DIVISION OF SAXON HUNDREDS. 101 war. The object of the races who broke up the Roman empire was not to settle in a desert, but to live at ease, as an aristocracy of soldiers, drawing rent from a peaceful population of tenants. Moreover, coming in small and narrow skiffs, the conquerors could not bring their families with them, and must in most cases have taken wives from the women of the country. That the Saxon language was not, like the Norman and Frank, exchanged for a Latin dialect, is probably due to the long duration of the struggle. During four generations of men, fresh recruits were perpetually swarming in from the shores of the German Ocean to take part in the subjugation of the island. These probabilities are confirmed by facts that meet us on every side. The political division of hundreds belonged to the Germans, in the time of the earliest Frank kings,' and probably indicates in England what number of Saxons settled in a conquered district. Now here we find as a rule that the number is always greatest in maritime counties, and smaller as we advance inland and westward. Sixty-six in Kent and seventytwo in Sussex contrast strongly with six in Lancashire, five in Staffordshire, and seven in Leicestershire. If we exclude Cornwall, as a late conquest, from the maritime counties between the Thames and the Avon, we shall find that the six remaining ones have twice as many hundreds as are comprised in twelve midland counties. I "Causator centenarium cum centenâ requirat," &c. Decret, Childebert. "Conventus . . . fiat in omni centenâ." Leg. Alam., i. 36. Baluz, vol. i pp. 14, 46. 2 In this list I have included Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berks, Warwick, Worcester, Notts, North ampton, Herts, Bedford, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Leicestershire. I have given the higher numbers from Domesday (e. g. eighteen instead of eight to Bucks), and I have omitted three hundreds from Somersetshire that appeared to be merely manors with territorial privileges. 102 MIXTURE OF LATIN AND ANGLO-SAXON. Evidently the sea-rovers settled chiefly in the parts which the sea washed, and which they had first fought for and won, leaving the heart of the country to a more gradual process of military colonization by their sons. For a long time the Saxon, disliking towns, and without occasion to labour for his livelihood, would remain a soldier, encamped perhaps in a special district, but attending the gemot or comitia of his tribe. But intermixture with the Welsh or Britons among whom he lived, was unavoidable. Accordingly, hundreds of common words, relating especially to government, to agriculture, to household life and service, and to the arts of weaving, boat-building, carpentry, and smith's work, may still be traced in the limited Anglo-Saxon and Welsh vocabularies.' Rather more than a hundred Latin words, often to be found also in Welsh, show that for his knowledge of trees, flowers, and herbs, of weights and measures, and of little appliances of daily life in the house, the farm, or the camp, the Saxon was largely indebted to the Romanized Briton." In ages when there were no family names, the lower people would before long adopt the names as they learned the language of their conquerors. Yet unmistakeable Keltic names, such as Puch, Pechthelm, and Maban, are found attached to Anglo-Saxon charters, and designating persons of rank. Keltic missionaries assisted Augustine and his Davies, Philolog. Trans., v. 1857. Garnett, Philolog. Trans., vol. i. p. 171; vol. ii. pp. 15, 77. Mr. Kemble seems to accept Mr. Garnett's conclusions. Saxons in England, vol. i. pp. 21, 22. Brandes, in his Ethnographische Verhaeltnisse der Kelten und Germanen, gives as instances the words glaive, lance, spear, basket, plaster, gimlet, brush, block, boots, towel, stoup, gable, onion, bran, grease, mackerel, turbot, tin, pewter. Compare two interesting lectures by Mr. Gaskell on the Lancashire dialect. 2 See Appendix, A. 3 Kemble, Proceedings of Archæol. Institute, 1845. Philolog. Trans., v. 1857. PERPETUITY OF ROMAN INSTITUTIONS. 