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 •^ ^-. \
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN
 
 GFhihpLSm.S^FU^Si. Zvndan..
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY 
 
 INHABITANTS OF THIS ISLAND AND 
 
 THE MEMORIALS WHICH THEY HA^'E 
 
 LEFT BEHIND THEM 
 
 BY 
 
 BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE 
 
 D.Sc, M.D., M.A., Trinity College, Dublin 
 F.S.A. (LoND. & Irel.) 
 
 DEAN OF THE MEDICAL FACULTY AND PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY 
 MASON COLLEGE, BIRMINGHAM 
 
 PVITH MAPS, PL^NS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 DAVID NUTT, 270-271, STRAND 
 
 1897
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &^ Co. 
 At the Ballautyne Press
 
 
 TO 
 MY WIFE 
 
 1816G09
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The subject-matter of the following pages was arranged 
 originally for a course of lectures which was delivered 
 at Mason College, Birmingham. The object of that 
 course, as of this book, was to present a brief but clear 
 account of the different races which inhabited this country 
 in prehistoric and early historic times, and to describe 
 the chief relics which each has left behind it. It is hoped 
 that this little book may be serviceable as an introduction 
 to the study of Prehistoric ArchjEology, and to the larger 
 works on that subject by Sir John Evans, Professor Boyd 
 Dawkins and others, the names of which will be found 
 in the Appendix. In order to add to its practical value 
 some attempt has been made to supply a list of objects, 
 arranged in counties, by which the facts alluded to in 
 the body of the work may be more fully illustrated. These 
 also will be found in an Appendix. 
 
 For permission to use certain of thg figures with which 
 the book is illustrated, the author has to thank Sir John 
 Evans, the Councils of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 and of the Archaeological Society, Mr. John Murray, Colonel 
 Wood-Martin, Mr. W. R. Hughes and Messrs. Kegan Paul 
 The author cannot but express his gratitude also to his 
 friend and publisher, Mr. Alfred Nutt, for the great interest 
 which he has taken in the book, and for the many valuable 
 suggestions which he has made whilst it has been passing 
 through the press. 
 
 Birmingham, May i, 1897.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Introduction — Relics of past races in tale, custom, and law — Man 
 and the Glacial Period — Palaeolithic and Neolithic Races — The 
 Celts and the Bronze Age —The Roman Occupation — The Saxon 
 Invasion— Struggle between the Britons and the Saxons — The 
 fall of Britain — The Danes ..... Pp. 1-18 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PALEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 Wild animals of the period — Flint implements — Method of. their 
 manufacture— Relics of the River-Drift Man — The Cave- 
 dweller — Kent's Hole — Early Art — Physical characteristics of 
 the Cave-Man— His social life .... Pp. 19-34 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 Conditions of the land — Wild animals — Pit dwellings — Stone axes 
 and arrow-heads — Their folk-lore — Manufactories— Art — Long 
 barrows — Dolmens — Significance and folk-lore — Objects buried 
 with the dead — Trephined skulls— Druidism— Language — 
 Bodily remains — Social life Pp. 55-(>7
 
 X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 The Aryan Race — Goidels and Brythons— Early accounts of Britain 
 — Lake-dwellings — Crannogs — The Glastonbury Lake-village — 
 Pile-dwellings — Bronze Celts — Swords — Personal ornaments — 
 Casting of bronze — Pottery— Clothing . . Pp. 68-92 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD— continued 
 
 Camps — Maiden Castle — Yarnbury — Caer Caradoc — Bridges — 
 Stonehenge — Avebury — The Rollright Stones — Folk-lore — 
 Menhirion — Round Barrows — Celtic religion — Godiva's ride — 
 Physical characters— Social life .... Pp. 93-118 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 
 
 Condition of the country— Forests — Wild animals— Trackways- 
 Roman roads — Camps — Cities — Silchester — Uriconium — 
 Corinium . . Pp. 1 19-136 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRIT Am— continued 
 
 The Roman city— Cemetery — Pomcerium— Amphitheatre — Gates 
 —Forum and Basilica— Shops— Baths— Temples— Christian 
 Church— Barracks Pp. i37-i54
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRIT MN— continued 
 
 The Roman villa — Hypocausts — Tesselated pavements — Chedworth 
 Villa — Mines — Method of burial— The Roman Wall — Nature of 
 the Roman Occupation Pp. 155-170 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION 
 
 The Christian Church in Britain — Intermixture of Races — Saxon 
 Earthworks — Relation to subsequent Norman Castles — Offa's 
 Dyke — Methods of burial — Weapons and other objects found in 
 Graves — Art— Church architecture . , . Pp. 171-186 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 
 
 The Tribal Community — Its members — The strangers living with 
 it— The Chieftain — His house — The village community — The 
 Hall — Evolution of the Manor-house- The Lord of the Manor — 
 How a Manor was formed— The inhabitants of the Village — 
 The land around it— Its allotment — The Manor of Westminster 
 at the Con(juest — The island of Heisgeier . . I'p. 187-206 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SOME TRACES OF THE PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 
 
 Traces in Language — Physical characteristics — Names of Places. 
 
 Pp. 207-2 r 9
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 List of Places Pp 221-227 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 List of Books .Pp. 228-229 
 
 INDEX 231
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Map of Early Britain, showing roads and places of importance. 
 
 Frontisf'iece 
 I. River-Drift Implement (Evans, "Ancient Stone Imple- 
 ments") 21 
 
 2. Cave Implement (do.) .... 
 
 3. Harpoon Head (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 4. Hunting of Horses (Joly, " Man before Metals 
 
 5. The Mammoth (do.) ..... 
 
 6. Plan of a Village Settlement 
 
 7. Neolithic Celt (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 8. A Celt in its Handle (Evans, "Ancient Stone Implements" 
 g. "Perforated Stone Hammer (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 10. Flint Arrow-Heads (Evans, "Ancient Stone Implements " 
 
 11. The same in Shaft (do.) 
 
 12. Spindle Whorl (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 13. A Long Barrow 
 
 14. An uncovered Dolmen Qoly, " Man before Metals") . 
 
 15. A Breton Dolmen 
 
 37 
 39 
 40 
 
 41 
 43 
 43 
 48 
 
 49 
 50 
 50 
 16. Kits Coty House (" A Week's Tramp in Dickensland," by 51 
 
 53 
 54 
 57 
 
 W. R. Hughes) . . . . . 
 
 17. Plan of Chambers in Uley Barrow .... 
 
 18. Concentric Circles cut on Stone (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 19. Position of Skeletons in a Barrow (after a figure in Jewitt's 
 
 " Grave-Mounds and their Contents ") 
 
 20. Trephined Skull (Joly, " Man before Metals ") . 
 
 21. Restoration of aCrannog (Wood-Martin, " Pagan Ireland" 
 
 22. Section of a Crannog (do.) 
 
 23. Plan of a Crannog (do.) 
 
 27 
 
 29 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 59 
 72 
 
 74 
 75
 
 xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 24. Plan of a Crannog (Wood-Martin, " Pagan Ireland ") 
 
 25. Flat Bronze Celt (Evans, "Ancient Bronze Implements" 
 
 26. Flanged Bronze Celt (do.) . 
 
 27. Winged and Ringed Bronze Celt (do.) 
 
 28. Socketed Bronze Celt (do.) 
 
 29. Bronze Celt in Handle (do.) 
 
 30. Bronze Pins (do.) .... 
 
 31. A Torque (do.) 
 
 32. Bronze Caldron (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 33. Stone Mould for Casting Celts (do.) . 
 
 34. Pottery of the Bronze Age (do.) . 
 
 35. General Plan of Stonehenge (Murray's Handbook for 
 
 Wiltshire) 
 
 36. Conjectural Restoration of Stonehenge (do.) 
 
 37. Trilithons at Stonehenge (Barclay, " Stonehenge ") . 
 
 38. Plan of Stonehenge as it is (Murray's Handbook) 
 
 39. Trilithons at Tripoli (Barclay, " Stonehenge ") , 
 
 40. Avebury, restoration (Murray's Handbook for Wiltshire) 
 
 41. Avebury, Plan of District (do.) 
 
 42. Menhir, the Kingstone (" Folk-Lore ") 
 
 43. Round Barrows (after a plate in Barclay's " Stonehenge " 
 
 44. Plan of Silchester ....... 
 
 45. Remains of Wall of Uriconium 
 
 46. A Roman Tombstone 
 
 47. The Roman Gateway at Lincoln .... 
 
 48. Plan of Forum and Basilica at Silchester (after the plan in 
 
 Anhaologia) .... 
 
