FOR

CHAPTER V.

LATER SAXON TIMES.

OR some half a century East Anglia remained in the hands of the Danes, and of such as they suffered to continue in their possessions. The proverbial happiness of those without annals cannot be claimed for these parts. The little glimpses afforded to us by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are not bright. If we may judge by the analogy of Northumbria, lands were portioned out and tilled.1 As settlement went on, fresh bands from the teeming population of the home country were invited over, and in all parts of England the struggle with the Danes was carried on with little intermission. In A.D. 885 King Alfred, who had relieved Rochester from its besiegers, sent his fleet on to East Anglia. At the mouth of the Stour it encountered and defeated sixteen ships of pirates, but suffered defeat immediately afterwards, at the hands of a larger fleet. Next year he repaired to London, and received the submission of all the English, except those who were under the bondage of the Danish men,' and before long he had six hostages from the East Angles, by whom we must understand Danes settled in East Anglia. Nevertheless, they as well as those from Northumbria were constantly taking hostile action in concert with their brethren, using the ports of Norfolk and 1 In Northumbria in A.D. 876.

2 See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for A.D. 921.

Suffolk as places of retreat in case of being hard pressed. Thus we read that after a desperate fight on the South coast in A.D. 897, the single ship which escaped of the Danish six came to East Anglia, the men being sorely wounded. In 901 the Great Alfred died, and his cousingerman Ethelwald seized the castle at Wimborne Minster in Dorset, but on the approach of Alfred's son, Edward the Elder, as near as Badbury Rings, he retired to the Northumbrian Danes, who received him as King. This renegade Saxon encouraged the men of Norfolk and Suffolk to a general raid in Mercia. Edward followed them as far as the dikes of Cambridgeshire on their return, dealing retribution on their own lands.

The Kentish men in his army disobeyed the order for a general retreat, and somewhere in this district they attacked the Danes, but were unable to drive them from the field. The slaughter was great on both sides, but greater among the Danes, who lost both their kings, Eohric of East Anglia and the traitor Ethelwald. This was in the year 905. Edward's necessities compelled him to make peace with their army in the next year, a peace which seems to have been the endurance of unavenged injuries. At last, after serious reverses at Tempsford and at Maldon, the army of East Anglia, in the year 921, swore union with Edward, who died King of England, shortly after the fruition of his struggles, four years afterwards. The land had rest (comparatively) forty years' and something more.

Then set in slowly and irregularly a kind of granulation, if we may use a comparison from the healing of a wound. Dane and Angle were after all of a common stock, and there were no radical incongruities of character to be got over. By degrees ancient wrongs came to be forgotten, and even wrongs of later date to assume a less odious aspect. The sons of the Dane saw the daughters of the Angle that they were fair, and merry blue eyes and flaxen locks played no inconsiderable part in consolidation. Grandfathers made friends in the common delight

of the gambols of grandchildren. Peace gradually brought prosperity, and prosperity dignity. The state of a Thane became attainable, and to my mind many of the round towers of Norfolk and Suffolk mark the progress of Christianity, as well as the material advance of civilization.

Among the laws passed by Athelstan in the year 937, after the battle of Brunanburg, Brumby or Brunton, with the advice of Wulfhelm, Archbishop of Canterbury, and other bishops, was one which necessitated the building of a bell-tower on the estate of a Thane. This wise regulation I regard as having given rise to many of those round towers which are hardly to be found out of East Anglia. One of them, Eccles Tower, a well-known object on the Norfolk beach, fell in the terrific gale of Wednesday, January 23, 1895, and in its fall revealed its wheat-stalklike construction. From its appearance it was evidently built in sections of about 10 or 12 feet. Each portion is perfectly smooth where broken off in its fall, as if the builder allowed one portion to firmly settle before another was added. This is observable throughout the circular portion. The walls of this part are exactly 5 feet in thickness. The massive tower-arches, always on the east side, testify to the ecclesiastical nature of the structures, evidently intended to open into a church, and the frequent contiguity of church and landlord's homestead rendered tower and bell useful for many mixed purposes. Many of the old moated farm-houses now standing bear the name of 'hall,' a term strictly more applicable to the moat than to the house enclosed by it.

Some of the round towers stand near the halls; others, marking possibly the joint action of the village community, rather than the mandate of an incepting thane, are more in the little street of the parish. Of the whole number in Suffolk, forty-five, some may date after the Conquest; many have received subsequent additions, occasionally octagonal. I append a list of them, those marked with the letter o being of the last description:

It will be seen that these structures thicken as we approach the coast, where in all probability the Scandinavian population most abounded. I would especially name Bungay, Holy Trinity; Southelmham, All Saints; Syleham and Wissett, as possessing marks of high antiquity. Bramfield Church is now detached from the tower, and Little Saxham in all likelihood dates entirely from Norman times.

This more settled condition of the country draws me to speak of the names of parishes as now existing, the majority of them mainly of Teutonic, if not of Angle, character. It is only with hesitation that one dare speak of Combs, with its falsely-added s, as equivalent to the Wessex Combe and the Welsh cwm, as first a hollow, and then a village in a hollow. There is some encouragement in thinking of a similar history in other languages. Lin in Linstead and Linburne (in Homersfield) suggests a gully, of which there are traces. Burgh or Bury is indeed cosmopolitan, but comes to us through a German channel. There are about a dozen of these in the county, and the position of the earthwork in each should be, if

1 Vegetius Renatus, writing about the end of the fourth century, defines it as a small fort; Isidore of Seville as dwellings within an enclosure.

possible, recorded, as spade and pickaxe are fast obliterating these precious parcels of the past. Ton and ham muster about a hundred each, the former perhaps rather denoting equality, and the latter ascendancy, in a community. Ford claims about five-and-twenty. Field falls mainly into two groups, one in the hundred of Hoxne, with ramifications into Loes and Blything; the other in the Suffolk Woodlands. By, connected with biggan, to build, is very Danish, and mainly affects the coast hundreds, but Risby lies further inland. These, with stead, worth, hall (always spelt hale in old documents), thorpe, which is the German dorf, and denotes a satellite to some superior village planet, and a few more, will be found to complete our Suffolk terminations of local names.

Remains of Saxon architecture are scanty enough. Here and there, as at Syleham and Holy Trinity Church, Bungay, the well-known 'long and short work' may be seen, and St. Nicholas's Church, Ipswich, is thought by some to claim a like antiquity.

Many of the moats surrounding our farm-houses are due to the energy of the Saxon landowners, for the houses are named in Domesday Book in such a way as to indicate habitations of no recent settlement. What has been said about 'hall' and 'hale' may surprise some readers, but Suffolk people are still familiar with the word in the form 'holl' for a ditch.

The history of St. Fursey has already introduced us to the monastic life. His, indeed, was strictly a monastery or hermitage-the abode of a solitary man. And Bede's words about King Sigebert point to a similar life, that he entered a monastery which he had made for himself.' But man is a social animal, and the law that it is not good for man to be alone' wrought at this time for the aggregation of men apart from women, as it did afterwards for the destruction of that system.

St. Benedict himself began his ascetic life in solitude, but early in the sixth century formulated the rule which goes by his name. Pope Gregory the Great being a