beyond the limit of each community ; or that there ever was, or could be, any concert be- tween different communities for such a purpose. The second supposition however presents greater difficulties.
Tliere is no doubt a strong antecedent improba- bility of the Hide having been alike all over Eng- land : isolated as were the various conquests which gradually established the Saxon rule in the several districts, it can hardly be supposed that any agree- ment was at first found among bands, engaged in continual struggles for safety, rather than for ex- tension of territory. It may indeed be objected that later, when the work of conquest had been consolidated, when, under the rule of powerful chief- tains, the resistance of the Britons had ceased to appear dangerous, some steps may have been taken towards a general arrangement; those historians who please themselves with the phantom of a Saxon confederation under one imperial head, — a Bretwal- daddm — may find therein an easy solution of this, and many other difficulties^ : but still it seems little likely that the important step of dividing the country should have been postponed, or that a suc- cessful body of invaders should have thought it necessary to wait for the consent or co-operation of others, whose ultimate triumph was yet uncertain.
' It does not seem very clear why the idea of one measure of land should suggest itself to either many such chieftains or one such Bret- walda, while other arrangements of a much more striking and neces- sary character remained totally different.
94 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
Experience of human nature would rather incline us to believe that, as each band wrung from the old masters of the soil as much as sufficed for its own support and safety, it hastened to realize its position and marked its acquisition by the stamp and impress of individual possession. It is more-* over probable that, had any solemn and general agreement been brought about through the in- fluence of any one predominant chief, we should not have been left without some record of a fact, so beneficial in itself, and so conclusive as to the power and wisdom of its author: this we might not unreasonably expect, even though we admit that such an event could only have taken place at the very commencement of our history, and that such a division, or, what is more difficult still, re-* division of the soil, is totally inconsistent with the state of society in England at any period subse- quent to A.D. 600: but these are precisely the cases where the mythus replaces and is ancillary to history.
Against all these arguments we have only one fact to adduce, but it is no light one. It is certain that, in all the cases where a calculation can be made at all, we do find a most striking coincidence with respect to the size of the Hide in various parts of England ; that such calculation is applicable to very numerous instances, and apparently satisfies the conditions of the problem in all ; and lastly that there appears no reason to suppose that any such real change had taken place in the value of the Hide, down to the period of the Norman conquest and the
CR. IV.] THE EDEL, HID OR ALOD. 95
compilation of Domesday, according to the admea- surement of at least the largest and the most influ« ential of the English tribes ^ The latest of these measurements are recorded in Domesday ; the ear* liest by Beda : the same system of calculations, the same results, apply to every case in which trial has been made between these remote limits ; and we are thus enabled to ascend to the seventh century, a period at which any equality of possessions is en- tirely out of the question, but at which the old unit of measurement may still have retained and handed down its original value : even as, with us, one farm may comprise a thousand, another, only two or three hundred acres, yet the extent of the acre re- main unaltered.
How then are we to account for this surprising fact, in the face of the arguments thus arrayed against it? I cannot positively assert, but still think it highly probable, that there was some such general measure common to the Germanic tribes upon the continent, and especially in the north. Whether originally sacerdotal, or how settled, it is useless to guess ; but there does seem reason to be-
' Beda almost invariably gives his numbers as " iuxta mensuram Anglomm." But in his works Angli denotes all the Teutonic inhabitants of Britain. H. £. i. cap. 1 . Again, in Bk. i. cap. 15, he identifies them, '* Anglorum sive Saxonum gens." He draws no distinction between Angle and Saxon tribes, except where special reasons leml him to par* ticularize them. He does note discrepancies between them, which would have appeared far less important to a scientific and mathematical thinker, as he was, than differences in land-divisions. I conclude then that no limitation can be admitted in his assertion, and that the words " iuxta mensuram Anglorum " denote, according to the admeasurement common to all the Germanic inhabitants of Britain.