 49. Roman Pottery (Durobrivian) . 
 
 50. Roman Pottery from Upchurch 
 
 51. Samian Pottery (Nos. 46, 47, 49, 50 and 51, after figures 
 
 in Wright's "Celt, Roman, and Saxon ") 
 
 52. An Oculist's Stamp (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 53. The Roman Bath at Bath .... 
 
 54. A Tablet from the neighbourhood of the Roman Wall 
 
 (Scot. Ant. Catalogue) 
 
 55. Roman Hypocaust and Pavement (Wright) 
 
 56. Orpheus from a Tesselated Pavement
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS xv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 57. A Lion from the same (after illustrations in the Archaeolo- 
 
 gical Journal) 159 
 
 58. Plan of Chedworth Villa 161 
 
 59. Interior of a Roman Tomb (Wright) 165 
 
 60. Plan of a Buhr (after a figure in Clarke, " Mediaeval 
 
 Military Architecture ") 175 
 
 61. Rectangular Norman Keep 177 
 
 62. Norman Shell-keep 177 
 
 6^. Anglo-Saxon Interment (after a figure in the Thesaurus 
 
 Craniorum) 179 
 
 64. Anglo-Saxon Fibulae (Wright) 182 
 
 65. Anglo-Saxon Tumblers (Wright) 183 
 
 66. Anglo-Saxon Manuscript (after a figure in Westwood's 
 
 "Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts") 185 
 
 67. Bradford-on-Avon Churfch (after an illustration in the 
 
 Archaological Journal) jS6
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 Introduction— Relics of past races in tale, custom, and 
 law — Man and the Glacial Period — Paleolithic and Neo- 
 lithic races — The Celts and the Bronze Age — The Roman 
 occupation — The Saxon invasion — Struggle between the 
 Britons and the Saxons— The Fall of Britain — The Danes. 
 
 England is full of the traces of her successive occupants, 
 material relics of earth and stone, and less tangible^ but not 
 less real, relics of custom and tradition. As an American 
 writer has remarked, the country is in fact one vast museum, 
 on whose shelves lie objects illustrative of the history and 
 genius of the races, out of which has been built up that 
 complex entity, the Englishman of to-day. 
 
 It is also true that just as those shelves of a museum which 
 relate to the remotest periods are those in which the least 
 interest is shown by the casual visitor and which are least in- 
 spected by him, so those objects in this country which date 
 l)ack to the earliest periods are, with a few obvious excep- 
 tions such as Stonehenge, far less popular than the erections 
 of a later period. Perhaps this is scarcely to be greatly 
 wondered at ; the stately cathedral or the ruined abbey, the 
 historic castle or the royal palace, are certainly more striking 
 objects and far more calculated to appeal to the imagination 
 
 A
 
 i LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 than the obscure earthwork, overgrown with trees and nettles, 
 or the ring of weathered and half-buried stones lying far away 
 from the homes of man on some hillside. Yet these relics 
 of early races possess at least one element of interest in 
 greater measure than their later rivals, that of mystery — 
 mystery as to their builders, mystery as to their object, per- 
 haps in some instances, most of all as to the manner of their 
 erection. In the pages of this book it is intended to present 
 briefly an account of the races which successively occupied 
 this island in prehistoric and eohistoric times, and to point 
 out the remains which still exist as evidences of their labours, 
 so that the traveller when he meets with a tumulus, a dolmen, 
 or a camp, may be able to form an idea, limited though it 
 may be by the present imperfect state of our knowledge, as 
 to the period, builders and significance of each. Topics 
 related to objects of this kind belong to the domain of 
 Archaeology proper, and in dealing with them our greatest 
 difficulty will be to make a selection from the crowd of in- 
 teresting objects which present themselves for description. 
 
 Further, it has already been mentioned that besides the 
 tangible and visible remains just alluded to, there are many 
 other relics in tale, in custom, and even in law, which when 
 properly examined turn out to be as much the property of 
 bygone inhabitants of this country as the tombs and 
 temples which they erected. In many cases, indeed, such 
 tales are actually connected with the cromlechs and other 
 remains of these prehistoric races, visible and legendary relics 
 thus being closely linked one with the other. Viewed from 
 this standpoint, the child's game and the legal custom assume 
 a remarkable and at first unsuspected interest, and carry us 
 back to an age when they possessed a significance, perhaps 
 religious, perhaps ceremonial, long since forgotten and 
 traceable, if traceable at all, only with great difficulty. Let 
 us take as an example of a legal method the manners in 
 which, under ancient tenures, property is still distributed in
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 3 
 
 cases of intestacy. It may go to the eldest son by the method 
 of primogeniture, a plan which is quite easily explicable. 
 Or it may be distributed amongst all the sons, or in default 
 of them, amongst all the daughters, by the method of gavel- 
 kind, an arrangement which can also be readily accounted 
 for. But in certain places, both in England and on the 
 Continent, the property descends to the youngest son, a 
 method which is called Junior-right or, in this country, 
 Borough English. How is this curious system to be 
 accounted for? Is it because the youngest was presumably 
 the least able to take care of himself, or because it was sup- 
 posed that by the time of their parent's demise all the other 
 sons had already received their portions ? It is very hard to 
 say. Possibly Mr. Elton is right when he surmises that the 
 custom may have been derived from some domestic religion, 
 based on a worship of ancestors and a consequent reverence 
 for the hearth-place, but belonging to a people who saw no 
 natural pre-eminence in the eldest. Possibly Mr. Gomme's 
 view is correct, and it is due to peculiarities in the Germanic 
 settlement of England, which sent the elder born out to 
 found new homesteads and naturally reserved the father's 
 homes' ead for the younger son {Archceologia, "On Archaic 
 Conceptions of Property," vol. i. 1887). In any case there 
 can be no doubt that a custom which at length has passed 
 into law, originated at a i)eriod of our history so remote as 
 to be beyond the range of written records. 
 
 Again it seems clear that many of the most poi)ular 
 children's games were originally serious and even solemn 
 ceremonies, which have undergone a gradual process of 
 degradation from their first state, through that of half-joke, 
 half-earnest to their present lowly position. For instance, 
 that well-known terror of the Bank Holiday, " Kiss in tht; 
 Ring," seems to be a relic of the early form of marriage by 
 choice or selection. One of its variants, for there are 
 several ways in which it is played, presents this peculiar
 
 4 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 feature, that the head of the girl standing in the centre of 
 the ring is covered with a shawl, and a portion of the game 
 turns upon her recognition by another player. This in- 
 dicates, thinks Mrs. Gomme, that "in this game we have 
 preserved one of the ceremonies of a now obsolete marriage- 
 custom — namely, the disguising of the bride and placing 
 her among her bridesmaids and other young girls, all having 
 veils or other coverings alike over their heads and bodies. 
 The bridegroom has to select from among these maidens the 
 girl whom he wished to marry, or whom he had already 
 married, for until this was done he was not allowed to 
 depart with his bride. This custom was continued in sport 
 as one of the ceremonies to be gone through after the 
 marriage was over, long after the custom itself was discon- 
 tinued. This ordeal occurs in more than one folk-tale, and 
 it usually accompanies the incident of a youth having 
 travelled for adventures, sometimes in quest of a bride. He 
 succeeds in finding the whereabouts of the coveted girl, but 
 before he is allowed by the father to take his bride away he 
 is required to perform tasks, a final one being the choosing 
 of the girl with whom he is in love from among others, all 
 dressed alike and disguised. Our bridal veil may probably 
 orifrinate in this custom." A further instance of the com- 
 plete alteration of character which befalls a custom as it 
 passes through the various stages of its downward evoluiion, 
 may be studied in the well-known child's song, " Green 
 Gravel," which, little as the children or their mothers suspect 
 it, is, according to the authority just cited, evidently a 
 funeral game. The green gravel and green grass indicate 
 the locality of the scene ; " green " as applied to the gravel 
 meaning probably, freshly disturbed, just as a green grave 
 means a freshly-made grave. The tenant of the newly-made 
 grave is the well-loved lady of a disconsolate lover, and 
 probably the incidents of washing and dressing the corpse, 
 putting an inscription on the place where it is laid, and
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 5 
 
 singing the dirge are indicated in some of the numerous 
 variants of this popular game. Facts such as those which 
 have been just cited belong to the realm of folk-lore, the 
 youngest and perhaps not the least fruitful member of the 
 Archaeological family. The callow youth of this branch was 
 not unmarked by the excesses which have characterised the 
 intellectual minority of other subjects, but now that it has 
 attained years of discretion, all are beginning to recognise 
 how much valuable information it is capable of affording, 
 when properly used, as to the early customs and ideas of 
 this and other countries. 
 
 There is one other relic which some, indeed most of 
 these early races have left, a relic the most important, the 
 most durable, and by far the most elusive, and that is their 
 blood, which circulates in varying combinations in the 
 different menibers of that highly complex race which now 
 peoples the British Islands. Some attempt will be made 
 to indicate the lines upon which the problem of English 
 ethnology has been attacked and the results which have 
 been attained. But it must be admitted that we are here 
 treading upon more difficult and treacherous ground than is 
 the case with either of the other two lines of inquir)-, replete 
 with difficulties though they are. 
 
 For the sake of obtaining a clear idea of the different 
 races whose remains are to form the subject of tliis book, 
 and particularly with the view of securing an accurate 
 knowledge of their order and relation to one another, it 
 will be well to consider them from a historical standpoint 
 before dealing with them upon the lines which have been 
 just indicated. 
 