103 followers in their labours; and Paulinus, the first archbishop of York, has been claimed as Rum, the son of Urien.' The names of places have been even more permanent. Our river-names, such as Cam and Avon and Ouse, and the frequent combination of syllables such as man, pen, kil, and maes, with Saxon words, show that the race who once held our country was not suddenly extinguished. If the Roman towns in some cases fell into decay, the poverty of a war-stricken people, and the decline of commerce, and of the arts of peace, will account for it. But the days of the great Roman feasts were still celebrated under Christian titles; the Roman colleges of trade were continued as guilds; Roman local names were preserved by the conquerors as they found them; Roman titles, duke and count, were assumed by the Saxon chiefs; Roman law has formed the basis of the Saxon family system, and of the laws of property. The Saxon conquest was a change of the highest moment, no doubt, but it did not break up society; it only added a new element to what it found. The Saxon state was built upon the ruins of the past. The story professes to come from contemporaries (Nennius, c. Ixiii.), but can hardly apply to Rum, the son of the famous Urien, whom Llywarch Hen speaks of as dead a generation earlier; Villemarqué, Bardes Bretons, p. 51. 2 Compare a list of British etymons in the local names of a single county in "The Ethnology of Cheshire," by Mr. Earle. Of course, the few Roman names still to be traced come in evidence of this point. 3 The Saturnalia at Christmastide, present-giving on the day of the New-year, and the connection of May-day and All-Hallow's-Eve with the flowers and fruits of the season, those days being old festivals of Flora and Pomona. Brand's Antiquities, vol. i. CHAPTER VII. THE ANGLO-SAXON TYPE. DISTINCTION OF ANGLES, SAXONS, AND JUTES. ANGLO-SAXON PHYSIQUE AND CHARACTER. POSITION OF WOMEN. ABSENCE OF THE FAMILY WH HO the different tribes were by whom Roman Britain was subdued is not altogether easy to decide. Historians have been struck by the fact that the invaders were known as Saxons to the Britons, while they gave the country in later times the name of England or Angle-land. Anyhow, Angle and Saxon would seem to have been the two great divisions recognized. The Angles were probably Danish, or at least Low German, rather than Frisian; they would therefore be connected with the Jutes, who colonized Kent and the Isle of Wight; and this is confirmed by the analogies of the Northumbrian and Kentish dialects.' Apart 'The analogies of the Kentish and Northumbrian dialects have been pointed out by Mr. Kemble. Philolog. Trans., vol. ii. 36. For the analogies of early Northumbrian and Danish, I only know the vague statement, “Lingua Danorum Anglicanæ loquelæ vicina est." Script. Rer. Dan., vol. v. p. 26. Mr. Earle writes me word, "The Anglian (present Northumbrian and Scots dia .... lect, e. g. Burns) is in fact PlattDeutsch. . . . . Still it is quite true that the difference between it and Danish was not such as to create severance or bar coalescence." The real evidence of the connection is, I think, to be found in history, as much as in philology, and must not be pressed unduly. It is noticeable that Angul and Dano are mythical brothers in Saxo Grammaticus. ORIGINS OF INVADING RACES. 105 from evidence, it is natural to suppose that the Anglian track of conquest, north and east, bore some relation to the situation of their homes on the continent. The populations of the kingdoms north of the Humber, of East Anglia, and of Kent, may thus be assigned to the border-lands of Denmark and Germany. This halfScandinavian origin is borne out by the energetic and turbulent character of the race; and it explains the solidity of the Danish conquests in districts where a kindred people was established. Essex, Sussex, and Wessex bear a Saxon settlement in their names. But the origin of the Saxons is strangely mysterious. They seem, from the strong nationality which carried them through so many wars, to have been a people, and not a mere federation. From their language, from their sea-faring life, from their great aptitude for dykemaking, and from the distinct evidence of Procopius, who calls them Frisians,' it would seem natural to refer them to the districts of Holland and North Germany, between the mouths of the Eyser and of the Rhine. But in this case we must probably assume, either that they had migrated from the interior at no very distant period, or that, they sent conquering colonies up the great rivers into the heart of Germany, for local names, which seem to belong to the race, occur in modern Baden, while an old Saxon kingdom was conquered by 1 Or, at least, speaks of Brittia as divided between the Angles, Frisians, and Britons. De Bello Gothico, lib. iv. c. 20. In the mythical genealogies, Saxo and Friso are brothers. It is some confirmation of this relationship that many Frisians took service under Alfred. A.S. Chron., A. 897. Asser, M. B., p. cdlxxxvi. Alfred, however, places the country of the old Saxons to the east of the Elbe and Friesland. Alfred's Orosius, lib. i. c. i. 12. Perhaps that portion of the tribe had best preserved their name and nationality. 2 Leo on Anglo-Saxon names, pp. 117-119. |