96 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
lieve that a measure not widely diflferent from the result of my own calculations as to the Hide, pre- vailed in Germany ; and hence to conclude that it was the usual basis of measurement among all the tribes that issued from the storehouse of na- tions \
What was the amount then of the Hide among the Anglosaxons? Perhaps the easiest way of arriving at a trustworthy conclusion will be to commence with the Anglosaxon acre, and other subdivisions of the Hide and the acre itself.
There is reason to believe that the latter measure implied ordinarily a quantity of land not very dif- ferent in amount from our own statute acre '. I argue this from a passage in the dialogue attributed to iElfric, where the ploughman is made to say : " ac geiucodan oxan and gefaestnodan sceare and cultre mid ^sere syl aelce dseg ic sceal erian fulne aecer o^Se mdre ;" that is, ** having yoked my oxen, and fastened my share and coulter, I am bound to plough every day a full acre or more." Now expe-
' 1 do not know the present ayerage amount of a Frisian or West- phalian Hof, but the peasant-farms a little below Cologne, on the left bank of the Rhine, average from 30 to 50 acres. See Banfield, Agri- cult. Rhine, p. 10. The Bavarian Hof of two Huben contains from 50 to SOjuckert (each juckert equal to 40,000 square Bavarian feet, or nearly VLJugerum), This brings the Hof from about 36 to 40 acres. See Schmeller, Baierisch. Worterbuch, ii. 142, voc. Hueb. Schmel- ler's remarks on Hof are worth consulting, and especially his opinion that it may mean a necessary measure or portion. See also Grimm, Rechtsalt. p. 535.
^ That it was a fixed and not a variable quantity, both as to form and extent, seems to follow from the expressions, three acres wide (Cod. Dipl. No. 781), iii acera brsede, i. e. three acres breadth (Leg. i£1$el8t. iv. 5), ix acne latitudine. Leg. Hen. I. cap. xvi.
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HID OR ALOD. 97
rience proves^ that a plough drawn by oxen will hardly exceed this measure upon average land at the present day ; an acre and a quarter would be a very hard day's work for any ploughman under such circumstances. Hence for all practical pur- poses we may assume our actual acre not to differ very materially from the Anglosaxon. And now, how is an acre constituted ?
It has many divisors, all multiplying into the re- quired sum of 4840 square yards. Thus, it is clear that a length of 4840 yards, with a breadth of one yard, is quite as much an acre as a length of 220 yards with a breadth of 22, (in other words, ten chains by one, or 22 X 10 X 22,) the usual and legal computation : that is to say, twenty-two strips of land each 220 yards long and one wide, if placed together in any position will make up an acre. Placed side by side they will make an ob- long acre whose length and breadth are as 10:1. A space rather more than sixty-nine and less than seventy yards in each side would be a square acre ; it is however not probable that the land generally allowed of square divisions, but rather that the portions were oblong, a circumstance in favour of the ploughman, whose labour varies very much with the length of the furrow.
The present divisors of the acre are 5*5 and 40 ; combinations of these numbers make up the parts not only of the acre or square measure, but also
^ These calculations rest not only upon the authority of several large, practical farmers, and the opinions of intelligent ploughmen who have been consulted, but also upon experiments made under the author's own eye, on land of different qualities.
VOL. I. H
98 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
the measure of length. Thus 5-5 X 40=220, which taken in yards are one furlong, and which with one yard's breadth are ^ of an acre. Again, forty times 5*5 yards with a breadth of 55 yards (or 220 X 55) are 1210 yards square, '25 of an acre : twice that, or forty times 5*5 with a breadth of eleven yards are "5 acre : and twice that, or 220 X 20 (that is in modern surveying ten chains by one) = 4840 yards or the whole acre. The same thing may be expressed in another w^ay : we may assume a square of 5*5 yards, which is called a rod, perch or pole : forty of these make a rood, which is a furlong with a breadth of 5*5 yards ; and four such roods, or a furlong with a breadth of twenty- two yards, are an acre of the oblong form described above, and which is still the normal or legal acre.