 It is by no means certain at what period man first took 
 possession of this land, and much discussion has raged 
 around the question as to whether there were human 
 occupants of this country in the pre glacial period or not. 
 Tliis is not llie place in which to deal exhaustively with the
 
 6 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 subject of the Glacial period ; it must, therefore, suffice 
 to say that during the Pleistocene era the northern and 
 north-western parts of Europe as far south as the 50th 
 parallel of north latitude, were covered with a huge sheet of 
 ice, from the edges of which great rivers flowed, just as 
 rivers do now from the glaciers of Switzerland. This epoch 
 was not one of continuous intensity, but was interrupted by 
 periods of lesser cold, during which the ice-sheet receded 
 and the mountain glaciers intruded less upon the plains. 
 The relics of this age are found scattered over these islands 
 in the shape of huge heaps of stone or moraines, boulders 
 and erratic blocks and beds of clay, for the origin and sig- 
 nificance of which the reader must consult some geological 
 text-book. In certain places, and notably in some caves, 
 implements of stone of a deep yellow colour have been 
 found, which, though exceedingly rude in manufacture, have 
 yet undoubtedly been shaped by the labour of man's hands. 
 There can be no doubt that whether pre- or post-glacial, 
 these implements must be looked upon as some of the 
 earliest objects made by mankind in this country which 
 have as yet been discovered. They have been found over- 
 laid by what some authorities consider to be glacial drift, 
 from which it has been urged that they are pre glacial in age 
 and point to the existence of human beings in this country 
 at that extremely remote period. Others have, however, 
 taken a different view of the matter, which is one to be de- 
 cided, firstly, by the determination of the exact date of the 
 superjacent deposit, which is a question for geologists; and, 
 secondly, by the resolution of the doubt as to whether 
 implements and deposit occupy their original relation 
 to one another, for it must be remembered that the 
 discovery of the tools under the clay is not an absolute 
 proof that the former were fabricated before the latter 
 was deposited. It is, perhaps, not unfair to say that the 
 general tendency of scientific opinion at the present day
 
 INTRODLXTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 7 
 
 is to deny the existence of human beings in the i)re-glacial 
 epoch. 
 
 It may be well thus early in the consideration of the sub- 
 ject to direct the reader's attention to the invaluable inform- 
 ation which is afforded to us by the implements, whether of 
 stone or of other material, which have been left behind by 
 extinct races. As will be seen more fully in later chapters, 
 it is on such materials that we have to rely very largely for 
 our information as to the habits and state of civilisation of 
 the people of each period; indeed it may be said that 
 they supply the only information which we possess about 
 some of them. The recognition of the purposes of such 
 implements does not depend upon guess-work, but upon the 
 fact that savage races are very much the same, with the 
 necessary allowances for differences in climate and surround- 
 ings, all the world over. Thus the implements which are 
 prehistoric with us, are in actual use, or were so until a 
 quite recent period, a nongst less civilised races. By a com- 
 parative study of implements from various parts of the 
 world we are able to form not merely accurate ideas of the 
 uses of those which we discover amongst the relics of the 
 bygone peoples of our own islands, but can take a further 
 step, and in some instances, form conclusions, though it 
 mu&t be admitted with less certainty, as to the customs, 
 habits, and even the religious ideas of their makfcrs. 
 
 After the Glacial age had passed away, but at a time when 
 the British Isles were still connected with the continent of 
 Europe by dry land, the first undoubted immigrants made 
 their appearance in the shape of the so-called Palaeolithic 
 race, a race known almost exclusively by the weapons which 
 they manufactured. Some of these implements have been 
 discovered amongst river-drifts, and these have been assigned 
 to an earlier period than other and similar remains which 
 have mostly been found in caves. Thus the PalDeolithic 
 race is divided into the men of the river-drift and the cave-
 
 8 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 men. The remains of the former are found only as far 
 north as a hne drawn from Bristol to the Wash, whilst those 
 of the latter have a more extensive area, being met with in 
 the northern parts of Yorkshire. 
 
 It is quite impossible to say at what period of time these 
 wanderers first reached this country, for though many 
 elaborate researches have been made in the hope of assign- 
 ing a definite date for the advent of man in England, the 
 question remains as doubtful as ever, and the most widely 
 varying dates are still assigned by different authorities. 
 
 It is as dithcult to say what was the fate of this race, for it 
 seems impossible to decide whether it became extinct before 
 the arrival of its successors, or whether it became fused with 
 them. Some authorities consider that there is no evidence 
 of the existence of the direct descendants of Paireolithic man 
 among the osteological remains of the Neolithic period or 
 of a later date in Britain, and that he seems to have become 
 as extinct as many of the animals which were contemporary 
 with him. This, however, may not be the case with respect 
 to other parts of Europe, whilst Professor Boyd Dawkins 
 and some American anthropologists believe that Palaeolithic 
 man still has representatives on the American continent. 
 During or after his occupation of the land, these islands 
 became detached from the continent of Europe, and geo- 
 graphical conditions substantially the same as those which 
 now exist became established. Thus the succeeding bands 
 of immigrants which poured in successive waves over the 
 country must have made their way to these shores in 
 boats. 
 
 The first of these races is called Neolithic from the 
 nature of their implements, and their prior occupation 
 of various parts of the Continent has been established by the 
 discovery of their characteristic weapons and instruments in 
 diverse localities. The extent of this country colonised by 
 the Neolithic race was much greater tiian that occupied by
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 9 
 
 their predecessors, for their remains have been found as far 
 north as the Orkneys, and it is most probable that they 
 reached Ireland, though it appears doubtful whether they 
 did so until a later period. The men of this race are variously 
 spoken of as Iberians, Ivernians or Euskarians, and they are 
 believed to have been closely related ethnologically with the 
 Basques of Spain and France, whose remarkable language 
 may be the lineal descendant of the otherwise wholly, 
 or almost wholly, lost tongue of the Neolithic inhabitants of 
 Britain. This race certainly did not entirely disappear 
 either before or at the advent of the next wave of immigra- 
 tion, for we possess abundant evidence to show that the 
 latter partly assimilated and partly drove further westward 
 the occupants of the country whom they found in possession 
 on their arrival. 
 
 This, the third race of inhabitants, was that of the Celts, 
 and there is this important distinction between them and 
 their predecessors, that whilst the Celts belonged to the 
 Aryan family, their predecessors were of non- Aryan stock. 
 
 Without entering into the controversies as to the place of 
 origin of the Aryan race, or the exact relation between Aryan 
 races and races with an Aryan speech, it will be sufficient 
 here to say that there are in Europe seven Aryan languages 
 — viz., Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic, Slav, Lettic and 
 Albanian, and that there are three in Asia — viz.. Indie (in- 
 cluding Sanskrit), Iranic (including Persian), and Armenian. 
 The race with which we are now dealing spoke a Celtic 
 tongue, and was the first to introduce the knowledge of 
 metals to this country, for though they were still ignorant of 
 the use of iron they knew how to manufacture articles 
 in bronze, for which reason the earlier part of their 
 occupancy of the land is known as the Bronze age. The 
 Celts appear to have descended upon this country in two 
 separate invasions, separated from one another by a con- 
 siderable period of time. The earlier of these invasions is
 
 10 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 known as the Goidelic or Gadhelic, and the people who 
 took part in it are known as Goidels or Gaels. They are in 
 point of speech the ancestors of the Gaelic speaking people 
 of Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland and the Isle of Man, 
 and their tongue existed in Wales and Devon as late as the 
 sixth century or probably even later. They appear to have 
 largely amalgamated with tlie Neolithic inhabitants whom 
 they found in possession. 
 
 The second invasion is known as the Brythonic, and those 
 who were concerned in it as Brythons or Britons ; indeed it 
 was from them that this country acquired the name of Britain.* 
 Their speech still lives in that of the people of Wales and 
 of Brittany ; until last century it also existed as the ancient 
 Cornish language, now extinct as a living tongue ; it was at 
 a still earlier date that the Brythonic speech of Cumbria died 
 out of use. The Brythons appear to have driven the com- 
 bined Goidelic and Neolithic peoples to the western side of 
 the island, so that at the time of the Roman invasion, the 
 latter were to be found south-west of the Mendip Hills and 
 the River Stour, in the regions north and south of the 
 Solway Firth and in Wales. In the last mentioned district, 
 they were to be found in the northern part, ta the west of a 
 line drawn from Chester to the mouth of the River Mawd- 
 dacli, and in the south, vv'est of the Severn and south of the 
 Teme. They also occupied Ireland and the Isle of Man. 
 The northern parts of Scotland were occupied by Ivernians 
 and Picts, hut the remainder, save for the part above 
 mentioned near the Solway Firth, was peopled, like the 
 greater part of England, by Brythons. 
 
 The Romans, under Julius Cajsar, had made a descent 
 upon the island in the year 55 B.C., but it was more than 
 one hundred years later, in the year 45 a.d., that Claudius 
 really undertook the reduction of the country. It is no 
 
 * Prof. Rhj's's \ie\v is that the name of the Brittones got mixed 
 up with Prittania, a Brythonic form of the Goidelic Cruithneach.
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH ii 
 
 part of the purpose of this work to deal with the incidents 
 of the campaigns by Avhich Britain became a part of the 
 Roman Empire. It is, however, important to note how 
 essentially military in its character was the occupation of 
 the country. Earthworks, great fortified cities, magnificent 
 military roads, provided with change-houses and stations, 
 not to speak of that remarkable triumph of military 
 engineering, the Roman wall, sufficiently prove the truth 
 of this statement. At the same time, the number and 
 magnificence of the villas built for the occupation of Roman 
 officials show that the settlement was regarded as permanent 
 in its nature, and that the builders of these mansions con- 
 sidered themselves firmly rooted in the soil of their adopted 
 country. It is also important to remember that the Roman 
 occupation was not accompanied by the extermination of 
 the races which they found in occupation of the land on 
 their arrival. Battles, it is true, there were between the 
 Celts and the invaders, but the policy of the Romans, here 
 as .in other parts of their empire, obviously was, as far as pos- 
 sible, to permit the natives to continue in occupation of their 
 lands and properties, and in the practice of their own 
 customs, whilst subject to and taxed by their foreign 
 masters. The comparison has been justly made between 
 the Roman occupation of Britain and our own occupation 
 of India, for in both cases the intention of the conquering 
 race has been, whilst firmly holding the dominions of which 
 they had become possessed, to interfere as little as possible 
 with the natives so long as they were content to submit 
 quietly to the demands of their conquerors. Thus there 
 was no such displacement of population during this period 
 as had occurred previously or as took place during the next 
 epoch. 
 
 Early in the fifth century the Roman legions, whose 
 presence was required nearer home, were finally withdrawn 
 from England, and the Romanised Britons wc:re left to
 
 12 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 defend their own shores as best they might, a task for which 
 they were probably not too well fitted by centuries of de 
 pendence on alien troops. They were not long left in quiet 
 possession of their country. It is probable that Britain had 
 already been threatened by invaders from the north, for 
 amongst the great Roman officials we find one whose title 
 was Comes littoris Saxonici per Brittannias, and whose 
 jurisdiction extended along the eastern coast from the Wash 
 to Southampton Water. To this official, who may be re- 
 garded as the ancestor of the Warden of the Cinque Ports 
 of our own times, was entrusted the organisation of the 
 district most exposed to the attacks of the Saxon pirates. 
 It was at three points on this shore that the land was invaded 
 by the northern warriors. 
 
 First, the Jutes under chieftains to whom tradition has 
 assigned the names of Hengist and Horsa, descended upon 
 the shores of Kent in 449. They were followed, in 477, by 
 the Saxons who, under Aelle, invaded the south coast near 
 Chichester. It was not until nearly a hundred years later 
 that the third band, to whom this country was to owe its 
 later name of England, the Angles, descended under the 
 leadership of Ida upon the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk in 
 the middle of the sixth century.* There was an important 
 difference between this invasion and the two which preceded 
 it. In the former cases it was only a detachment which had 
 come over, but in the case of the Angles it was the entire 
 
 * The dates and facts in the preceding paragraphs are those given 
 by Green and other historians of a similar period. It is right, 
 however, to say that Thurneysen, the latest investigator, considers 
 that the main Germanic invasion took place in the early part of the 
 fifth century. Moreover, it is true tliat we only hear of Ida in the 
 middle of the sixth century, but tliat does not prove that he was 
 the first invader of East Anglia. On the contrary, there is reason 
 to believe that the Germans established themselves earlier in the 
 North of England than in the South, in which case the attack on 
 East Anglia would be a movement from Northumbria, rather than 
 from the Continent.
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 13 
 
 population of the district, in the neighbourhood of what is 
 now Magdeburg, still known as Angeln or the Engleland, 
 which removed en masse to England, leaving its former 
 territory absolutely denuded of inhabitants. 
 
 The operations of these successive bands of invaders 
 were very different from those of the Romans. Their object 
 was not merely to occupy the country but to colonise it, and 
 to accomplish this, they proceeded as far as possible to 
 exterminate the Celtic tribes, who, after a long and stub- 
 born resistance, were forced to retreat before their invaders. 
 Something of what occurred we learn from the writings of 
 the historian of the Celts, Gildas, himself a scion of that 
 race, who wrote some sixty or more years after the first 
 Germanic invasion. " The red tongue of flame licked up 
 the whole land from end to end," he says, in his somewhat 
 high-flown language, " till it slaked its thirst in the western 
 ocean." And again of the inhabitants he says : " Some, con- 
 strained by famine, came and yielded themselves up to their 
 enemies as slaves for ever, while others, committing the 
 safety of their lives to mountains, crags, thick forests, and 
 rocky isles, though with trembling hearts, remained in their 
 fatherland." The Venerable Bede, if, indeed, he is not 
 simply repeating Gildas, speaks in much the same terms : 
 "Some were slaughtered; some gave themselves up to 
 undergo slavery ; some retreated beyond the sea ; and some 
 remaining in their own land lived a miserable life in the 
 mountains and forests." But apart from this written evidence, 
 we gain some idea of the straits to which the Celtic fugitives 
 were reduced from the traces of their occupation which have 
 been found in some of the caves to which they were driven 
 for shelter. Amongst these, one of the most celebrated is 
 that of the King's Scaur, near Settle, in Yorkshire, from the 
 evidence collected in which Ijy Professor Boyd Dawkins, 
 Mr. Cireen has drawn the vivid picture which follows. "In 
 primaeval ages," he says, " it had been the haunt of hya.:nas
 
 14 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 who dragged thidier the mammoths, the reindeer, the bisons, 
 and the bears that prowled in the neighbouring glens. At 
 a later period it became a home of savages, whose stone 
 adzes and flint knives and bone harpoons are still embedded 
 in its floor. But these, too, vanished in their turn, and this 
 haunt of primitive men lay lonely and undisturbed until the 
 sword of the English invaders drove the Roman provincials 
 for shelter to the moors. The hurry of their flight may be 
 gathered from the relics their cave-life has left behind it. 
 There was clearly little time to do more than drive off the 
 cattle, the swine, the goats, whose bones lie scattered round 
 the hearth-fire at the mouth of the cave, where they served 
 the wretched fugitives for food. The women must have 
 hastily buckled their brooches of parti-coloured enamel, the 
 peculiar workmanship of Celtic Britain, and snatched up a 
 few household implements as they hurried away. The men, 
 no doubt, girded on as hastily the swords, whose dainty 
 hilts of ivory and bronze still remain to tell the tale of their 
 doom, and hiding in their breasts what money the house 
 contained from coins of Trajan to the wretched minims that 
 showed the Empire's decay, mounted their horses to protect 
 their flight. At nightfall all were crouching beneath the 
 dripping roof of the cave or around the fire which was 
 blazing at its mouth, and a long suffering began in which 
 the fugitives lost year by year the memory of the civilisation 
 from which they came. A few charred bones show how 
 hunger drove them to slay their horses for food ; reddened 
 pebbles mark the hour when the new vessels they wrought 
 were too weak to stand the fire, and their meal was cooked 
 by dropping heated stones into the pot. A time seems to 
 have come when their very spindles were exhausted, and 
 the women who wove in that dark retreat made spindle 
 whorls as they could from the bones that lay about them." 
 
 The cities which had been erected in considerable numbers 
 by the Romans were sacked, burnt, and then left as ruins
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 15 
 
 by the Anglo-Saxons, who appear to have been afraid or at 
 least unwilling to use them as places of habitation. An 
 instance of this may be found in the case of Camboritum, 
 the important Roman city which corresponded to our modern 
 Cambridge, which w^as sacked by the invaders and left a ruin 
 at least until the time of the Venerable Bede (673-735), 
 who relates that the nuns of Ely, requiring a coffin for the 
 remains of their foundress St. Aethelthryth, searched amongst 
 its ruins and found there a marble sarcophagus which they 
 used for the interment of the Saint. In later days these 
 ruined walls and buildings still unoccupied w'ere used as 
 stone quarries, from which were obtained the materials for 
 the construction of churches and abbeys, as in the case of 
 Uriconium, the carved stones of which may be traced not 
 only in the construction of Wroxeter Church itself, but also 
 in that of Atcham, some little distance off, and in other 
 edifices in the district.* It was the same with the villas of 
 the Roman provincials, which, magnificent and even luxu- 
 rious as they often were, fell into a state of ruin, and in that 
 condition afforded perforce at times, an accommodation so 
 inadequate and uncomfortable to belated travellers as to 
 gain for them the name of Cold Harbours, a title met with 
 in a number of places throughout the country where such 
 buildings formerly existed. 
 
 In the struggles which took place between invaders and 
 invaded the former were not.always victorious. Thus at the 
 battle of Mons Badonicus, which may have been Badbury 
 Rings in Dorsetshire, a band of West Saxons, who were 
 probably making their way towards the city which occupied 
 the site of the present Dorchester, was vanquished by the. 
 Brythonic forces. This battle is traditionally associated 
 
 • " Caistor was a city when Norwich was none, 
 And Norwich was built with Caistor stone." 
 This Norfolk rhyme alludes to the custom above mentioned, Caistor 
 having been the Roman city of Venta Iccnorum.
 
 i6 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 with the name of the national Brythonic hero, King Arthur, 
 various places in the south of England having been iden- 
 tified with the sites of conflicts, in which he was concerned, 
 by Dr. Guest. Too much reliance cannot, however, be 
 placed upon this identification, since Mr. Skene has asso- 
 ciated the same events with places in the south of Scotland. 
 Again, at the battle of Fethanleah, now probably Faddiley 
 in Cheshire, in 563, Ceawlin, King of the West Saxons, 
 fresh from the destruction of Bassa's churches, now Bas- 
 church in Shropshire, was vanquished by the Britons under 
 Brocmael, Prince of Powys, a victory which for fifteen years 
 checked the progress of the army of ^^^essex. 
 
 But gradually the Britons were driven towards the western 
 side of the island, until that portion of it, to which the name 
 of Britain could be legitimately applied, was confined to a 
 continuous strip, consisting in its northern part, of the district 
 of Strathclyde, which extended, roughly speaking, from 
 Loch Long in Scotland to the River Dee ; in its central 
 part, of the present Principality, under the name of North 
 Wales ; and in its southern, of \Ve<,t Wales, which included 
 the present counties of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. 
 