My hypothesis goes on to assume that such, or nearly such, were the elements of the original cal- culation : in fact, that they were entirely so, with the substitution only of 5 for 55 as a factor. It remains to be asked why these numbers should be fixed upon ? Probably from some notion of the mystical properties of the numbers themselves. Forty and eight are of continual recurrence in Anglosaxon tradition, and may be considered as their sacerdotal or mythical numbers : forty divided by eight gives a quotient of five ; and these may have been the original factors, especially if, as there is every reason to believe, the first division of lands (whether here or on the continent matters not) took place under the authority and with the assist- ance of the heathen priesthood.
If this were so, the Saxon acre very probably
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HID OR ALOD. 99.
consisted of 5x5x40x4 = 4000 square yards * ; in which case the rod would be 25 yards square, and the furlong 200 yards in length. At the same time as the acres must be considered equal for all the purposes of useful calculation, 4000 Saxon square yards = 4840 English, 5 Saxon = 5*5 En- glish, and 200 Saxon=220 English yards. Further, the Saxon yard= I '1 English, or 39"6 inches. This I imagine to be the metgyrde or measuring-yard of the Saxon Laws^. If then we take 5 X 5 X 40 yards we have a block of land, 200 Saxon yards in length, and five in breadth ; and this I consider to have been the Saxon square Furlang or small acre, and to have been exactly equal to our rood, the quaran- tena of early calculations^. There is no doubt what- ever of the Saxon furlang having been a square as well as long measure^; as its name denotes, it is the
* I tliink; for reasons to be assigned below, that there was a small as well as large acre : in which case the small acre was probably made up of 6x6x40=1000 a.
' The yard of land was a very different thing : this was the fourth part of the Hide, the Virgata of Domesday.
' This seems clear from a comparison of two passages already quoted in a note, but which must here be given more at length. The law of i£Sclstan defines the king's peace as extending from his door to the distance on every side of three miles, three furlongs^ three acres* breadth, nine feet, nine palms, and nine barleycorns. The law of Ilenry gives the measurements thus : " tria miliaria, et tres quarantenae, et ix (? iii) acrae latitudinc, et ix pedes et ix palmae, et ix grana ordei.'^ Thus the furlang and quarantena are identified. But it is also clear that the series is a descending one, and consequently that the furlang or quarantena is longer than the breadth of an acre. If, as is probable, it ia derived from quarante, 1 should suppose three lengths and three breadths of an acre to have been intended ; in fact that some multiple of forty was the longer side of the acre.
^ In one case we hear of 'Sa be^n-furlang, the furlong under bean* cultivation. Cod. Dipl. No. 1246.
h2
100 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
length of a furrow : now 220 (=200 Saxon) yards is not at all too long a side for a field in our modern husbandry*, and is still more readily conceivable in a less artificial system, where there was altogether less enclosure, and the rotations of crops were fewer. Five yards, or five and a half, is not too much space to allow for the turn of the plough ; and it therefore seems not improbable that such an oblong block (200 X 5) should have been assumed as a settled measure or furlong for the ploughman, two being taken alternately, as is done at this day, in working, and forming a good half-day's work for man and beast : the length of the furrow, by which the labour of the ploughman is greatly reduced, being taken to compensate for the improved cha- racter of our implements.
I think it extremely probable that the Saxons had a large and a small acre, as well as a large and small hundred, and a large and small yard : and also that the quarantena or rood was this small acre. Taking forty quarantenae we have a sum of ten large acres, and taking three times that num- ber we have 120 quarantenae, or a large hundred of small acres = 30 large acres, giving ten to each course of a threefold system of husbandry. This on the whole seems a near approximation to the value of the Hide of land ; and the calculation of small acres would then help to account for the
^ A square of 220 yards would form a field of ten acres, which is not at all oversized. Since the happy downfall of the corn-laws, which were a bonus upon bad husbandry, hedges are being rooted up in every quar- ter, and forty or fifty acres may now be seen in single fields, where they were not thought of a few years ago.
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HID OR ALOD. 101
number of 120 which is assigned to the Hide by some authorities ^
In the appendix to this chapter I have given various calculations to prove that in Domesday the value of a Hide is fortv Norman acres. It has been asserted that 100 Saxon=120 Norman acres, and if so 40 Norman =33^ Saxon : which does not differ very widely from the calculation given above.
It must be borne in mind that the Hide com- prised only arable land : the meadow and pasture was in the common lands and forests, and was attached to the Hide as of common right : under these circumstances if the calculation of thirty, thirty-two or thirty-three acres be correct, we shall see that ample provision was made for the family*.
Let us now apply these data to places of which we know the hidage, and compare this with the modern contents in statute-acres.
According to Beda^ the Isle of Wight contained 1200 hides or families: now the island contains 86,810 acres, which would give 72^ acres per hide. But only 75,000 acres are under cultivation now, and this would reduce our quotient to 62*5 acres. On the hypothesis that in such a spot as the Isle
* See Ellis, Introd. to Domesday.
' The numbers given arc assumed, upon the supposition that 3 X 40 were taken : or that 4x8, that is four virgates of eight aci'es ; or lastly that thirty-three Saxon = nearly forty Norman were taken. As I am about to test the actual aci*eage of England by these numbers, it is as well to try them all. The practical result cannot vary much, and the principal object is to show that the Saxon Hide was not very different from the ordinary German land-divisions.
' Hist. EcgI. iv. 16.
102 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
of Wight (in great portions of which vegetation is not abundant) our Saxon forefathers had half as much under cultivation as we now have, we should obtain a quotient of about thirty-one acres to the hide, leaving 49,610 acres of pasture, waste, etc.: the ratio between the cultivated and uncultivated land, being about 37 : 49, is much too near equality for the general ratio of England, but may be accounted for by the peculiar circumstances of the island.
Again, Beda estimates Thanet at 600 hides ^ Now Thanet, at this day, contains 23,000 acres of arable land, and 3,500 of marsh and pastures. The latter must have been far more extensive in the time of Beda, for in the first place there must have been some land on the side of Surrey and Sussex reserved as Mark, and we know that drainage and natural causes have reclaimed considerable tracts in that part of Kent^ ; nor is it reasonable to sup- pose that our forefathers ploughed up as much land as we do. Yet even 23,000 acres will give us only 38^ acres to the hide ; and I do not think we shall be venturing too much in placing the 3200, 3800 or 5000 acres by which 23,000 respectively exceed 19,800, 19,200 and 18,000, to the account of pastures and commons. Seven or eight thou- sand acres of common land would bear in fact so unusually small a proportion to the quantity under crop, that we should be disposed to suspect the islanders of having been less wealthy than many
1 Hwt. Eccl. i. 25.
^ The river Wantsum alone was three stadia wide> about a third of ft mile, and was passable at two points only. Bed. Uist. £cd. i. 25.
%
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HID OR ALOD. 103
of their neighbours, unless we give them credit for having sacrificed bread crops to the far more remunerative pasturage of cattle*.
The whole acreage of Kent is 972,240 acres. What amount of this must be deducted for waste, rivers, roads and towns I cannot say, but some de- duction is necessary. Now Kent numbered 15,000 hides: this gives a quotient of 64 to 65 acres per hide ; and at the least, one half of this may fairly be taken off for marsh, pasture and the weald of Andred.
The calculation for Sussex is rendered uncertain in some measure, through our ignorance of the rela- tive proportion borne by the weald in the seventh century or earlier, to its present extent. The whole county is computed at 907,920 acres, and the weald at 425,000 acres. We may be assured that every foot of the weald was forest in the time of Beda : to this must be added 110,000 acres which are still waste and totally unfit for the plough : 30,000 acres now computed to be occupied by roads, build- ings, etc, may be neglected : our amount will there- fore state itself thus :
Whole acreage 907,920
Weald and waste 535,0(X)
372,920 acre*.