 This continuous strip was cleft into three parts by two 
 decisive battles. The first of these took place at Deorham, 
 near Bath, in 577, when Ceawlin, King of the West Saxons, 
 conquered the Britons under their three kings, Conmael, 
 Kyndylan and Farinmael, and permanently separated North 
 from West Wales. The second battle took place at Chester, 
 in 607, when Aethelfrith, King of the Northumbrians, 
 conquered Brocmael, Prince of Powys, divided Wales from 
 Strathclyde, and finally put an end to the kingdom of 
 Britain. 
 
 It now only remains to see what became of the three dis- 
 membered fragments. The most northerly portion, Strath- 
 clyde, was in alliance with the little kingdom of Dalriada, 
 founded bv emigrants from Ireland, with which is associated
 
 INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL SKETCH 17 
 
 the fame of St. Columba of Zona. In 603, Aedhan, King of 
 Dalriada, was conquered by Aethelfrith, King of the 
 Northumbrians, at Daegstone, now Dawstone, after which 
 event the British inhabitants of Strathclyde became tributary 
 to their conquerors. West Wales, or Dyvnaint, extended 
 from the ()uantock Hills to the Land's End, and the first 
 great inroad into it was made by Lie, who, in 710, conquered 
 Geraint, the British king, pushed his army as far as the 
 River Tone and there founded the city which we now know 
 as Taunton. It was not, however, until 815 that Ecgberht, 
 King of the West Saxons, made the conquest of Cornwall. 
 It remains now only to speak of the district with which we 
 now associate the name of Wales, and here it may be men- 
 tioned that the name of Welsh was given to the Brythons 
 by the Anglo-Saxons, and was derived by them from their 
 word tvea/has, meaning strangers or unintelligible people, a 
 term met with in other parts than Wales, such as at Walling- 
 ford, in Berks, " the ford of the strangers." North Wales, 
 or Wales as we know it, had a more enlarged boundary 
 than it now possesses until 799, when Offa, King of Mercia, 
 pushed his way over the Severn, till then in its upper part 
 the British boundary, drove the Prince of Powys from his 
 town of Pengwyrn, and founded there the town in the scrub, 
 Scrobbesbyrig, our present Shrewsbury. After this victory 
 he constructed, according to a long-standing tradition, the 
 dyke which bears his name. It is, however, possible, that 
 it may be a work of much earlier date, which he utilised as 
 a boundary line. 
 
 Offa's dyke, of which extensive remains still e.xist, stretched 
 from the mouth of the Dee to that of the Wye, including 
 some portions of land now belonging to England, and 
 stringent rules were laid down to prevent the Welsh from 
 entering the English side of that boundary. 
 
 It is important from an ethnological point of view to 
 remember that whilst Britons and Saxons were at war with 
 
 it
 
 i8 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 one another in some parts of the land, in others they were 
 on sufficiently good terms to act as allies against a common 
 foe. Thus in 591, at the battle of Wanborough, on the 
 edse of the Wiltshire downs above the Vale of White 
 Horse, the Hwiccas under Ceolric joined with the Britons 
 to conquer Ceawlin, King of the West Saxons. This 
 is the first instance of an amalgamation which doubtless 
 became more common as the intensity of the struggle be- 
 tween the invaders and the invaded decreased and the 
 conflicts between different groups of the former became 
 more common. 
 
 In 866 the Danes first descended upon East Anglia, and 
 upon the history of their connection with this country it will 
 not be necessary to dwell. For the purposes of future ethno- 
 logical observations it is only necessary to remind the 
 reader that, after the battle in which Alfred vanquished the 
 Danes at Ethandun, now Edington, near Westbury in Wilt- 
 shire, the country was divided between the two races, the 
 Danes dominating that part of it which lies north of a line 
 from the Thames to the mouth of the River Lea, and thence 
 by Bedford and the River Ouse to the Watling Street, which, 
 further west, formed the line of demarcation. Thus the 
 Danes ruled over the north-east division of the island, whilst 
 the English had London and the south-west.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PALEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 Wild animals of the Period — Flint implements — Method 
 of their manufacture— Relics of the River-Drift man — The 
 Cave-dweller — Kent's Hole— Early Art— Physical Charac- 
 teristics of the Cave-man — His Social Life. 
 
 The classification of the early races to whom the use of 
 metal was unknown, and whose implements were, therefore, 
 mainly manufactured from stone, depends largely upon the 
 character and finish of the weapons and tools which they 
 left behind. Those which are assigned to the earlier age are 
 much rougher and less finished than those of the later, so 
 that we may regard the former, or Palaeolithic period, as 
 that in which stones were roughly chipped to the shape 
 most applicable to the purpose for which they were intended, 
 and the latter, or Neolithic, as that in which the stones were 
 sometimes chipped alone but chipped with greater skill and 
 minuteness, sometimes ground down and polished so as to 
 be not merely more sightly, but also more effective weapons. 
 It is with the former age that we have now to deal, and 
 the reader will remember that it has been subdivided into 
 two periods, that of the river-drift and that of the cave- 
 dwellers. At th time when England was in the possession 
 of Pakneolithic man not merely was its physical geography 
 very different from that of the present day, but the animals 
 which inhabited it were more varied in kind and far more 
 dangerous in character. Amongst the fauna of that period,
 
 20 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 were the hippopotamus, two kinds of elephant, and a Hke 
 number of species of rhinoceros, a cave hear and a cave 
 lion, the hyaena, bison, wild horse and reindeer. Palaeo- 
 lithic man was thus provided with an abundance of animals 
 to chase and to be chased by. It must be admitted that our 
 predecessors of this period were but poorly provided for 
 the pursuit of game of such size and ferocity. Their 
 clothing, if indeed they did not for a large part of the year 
 go naked, must have consist(;d solely of the dried skins of 
 such animals as they were able to kill, and their weapons 
 were confined to pointed stakes of wood and rude axes 
 chieHy constructed of flint. The first implement of this 
 kind which was ever recognised as being something more 
 than a natural product, was discovered near Gray's Inn, 
 London, about the year 1690, together with the remains of 
 an elephant, with which it found a place in the Museum of 
 Sir HansSloane, where it was described as " A British weapon 
 found, with elephant's tooth, opposite to Black Mary's, near 
 Grayes Inn Lane," but where its real antiquity was of course 
 unsuspected. When the collection in question developed 
 into the British Museum the specimen went with it, and 
 there, too, it lay misunderstood, until one hundred and fifty 
 years after its original discovery. It was then shown that it 
 exactly corresponded with the specimens which had been 
 discovered in the river gravels of Amiens and Abbeville. 
 
 Such specimens having, after a long controversy and 
 years of suspended opinion, been admitted to be the work 
 of human hands, the true nature of the Gray's Inn flint was 
 no longer a matter for doubt. This famous piece of flint 
 is roughly triangular in shape, about six inches in length 
 and four wide at its base, and has been fashioned by the 
 process of chipping fragments off the original block until it 
 assumed the shape which it now possesses. This and other 
 implements of a similar kind belonging to this period 
 do not appear to have been ever attached to any handle,
 
 Fig. I.— River-drift Stone Implement fmiml ;it Reculver. (Sir John 
 Evans.) It is macle from a Hint pcbljlo, ;uul the rounded end 
 is well adapted for being held in the hand.
 
 22 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 but were held by the bhinter end. They must have been 
 formidable weapons in a hand-to-hand contest, and may 
 possibly also have been used as missiles at a short range. 
 Other and smaller pieces of flint have been found of an 
 oval figure and worked so as to possess a cutting edge all 
 round, others fashioned into what may have been scrapers 
 for the preparation of skins, and again, others worked to a 
 sharp point so as to be capable of serving as awls. Special 
 manufactories appear to have existed for these stone tools 
 in places capable of affording a supply of the necessary 
 materials. Here have been found the tools which were 
 used in the fashioning of the implements ; these consist of 
 large blocks of flint which probably served the purpose 
 of anvils, and other pieces of the same stone designed for 
 shaping the fragments out of which the weapons were con- 
 structed. The material employed was almost invariably 
 flint, and this because that kind of stone has a form of 
 fracture called conchoidal, which lends itself peculiarly to 
 the process of the formation of weapons by flaking and 
 chipping. Sir John Evans, after describing and comparing 
 the methods adopted in the construction of their implements 
 by races now or recently in the habit of making them 
 in stone, thinks that the flake-implements may well have 
 been made in a similar manner to that in which gun-flints 
 are prepared, a pebble having been employed instead of the 
 iron hammer of the modern flint-knapper. " At first sight," 
 he says, " it would appear that the production of flakes of 
 flint, without having a pointed metallic hammer for the 
 purpose, was a matter of great difficulty. I have, however, 
 made some experiments upon the subject, and have also 
 employed a Suffolk flint-knapper to do so, and I find that 
 blows from a rounded pebble, judiciously administered, are 
 capable of producing well-formed flakes, such as in shape 
 cannot be distinguished from those made with a metallic 
 hammer. The main difficulties consist first, in making the
 
 PALAEOLITHIC MAN 23 
 
 blow fall exactly in the proper place; and secondly, in 
 so proportioning its intensity that it shall simply dislodge a 
 flake without shattering it. The pebble employed as a 
 hammer need not be attached to a shaft, but can be used 
 without any preparatidn in the hand." 
 