* The great fertility of Thanct is noticed by the ancients. Solinus (cap. xxii.) calls it " frumcntariia cnmpis felix et glcba iiberi." But com is of no value without a market ; ami unless London or the adjacent part* of the continent suppUed one, I must still imagine that the islanders did not keep so great an amount in arable. It is true that at very eai'ly periods a good deal of com was habitually exported from Britain : " annona a Britonnis sueta transfcrri." Ammian. Uist. xviii. 2.
104 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book i.
Now Sussex contained 7000 hides*, and this will give us a quotient of 53*25 acres per hide. Here again, if we make allowance for the condition of Saxon husbandry, we shall hardly err much in as- suming something near thirty to thirty-three acres to have been the arable hide in Sussex.
When once we leave the accurate reports of a historian like Beda for the evidence of later ma- nuscripts, we must necessarily proceed with great caution, and in reasonable distrust of our conclu- sions. This must be borne in mind and fairly ap- preciated throughout the following calculations.
An authority already mentioned ^ computes the number of hides in Eastanglia at 30,000. It is difficult to determine exactly what counties are meant by this, as we do not know the date of the document ; but supposing, what is most probable, that Norfolk and Suffolk are intended, we should have a total of 2,241,060 acres in those two great farming districts^. But even this large amount will only give us a quotient of 73*7 acres per hide, and it may fairly be diminished by at least one half, to account for commons, marshes, forests and other land not brought under the plough from the seventh to the tenth centuries.
The same table states Essex at 7000 hides. The acreage of that county is 979,000 acres'*, hence
» Beda, Hist. Eccl. iv. c. 13. « See Chap. III. p. 82.
' Norf. 1,292,300, SuflF. 918,760, =2,241,060. Of these I believe only about 2,000,000 arc actually under cultivation, which would re- duce the quotient to sixty-three and two-third acres per hide.
* Of which only 900,000 are computed to be now under cultivation : this reduces the quotient to 128*6 acres per hide ; and the ratio of cul«
€H. IV.] THE £D£L, llVD OR ALOD. 105
upon the whole calculation we shall have 139f acres per hide. But of course here a very great deduc* tion is to he made for Epping, Hainault and other forests, and for marshy and undrained land.
I shall now proceed to reverse the order of pro- ceeding which has hitherto been adopted, and to show that the hypothesis of the hide having com- prised from thirty to thirty-three acres is the only one which will answer the conditions found in va- rious grants : that in a number of cases from very different parts of England, a larger number of acres would either be impossible or most improbable: that it is entirely impossible for the hide to have reached 120 or even 100 acres, and that the amount left after deducting the arable, to form pastures and meadows, is by no means extravagant. The examples are taken from different charters printed in the Codex Diplomaticus iEvi Saxonici, and for convenience of reference are arranged tabularly. The comparison is made with the known acreage, taken from the Parliamentary return of 184 P. The table is constructed upon the following plan. The first column contains the name of the place ; the second, the number of hides ; the third, the actual acreage ; the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, the hides calculated at thirty, thirty-two,
tivated to uncultivated land is as 7 : 23, taking the hide at 30 acres ; and as 77 : 223 taking the hide at 3.3 acres.
* Enumeration Abstract, etc., 1841. I have also used the tables found in Mr. Porter's Progress of the Nation ; in these however, the total acreage, calculated apparently upon the square miles, differs slightly from the results of the Government inquiry, Mr. Porter's numbers always exceeding those of the Blue-book,
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAKU.
[«
thirty-three, forty and one hundred acres respect- ively ; the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth, the excess of real over supposed acreage, at the first four amounts ; the thirteenth, the excess of bidage over real acreage on the hypothesis of one hundred acres
AcIubI Acmgv Aemgn
Trotttncliff Kenl.
DRllMford Kent.
Euiiniiig«eU Berki.
DBnchiTOTth Derlu.
Gnveney Kenc.
MtnhUD Derkt.
{Einrton Wilt). Kington WilM.
Pelenham Surrc}'.
Brolicnborough... Wnti.
{AlrafDnl llftnti. Alre>rord Ilaau.
Whilchurcli tltnt».
Biditlngton Surrcr.
{Compton Donet. Compton Donrl.
Sindemead Burrei/.
f CUphun Surra;.
\CUphim Surrey.
UichGldeT«r Huita.
Wrington Somen.
BaiTQw OD Hamb. Line.
Cbcrtuy Surrcv.
Bnllan Sarrey.
Aldingboura fiuuci.
Feiring Simex.
Denton Suuex.
Bridadtl Berks.
Alton B«k«.
CbarinE Kent.
King"! Worthj ...Hants.
HurstboniB Prior. Hntils.
Newnton Wild.
Garfonl Berks.
Mordon Surrey.
Blewbury Berki.
SotwcU Berks.
CooMf Berks.
rHumey, EftM Bcrki.
I Hanner, Wert Berki.
Bidgworth Somen.
Dnrton flerki.
Barton Dcrkt.
DUO BGO
im 11)21
15UU I GOO
ifoo ]2m
1300 I ism
' IWW
I5()0 1300 ISOO
3.100 I 3630
3100 2S40
1300 1380
1300 1380
ROO 1094
1)00 r 9fH>
MM 9S0
log 240 493 I 600
im I30U
1056 ' 1380 IGSO I 300U 1320 I 1600 1330 ; IGOO 330 400 1050 1 3000 1320 , IGOO 1330 1600 ;i630 440U 2310 280U IGOU IGOO IS80 1800 1900 40U0
3440 1130 37SO
2460 40S0 1730
600 640 060 I BOO 1200 1280 I 1330 I 1600
3200 3000 3000
fiOOO 3U00U 3000
3500 4S00 5500 6U00 3U00 6000 1000 1500 2000 10000 495 . GOO ' 1500 330 400 ' 1000 3000 2000 B500 2000 4000
OH. IV.]
THE EDEL, HI D OR ALOD.
107
per hide; the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth, the ratios of hidage at thirty, thirty- two, thirty-three and forty, to the excess, from which we deduce the proportion between the arable, and the meadow, pasture and waste. In a few ia*-
|
â– ft as. |
KzeeM at 33. |
Szcett at 40. |
EXMM at 100. |
Rat. at 80. |
Bat. at Si. |
Rat. at 98. |
Bat. at 40. |
|
776 |
754 |
670 |
-50 |
36:79 |
38:77 |
39:75 |
48:67 |
|
848 |
343 |
300 |
-60 |
1:2 |
15:29 |
10:19 |
4:5 |
|
780 |
705 |
600 |
-300 |
3:5 |
5:8 |
30:47 |
1:1 |
|
1840 |
1810 |
1600 |
-200 |
9:19 |
18:23 |
96:181 |
3:4 |
|
896 |
864 |
640 |
-1280 |
1:1 |
8:7 |
11 :9 |
2:1 |
|
3840 |
3390 |
2940 |
-60 |
75:178 |
80:167 |
165 : 389 |
100 : 147 |
|
1040 |
1000 |
720 |
-1680 |
15:14 |
65:52 |
67:50 |
20:9 |
|
S670 |
2630 |
2350 |
-50 |
24:55 |
130:267 |
134 : 263 |
33:47 |
|
840 |
330 |
260 |
-340 |
5:6 |
16:17 |
1:1 |
20:18 |
|
1850 |
1300 |
950 |
'-2050 |
30:29 |
32:27 |
33:26 |
40:19 |
|
-80 |
-70 |
-350 |
-2750 |