 The flakes, being gradually detached from a given lump 
 of flint, must necessarily leave behind the central block, from 
 which they had been separated. Such blocks are formed in 
 the process of manufacturing gun-flints, and are called cores. 
 Analogous structures are met with amongst the remains of 
 the prehistoric manufactories. 
 
 The process of manufacture in the case of the stone axes 
 was somewhat similar, though here it was the central mass 
 from which flakes were detached which was the object of 
 the workman's attention and not the pieces which he re- 
 moved from it in the process of its manufacture. Sir John 
 Evans, dealing with the method of working this kind of 
 weapon, says: "The hatchets seem to have been rough 
 hewn by detaching a succession of flakes, chips, or splinters 
 from a block of flint by means of a hammer-stone, and these 
 rough-hewn implements were subsequently worked into a 
 more finished form by detaching smaller splinters, also 
 probably by means of a hammer, previously to their being 
 ground or polished, if they were destined to be finished in 
 such a manner. In most cases one face of the hatchet was 
 first roughed out, and then by a series of blows, given 
 at proper intervals along the margin of that face, the general 
 shape was given and the other face chipped out. This is 
 proved by the fact that in most of the roughly chipped 
 hatchets found in Britain the depressions of the bulbs 
 of percussion* of the flakes struck off occur in a perfect state 
 
 * The bulb of percussion is the name given to a bulb or projection, 
 of a more or less conical shape, at the end of the flake where the blow 
 was administered by which it was detached. There is, of course, a 
 corresponding hollow in the block from which it was dislodged.
 
 24 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 only on one face, having been partly removed on the other 
 face by the subsequent chipping. 
 
 " There are, however, exceptions to this rule, and more 
 especially among the implements found in our ancient 
 river-gravels. In some cases the cutting edge has been 
 formed by the intersection of two convex lines of fracture 
 giving a curved and sharp outline, and the body of the 
 hatchet has been subsequently made to suit the edge." 
 
 Amongst some savage races flaking is effected by pressure 
 and not by percussion, the required portion being detached 
 with the aid of an instrument of wood, bone or horn, which 
 is skilfully pressed against the block of stone with the result 
 that a thin flake or shaving flies off. Captain John Smith, 
 whose name is associated with that of Pocahontas, the 
 original Belle Sauvage, in speaking of the Indians of 
 Virginia, appears to allude to this method of forming stone- 
 flakes when he says : " His arrow-head he quickly maketh 
 with a little bone, which he ever weareth in his bracept, of 
 a splint of stone or glasse in the form of a heart, and these 
 they glew to the end of their arrows." 
 
 Amongst the various kinds of weapons and implements 
 belongitig to this period which have been discovered, one 
 form, met with in such quantities during the Neolithic 
 era, is wanting, and this is the arrow-head. From this we 
 learn the significant fact, that so low was Palaeolithic man 
 in the scale of culture as to be unacquainted with the use 
 of the bow. 
 
 He does not seem to have been quite devoid of personal 
 ornaments, for beads of a fossil shell, the orifices of which 
 have been artificially enlarged as if to admit a cord, have 
 been met with amongst his remains. In this, as in other 
 points, his state of civilisation corresponds with that of 
 many of the lower races of mankind, in most of which some 
 effort at personal adornment is met with. 
 
 The bodily remains of the man of the river-drift are
 
 PALAEOLITHIC MAN 25 
 
 extremely scanty. On the continent, where implements of 
 his manufacture have been discovered near Madrid in Spain, 
 in Italy, Greece and Germany, as well as in Northern Africa, 
 Palestine and India, some few portions of skeletons have 
 been found which may be assigned to this period. 
 
 At Eguisheim, near Colmar, Schaffhausen, a portion of a 
 cranium was found with remains of the mammoth and other 
 animals of a similar epoch. At Clichy, in the valley of the 
 Seine, a skull and some bones were discovered at a con- 
 siderable depth from the surface, in undisturbed strata, and 
 lying with bones of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse 
 and stag. The skulls which have been found are long and 
 narrow in shape, and have very prominent ridges over- 
 hanging their orbits. In the case of the limb bones of the 
 Clichy skeleton, those of the thigh are characterised by 
 possessing a remarkably strong ridge running down the 
 posterior aspect, whilst the tibia or shin-bone is platycnemic, 
 or flattened. "The few fragments which remain to us," says 
 Professor Boyd Dawkins, "prove that at this remote period 
 man was present in Europe as man, and not as an inter- 
 mediate form connecting the human race with the lower 
 animals." 
 
 The relics of the cave-man have been much more exten- 
 sively met with than those of his predecessor, many caverns 
 in Yorkshire, Somersetshire and elsewhere having, on care- 
 ful exploration, yielded valuable results. One of the best 
 known of these is the cavern of Kent's Hole, which has been 
 so carefully explored by Mr. Pengelly. This cavern was re- 
 discovered in 1825, by the Rev. J. McEnery, who found 
 that it had been entered by one "Robert Hedges of 
 Ireland," who had inscribed his name with the date, 
 February 20, 1688, on a boss of stalagmite. These words, 
 when found, were, as they are now, "glazed over and 
 partly effaced " by the gradual deposition of carbonate 
 of lime. It has been attempted to use the thickness of the
 
 26 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 film of stalagmite which has accumulated since the inscrip- 
 tion was made as a measure of the period of time which has 
 elapsed since the earlier human relics were deposited in the 
 cave. Such a method, however, like all others with a 
 similar purpose put forward up to the present, is open 
 to fallacies of various kinds and cannot be relied upon. 
 
 Careful digging has revealed a series of deposits over- 
 lying one another like strata; these are as follows, com- 
 mencing with that nearest to the surface and working 
 downwards. 
 
 (i) Masses of limestone of various sizes up to pieces 
 weighing one hundred tons. These have fallen from 
 the roof and are more or less united to one another 
 by the deposition of carbonate of lime. 
 
 (2) The Black Mould, a layer from three inches to a foot 
 
 in thickness, of decayed vegetable matter of a dark 
 colour. 
 
 (3) A layer of stalagmite of a granular character, which 
 
 varies i-n thickness, being in some places as much 
 as five feet, but in others no more than three 
 inches. 
 
 (4) The Black Band, met with only in one part of the 
 
 cave, about four inches in thickness and composed, 
 for the most part, of charred wood. 
 
 (5) The Cave Earth, a light red loam. 
 
 (6) A second layer of stalagmite, differing from the first by 
 
 its crystalline nature; this is in some places twelve 
 feet thick. 
 
 (7) The Breccia, a dark red deposit of a sandy nature and 
 
 free from limestone. 
 The lower strata contain, as might be expected, the 
 rudest implements, made exclusive of flint and chert. 
 "They were much more rudely formed," says Mr. Pengelly, 
 " more massive, less symmetrical in outline, and made not 
 by operating on flakes but directly on nodules, of which
 
 PALAEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 27 
 
 portions of the original surface generally remained, and 
 which were probably derived from supra-cretaceous gravels 
 existing in great volume between Torquay and Newton 
 Abbot, about four miles from the cavern. It is obvious, 
 however, that even such tools could not be made without 
 the dislodgment of flakes and chips, some of which would 
 
 Fig. 2.— Flint Implement from Kent's Cavern. (Sir John Evans.) 
 Face and side views and section. 
 
 be capable of being utilised, and accordingly a few remnants 
 of this kind were met with in the breccia, but they were all 
 of a very rude, simple character, and do not appear to have 
 been improved by being chipped." 
 
 In the cave earth a nuich more iiighly I'mislied type of 
 implement was found, some of the flints being lance-shaped
 
 28 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 and possibly intended for spear-heads, others being oval. 
 Scrapers and hammer-stones were also found, and with them 
 implements of bone, amongst which may particularly be 
 mentioned a needle, awls, and harpoons, constructed from 
 the antlers of reindeer, one being barbed on both sides, 
 the other only on one. In the black mould were found 
 more modern objects, such as lumps of copper, bronze 
 weapons and pottery of a Roman or pre-Roman type. P'rom 
 the various finds it is clear that this cave, and the same is 
 true of others of a similar nature, was first inhabited by the 
 
 Fig. 3. — Harpoon Head of Reindeer-horn, 4^ in. long, with six 
 barbs on one side and five on the other. Cave of Laugerie 
 Basse, France. (Scot. Ant. Mus.) 
 
 river-drift men, and afterwards, though at a much later 
 period, by those to whom the name of cave-dwellers 
 has been given. Finally, the British or Romano-British 
 remains point to its occupation at a date much nearer 
 to our own. 
 
 A remarkable feature of the finds of this period which 
 have been made on the continent — and the same is 
 true, though in a much less degree, of those of our own 
 country — is the occurrence of incised figures of animals, 
 showing considerable powers of draughtmanship. Repre- 
 sentations of the hunting of bisons and of horses have been 
 found in the rock-shelter of La Madelaine, the latter also 
 showing the figure of a man. The human form, it may 
 be remarked, is but rarely found represented in these 
 drawings, possibly because it may have been considered
 
 PALAEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 29 
 
 unlucky to depict it, sucli a superstition being widely 
 prevalent amongst primitive races throughout the world. 
 
 A considerable variety of animals has, however, been 
 depicted by the artist of this period, thus a drawing of 
 a cave-bear was found upon a piece of schist in the cave of 
 Massat, one of a seal on the canine of a bear at Duruthy, 
 and of a whale on an antler at Laugerie Basse. 
 
 A still more artistically treated subject is the picture of a 
 reindeer, inscribed upon the horn of an animal of that 
 species, found at Kesserloch, in which it is represented 
 
 :i^ 
 
 Fig. 4.— Figure of a Naked Man between two Horses Heads. 
 A lish ( probably an eel ) is represented behind him. From the 
 cave of La Madelaine in France. (Lartet and Christy.) 
 
 as feeding by a pool surrounded by rushes. Perhaps 
 the most celebrated of all is a representation of the 
 mammoth on a piece of its own tusk, which was dis- 
 covered at La Madelaine. This figure is evidently a sketch 
 from the life, and portrays the long up-curved tusks, the 
 mane, bristles and other appurtenances of this formidable 
 creature. 
 
 In England, a portion of a rib, with the figure of a horse 
 incised upon it, has been found in Robin Hood's Cave in 
 Derbyshire. Finally, a drawing upon the canine tooth 
 of a bear, found in the cave of Duruthy in the ^Vestern 
 Pyrenees, of a long gauntlet-like glove, shows that the 
 cave-dweller fashioned, with the aid of his bone awl and
 
 r-> 
 
 (L) 
 
 ■a 
 
 
 > 
 
 U 
 
 3 
 
 c 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 c 
 o 
 
 -4-» 
 
 o 
 
 E 
 S 
 
 M 
 C 
 
 c 

 
 PALEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 31 
 
 needle, the skins of the animals whicli he killed into 
 garments even of a somewhat complicated nature. 
 
 It is important to bear in mind the nature of the art 
 of the period, for rough as the implements must have been 
 with which it was executed, the pictures show considerable 
 spirit and a real artistic capacity. ^'ery many persons of 
 to-day would be pleased, if with all the aids with which 
 art can supply them, they could produce so spirited a sketch 
 as that of the reindeer by the pool, or the group of fighting 
 reindeer represented in another drawing. 
 
 Besides the instances mentioned above of incised work, 
 there are many examples of the carvings of Palaeolithic man, 
 in the shape of bone handles, representing animals of dif- 
 ferent kinds. 
 
 Whether drawings or carvings, the art of this period is 
 particularly worthy of notice because it belonged to the 
 cave-dwellers alone and perished with them, not being met 
 with amongst the remains of later races. Professor Boyd 
 Dawkins has called attention to the remarkable similarity 
 between the art of Paleolithic man and that of the Eskimos, 
 and considers that this is one of several proofs of the identity 
 of the two races. This theory, however, it is right to say, is 
 not accepted by all ethnologists. 
 
 It is necessary to have recourse to the discoveries made 
 in continental caverns if we would study the physical 
 characters of the cave-dweller. Amongst the relics which 
 have been found, the most celebrated is that of the 
 Neanderthal skull, which was discovered in a cave near 
 Dusseldorf. This remarkable specimen, on the extreme 
 antiquity of which much doubt has recently been thrown, 
 was, when first studied, thought to belong to a class not now 
 represented amongst living men. Further inquiry, however, 
 has proved this view to be jncorrect. Though unusual, this 
 type of skull is not unknown amongst Europeans, whilst 
 a race of Australians has received the name of Neandertha-
 
 32 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 loid, from the resemblance of their crania to that which 
 is now under discussion. It is long and narrow and its 
 vault is extremely low, but perhaps its most striking charac- 
 teristic is the great projection of the ridges above the orbits 
 and of the glabella or space between the eyebrows and just 
 above the root of the nose. Two skeletons assigned to this 
 period, the skulls of which are also narrow, have been found 
 at Spey in Belgium. Here also the projection of the supra- 
 orbital ridges and of the glabella is very marked. The 
 ridges upon the bones of the skull for the attachment of 
 muscles are strongly developed and the cranial vault is low 
 and flattened. The lower jaw shows no prominence of the 
 chin — in fact, it recedes somewhat from the region of the 
 teeth. Dr. Garson, from whose writings these facts have 
 been condensed, further states that " the stature of the 
 Neanderthal skeleton as estimated from the length of the 
 femur (or thigh-bone) is 1.604 metres (5 ft. 3 in.), and from 
 the humerus (or arm-bone) 2 cm. less ; that of the Spey 
 skeleton (there being only one of these in which the long 
 bones could be measured), estimated from the femur and 
 tibia (or shin-bone), is 1.504 metres (4 ft. 11^ in.) and from 
 the femur alone, 1.540 metres (5 ft. | in.). The long 
 bones of both the upper and lower limbs of the Neander- 
 thal skeleton are characterised by their unusual thickness, 
 and the great development of the elevations and depres- 
 sions for the attachment of muscles ; the articular ends of 
 the femur are also of larger size than usual. The femur of 
 the Spey skeleton is more arched forward than usual ; it is 
 somewhat flattened from side to side in section, and its 
 articular ends are of large size, especially the lower, in 
 which there is enormous antero-posterior development of 
 the articular surfaces of the condyles. The tibia is 
 actually and proportionately very short, flattened laterally 
 and therefore platycnemic. The bones generally are re- 
 markable for their stoutness, and indicate that the muscles
 
 PALiEOLlTHIC MAN 33 
 
 attached to them were large and powerful, especially those 
 of the lower limb. 
 
 "In regard to the platycnemism of the tibia, the Spey 
 skeleton corresponds to the Laugerie Basse and Madelaine 
 bones from the Perigord caves, and confirms in a very 
 positive manner the evidence of their surroundings and 
 relics, that Palaeolithic people were sons of the chase, as it 
 is connected with the development of the tibialis posticus 
 muscle, and not a race character." 
 
 From the various observations which have been made at 
 home and on the Continent, it is possible for us to form 
 some kind of a picture, following on the lines indicated by 
 Dr. Garson, of the social life of the cave-dweller. As 
 might be inferred from his name, he lived, at least during 
 the colder parts of the year, in those natural shelters in 
 which his remains have been found. Here he lit his fire 
 and brought the spoils of the chase to be cooked for his 
 food. He was essentially a hunter and not an agricul- 
 turist, like his successors in the land, yet he possessed no 
 dog to assist him in securing his prey. The bison, the 
 wild horse and the reindeer were the main objects of his 
 chase, and he pursued them with flint-tipped spears and 
 with daggers made of bone and possessing carved handles. 
 He also captured fish with barbed harpoons. His clothing 
 was made from the skins of the animals which he killed, 
 and the different portions were sewn together with cords 
 made of the sinews of the reindeer. For this purpose he 
 employed the bone awls and needles which have been 
 found in the deposits of the period, and with the same 
 implements and from the same materials he made the 
 long glove which he wore. He manufactured flint imple- 
 ments for use in the chase and in war, as well as for 
 domestic purposes, and he converted the bones of animals 
 into various useful tools. The handles of many of these he 
 decorated by carving them into the form of beasts, and his 
 
 c
 
 34 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 taste for art is also shown by the figures which he engraved 
 upon bones and pieces of stone. He was not indifferent to 
 the adornment of his person, but, Hke other savages, made 
 necklaces of shells, teeth and pieces of ivory and bone, and 
 in all probability painted his body of a red colour with 
 mineral pigments. He was short in stature and his beet- 
 ling brows must have given him a fierce and repellent 
 appearance.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 Conditions of the Land — Wild Animals — Pit dwellings — 
 Stone axes and arrow-heads — Their Folk-lore — Manu- 
 factories — Art — Long Barrows — Dolmens — Significance 
 and Folk-lore — Objects buried with the dead — Trephined 
 skulls — Druidism — Language — Bodily remains — Social 
 life. 
 
 The conditions of the land had been changed prior to the 
 advent of the race with which this chapter is concerned, so 
 as to be approximately the same as those which now obtain. 
 En-gland had become severed by the sea from the Continent 
 and from Ireland, but the area which it covered was some- 
 what greater than at present, since parts of what were then 
 dry land are now submerged beneath the waters of the sea. 
 The Isles of Wight and Anglesey were still part of the 
 mainland, the estuary of the Thames west of a line drawn 
 north from Felixstowe was dry land, and the same was true 
 of a great part of the Bristol Channel. Traces of the 
 forests which covered this part of the country may still be 
 seen at low tide near Minehead in Somersetshire and in 
 other places. The northern and western coast lines of 
 Wales extended for a greater distance than they now do, 
 nearly the whole of the bay of Cardigan having been formed 
 since this period by the submergence of the land, indeed a 
 tradition to this effect still remains amongst the Welsh 
 peasantry.
 
 36 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 The climate of the country was probably much damper 
 than it is now, on account of the vast forests which covered 
 the face of the earth ; and on account of the greater area of 
 land it possessed more of a continental range of tempera- 
 ture, with greater cold in the winter and greater heat in 
 the summer. 
 
 Many of the larger animals which existed during the 
 epoch of Palaeolithic man had now become extinct, but 
 others, some of which are now unknown in this country, 
 still occupied the forests and marshes. There were " wild 
 boars, horses, roes and stags, Irish elks, true elks and rein- 
 deer, and the great wild ox, the urus, as well as the Alpine 
 hare, the common hare, and the rabbit. Wolves, foxes and 
 badgers, martens and wild cats were abundant ; the brown 
 bear, and the closely allied variety the grisly bear, were the 
 two must formidable competitors of man in the chase. 
 Otters pursued the Salmon and trout in the rivers, beavers 
 constructed their wonderful dams, and water rats haunted 
 the banks of the streams." (Dawkins.) 
 