24:1 |
128:5 |
138:5 |
0 |
|
8380 |
3340 |
2060 |
-340 |
20:41 |
64:119 |
66:117 |
80:103 |
|
3810 |
3700 |
2930 |
-3670 |
330:403 |
352:381 |
363:370 |
440:893 |
|
1590 |
1520 |
1030 |
-3170 |
210:173 |
224 : 159 |
231 : 152 |
280:103 |
|
no |
70 |
-210 |
-2610 |
120:19 |
188:11 |
132:7 |
0 |
|
840 |
200 |
-80 |
-2480 |
15:4 |
16:3 |
33:5 |
0 |
|
1186 |
1094 |
970 |
-950 |
32:43 |
512:563 |
528 : 547 |
128 : 97 |
|
110 |
80 |
-130 |
-1930 |
90:17 |
96:11 |
99:8 |
0 |
|
960 |
930 |
720 |
-1080 |
45:51 |
1:1 |
33:31 |
15:9 |
|
6140 |
6040 |
5340 |
-660 |
150:317 |
160 : 307 |
165:308 |
800 : 267 |
|
890 |
870 |
730 |
-470 |
20:31 |
64:89 |
66:87 |
80:73 |
|
3080 |
2970 |
2620 |
-740 |
25:52 |
80:151 |
55:99 |
100:181 |
|
3680 |
3420 |
2020 |
-9980 |
300 : 201 |
320:181 |
330:171 |
400 : 101 |
|
870 |
840 |
630 |
-1170 |
30:31 |
32:20 |
33:28 |
130:63 |
|
1864 |
1826 |
2280 |
0 |
57:190 |
304:485 |
627 : 913 |
38:57 |
|
686 |
674 |
590 |
-130 |
36 : 71 |
192:343 |
198:337 |
48:59 |
|
90 |
65 |
-110 |
-1610 |
75:14 |
80:9 |
165:13 |
0 |
|
8734 |
2686 |
2350 |
-530 |
144 : 283 |
768 : 1367 |
792 : 1343 |
192:235 |
|
870 |
215 |
-170 |
-3470 |
165:38 |
176:27 |
366 : 43 |
0 |
|
8140 |
2080 |
1660 |
-1940 |
90:113 |
96:107 |
99:104 |
120 : 83 |
|
1880 |
1200 |
990 |
-810 |
30:43 |
32:41 |
33:40 |
40:33 |
|
1150 |
1090 |
670 |
-2930 |
180:127 |
192:115 |
198 : 109 |
840 : 67 |
|
490 |
480 |
410 |
-190 |
30:51 |
32 : 49 |
33:48 |
40:41 |
|
690 |
675 |
570 |
-330 |
45:72 |
48:69 |
49:67 |
60:57 |
|
1060 |
1040 |
900 |
-300 |
6:11 |
32:53 |
33:52 |
8:9 |
|
8750 |
3650 |
2950 |
-2050 |
60:79 |
64:75 |
66:73 |
80:59 |
|
830 |
815 |
710 |
-190 |
45:86 |
48:83 |
93:163 |
60:71 |
|
530 |
520 |
450 |
-150 |
6:11 |
32:53 |
33:52 |
8:9 |
|
-40 |
-60 |
-200 |
-1400 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
750 |
730 |
590 |
-610 |
60 : 79 |
64:75 |
66:73 |
80:59 |
|
670 |
645 |
470 |
-1030 |
75:72 |
80:67 |
55:43 |
100:47 |
|
1310 |
1290 |
1150 |
-50 |
4:9 |
64:131 |
22:43 |
80cll5 |
|
8310 |
8270 |
990 |
-410 |
120 : 239 |
128 : 231 |
132 : 227 |
160:99 |
108 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book x.
stances, there is a double return, implying that it is uncertain to which, of two synonymous districts, a grant must be referred.
We have thus forty-nine cases in which the Hide is proved less than 100 acres, a fortiori less than 120. Any one who carefully considers the ratios arrived at in the foregoing table, which for any one of the assumed cases rarely exceed one to two, will agree that there is a remarkable coinci- dence in the results, in at least the rich, fertile and cultivated counties from which the examples are derived. In some cases indeed the proportion of arable to waste is so great, that we must suppose other districts, now under cultivation, to have been then entirely untouched, in order to conceive suffi- cient space for marks and pastures. But lest it should be objected that these examples can teach us only what was the case in fertile districts, I sub- join a calculation of the Hidage and Acreage of all England, including all its barren moors, its fo- rests, its marshes and its meadows, from the Solent to the utmost limit of Northumberland.
The total Hidage of England = 243,600 The total Acreage of England = 31,770,615 st. a.
Acreage at 30 7,308,000 Excess 24,462,615 Rat. 7 : 24 nearly.
32 7,795,200 ... 23,975,415 ... 1:3
33 8,038,800 ... 23,731,815 ... 8:23
40 9,744,000 ... 22,026,615 ... 3:8
100 24,360,000 ... 7,410,015 ...24:7
120 29,232,000 ... 2,538,615 ... 14 : 1
...
• . •
...
...
...
This calculation leaves no doubt a bare possibility of the hide's containing 100 or 120 statute-acres:
CH. IV.] THE EDEL, HID OR ALOD. 109
but those who are inclined to believe that, taking all England through, the proportion of cultivated to uncultivated land was as 29 : 3, or even as 24 : 7, it must be owned, appreciate our ancient husbandry beyond its merits'. Cultivation may very proba- bly have increased with great rapidity up to the commencement of the ninth century ; and in that case, waste land would have been brought under the plough to meet the demands of increasing po- pulation : but the savage inroads of the Northmen which filled the next succeeding century must have had a strong tendency in the opposite direction. I can hardly believe that a third of all England was under cultivation at the time of the conquest ; yet this is the result which we obtain from a calcula- tion of thirty-two or thirty-three acres to the hide, while a calculation of forty acres gives us a result of three-eighths, or very little less than one-half. The extraordinary character of this result will best appear from the following considerations.
If we proceed to apply these calculations to the existing condition of England, we shall be still more clearly satisfied that from thirty to thirty-three acres is at any rate a near approximation to the truth.
' I have taken the acreage as given in the Census of 1841, but there is another calculation which makes it amount to 32,342,400 ; in which case the several values must be corrected as follows. The general re- sult is not in the least altered by this change in the factors.
Acreage at 30 7,308,000 Excess 25,034,400 Rat. 7 : 25
32 7,795,200 ... 24,547,200 ... 7:24
33 8,038,800 ... 24,303,600 ... 1:3
40 9,744,000 ... 22,598,400 ... 9:22
100 24,3fi0,000 ... 7,982,400 ...24:7
120 29,232.000 ... 3,110,400 ...29:3
no
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
The exact data for Englapd are I believe not found, but in 1827 Mr. Coyling, a civil engineer and sur- veyor delivered a series of calculations to the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Emigra- tion, which calculations have been reproduced by Mr. Porter in his work on the Progress of the Nation. From this I copy the following table :
|
Arable and garden. |
Meadow, paiture, manh. |
Waste capable of improvement. |
Waste incapable of improvement. |
Summary. |
|
Statute acres. 10,252,800 |
Statute acres. 15,379,200 |
Statute acres. 3,454,000 |
Statute acres. 3,256,400 |
Statute acres. 32,342,400 |
Now as the arable and gardens are all that can possibly be reckoned to the hide, we have these figures :
Arable 10,262,800
Meadow, waste, forest, etc 22,089,600
giving a ratio of 5 : 1 1 nearly between the cultivated and uncultivated*.
The actual amount in France is difficult to ascer- tain, but of the 52,732,428 hectares of which its superficial extent consists, it is probable that about 30,000,000 are under some sort of profitable cul- ture : giving a ratio