 It will be noticed that whilst many of the animals just 
 mentioned are no longer to be found in England, only one, 
 the Irish elk, has become absolutely extinct. 
 
 From the insular character of the country it is obvious 
 that the Neolithic peoples must have invaded it in boats, 
 bringing with them their cattle and household stuffs, and 
 starting from the nearest coast of the Continent, and by a 
 similar means they must have reached Ireland from England, 
 These boats were of the kind known as " dug-outs " — that is, 
 each was composed of the trunk of a tree, sometimes as 
 much as forty feet in length, hollowed out partly by the 
 action of fire, and partly by the use of the stone axe. 
 These boats must have been propelled by some kind of 
 paddle, for there is no reason to suppose that any know- 
 ledge of the use of sails existed at that period. 
 
 Like their predecessors, the Neolithic people in some
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 37 
 
 instances lived in caves, such as those at Cefn, near St. Asaph, 
 in North Wales, but their most characteristic dwellings are 
 those known as pit dwellings or hut circles. A group of 
 these exists near Fisherton, in the Wylye Valley in ^Vilt- 
 
 FiG. 6. — Plan cf a part of a British Village, showing Ditches, 
 Ramparts, and Cluster of Huts. 
 
 shice, in which the excavations have been carried down to a 
 depth of from seven to ten feet from the surface, passing 
 through the superficial gravel to reach the subjacent chalk. 
 Each pit or group of pits had a circular shaft by which it 
 was entered, and below it expanded so as to have a diameter
 
 38 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 varying from five to seven feet, the upper portion being 
 about three. The floor consisted of the chalk in which the 
 excavation had been made, and was often raised shghtly in 
 the centre. Each was covered by a roof, which was composed 
 of a kind of wattle and daub, that is of interlacing sticks 
 plastered with clay, which was partly hardened by the action 
 of fire. Groups of these pits are found on the tops or sides 
 of hills or sometimes in valleys, surrounded by ramparts and 
 ditches, and intersected also by ditches or drains, probably 
 rendered necessary by the damp nature of the climate. It 
 must be remembered that such villages or settlements, 
 though characteristic of the Neolithic race, are not peculiar 
 to the period which bears that name, for some of them were 
 constructed and inhabited at a much later date. General 
 Pitt-Rivers has carefully explored such a village of the 
 Romano-British period at Woodcuts Common, near Rush- 
 more in Dorsetshire. This village, which is included within 
 ramparts, is divided into quarters by mounds and ditches. 
 Within the area are many pits, in the neighbourhood of 
 which have been found various bronze implements, Roman 
 coins, pottery and skeletons of children and adults. 
 
 The remains of the people of this period, which have 
 been found in their dwellings and tombs, enable us to form 
 a good idea of their condition and manner of life. The 
 most characteristic weapon of the period is the stone axe or 
 celt, a much more highly finished implement than that of 
 the earlier Stone age, and carefully shaped so as to have 
 usually a wide cutting edge at one end, the other being 
 more pointed. These celts were often polished by friction 
 against another stone. " In all cases," says Sir John Evans, 
 "the grindstone on which they were polished was fixed and 
 not rotatory, and in nearly all cases the strife running along 
 the stone hatchets are longitudinal, thus proving that they 
 were rubbed lengthways and not crossways on the grind- 
 ing-bed. This is a criterion of some service in detecting
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 39 
 
 modern forgeries. The grinding-stones met with in Den- 
 mark and Scandinavia are generally of compact sandstone 
 or quartzite, and are usually of two forms — flat slabs, often 
 
 Fig. 7. — Neolithic Celt of finely polished greyish Flint, found in 
 Scotland. (Scot. -Ant. Mus.) Side and front view. 
 
 worn hollow by use, and polygonal prisms, smallest in the 
 middle, these latter having frequently hollow facets in which 
 gouges or the more convex-faced hatchets might be ground, 
 and sometimes rounded ridges such as would grind the 
 hollow part of gouges. From the coarse striation on the
 
 40 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 body of most flint hatchets, especially the large ones, it 
 would appear that they were not ground immediately on 
 such fine-grained stones, but that some coarse and hard 
 grit must have been used to assist the action of the grind- 
 stone. M. Morlot thought that some mechanical pressure 
 was also used to aid in the operation, and that the hatchet 
 to be ground was weighted in some manner, possibly by 
 means of a lever. In grinding and.polishing the hollowed 
 
 Fig. 8. — Stone Celt in original wooden handle, found in 
 moss in Cumberland. (Sir John Evans.) 
 
 peat 
 
 faces of different forms of stone axes, it would appear that 
 certain rubbers formed of stone were used probably in con- 
 junction with sand." 
 
 Celts thus formed were sunk into a wooden stock, the 
 smaller end being pushed through a hole, a wrapping of raw 
 hide possibly making the connection more secure. Their 
 discovery in the handled condition is naturally rare, since 
 the wooden storks liave generally perished in the course of 
 time ; but one or two have been found in peat bogs, which
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 41 
 
 B'lG. 9. — Perforated Hammcr-Siono found in Scoilaml. (Scot. Ant. 
 Mus. ) The lower figure is a section of the hole, tlie narrowing 
 of which at the centre shows that the boring was accomplisiied 
 from both sides. The figure on the right is the side view.
 
 42 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 show the method in which celt and handle were united 
 together. These must have been formidable weapons, 
 whether against animals or in warfare, as we may gather 
 from the discovery of the skeleton of a man in a cairn in 
 Kirkcudbrightshire, called locally the tomb of King Aldus 
 M'Galdus. The arm-bone of the skeleton had been cut 
 clean through near the shoulder in some conflict, and in the 
 severed bone was still sticking a fragment of the stone axe 
 with which the injury had been done. 
 
 Other stone axes were provided with a hole, bored 
 through them by means of some rude drill, such as is used 
 by savages, in which hole the handle was fixed. 
 
 Some of these stone weapons, it seems more than pro- 
 bable, were used for throwing ; indeed, the references to 
 offensive weapons of this kind in Irish literature prove that 
 they were specially constructed for the purpose in that 
 country. They were there called the warrior's stone, the 
 champion's flat stone, the semi-flat stone of a soldier cham- 
 pion, or by some such title. In the record of the battle of 
 the Ford of Comar, near Fore, in the county of Westmeath, 
 which is supposed to have occurred in the century before 
 the Christian era, Lohar's people all came with a champion's 
 handstone stowed away in the hollow of their shields. 
 Fergus "put his hand into the hollow of his shield, and 
 took out of it the semi-flat stone of a soldier champion, and 
 threw a manly cast and struck the hag (a Druidess) on the 
 front of her head, which it passed through, and carried out 
 of its own size of the brains at her poll." Eochaidh, the 
 son of Enna Ceinnselach, carried his champion's flat stone 
 in his girdle. 
 
 Beside the axes with which we have been dealing, the 
 Neolithic peoples made numbers of arrow-heads of stone, 
 many of which are beautifully shaped and polished. They 
 are sometimes barbed, and sometimes plain, tanged or tang- 
 less, leaf-shaped or triangular, and may be compared with
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 43 
 
 the stone arrow-heads made by the North American Indians. 
 Indeed one of the most remarkable things about these 
 
 ':r\ 
 
 Fig. 10.— Flint Arrow heads, English. (Sir John Evans.) 
 
 arrow-heads is the extraordinary similarity to one another 
 which they present in whatever part of the world they may 
 be fqund, a proof that the minds of different races work 
 on similar lines, as we can scarcely 
 sup^)ose that the patterns were trans- 
 mitted from one part of the world to 
 another. 
 
 Succeeding generations of people, 
 finding these remnants of a former 
 race and ignorant of their real signi- 
 ficance, have looked upon them, here 
 and elsewhere, with a superstitious 
 awe and veneration. Thus the stone 
 celt came to be regarded as the 
 hammer of Thor, the thunderbolt, Fig. h. -Stone Arrow- 
 
 ,, , ,, , J J ,1 J ^ » c head.with original Shaft 
 
 "the all dreaded thunderstone of ^^^^^ j,^ Switzerland, 
 Cymbeline. Indeed the opinion that (Sir John Evans.) 
 such axes fell from the skies in 
 
 thunderstorms, which seems to have existed from a very early 
 jxjriod, is met with in many parts of the world, for besides 
 having been prevalent in all parts of Europe, it is found in
 
 44 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Japan, Burmah, Assam, Malaysia, Western Africa, and else- 
 where. Many virtues have also been attributed to these 
 weapons, the water in which one has been boiled having been 
 used, even in recent times, ias a cure for rheumatism in Corn- 
 wall, whilst the discovery of a celt in Egypt bearing Gnostic 
 inscriptions, shows that some mystic power was assigned to 
 it by some early possessor. An ancient stone-axe has been 
 known to be hung round the neck of each successive ram 
 which acted as leader of the flock during many years, in 
 order that the influence of the evil eye might be warded off 
 from him, and through him from the flock of which he was 
 the head. The Neolithic arrow-heads are as widely known 
 as fairy-darts, or elf-shots, and have been used as amulets up 
 to a recent date both in these islands and on the continent. 
 This practice must also be of great antiquity, since a flint 
 arrow-head has been found attached to an Etruscan gold 
 necklace, apparently as a kind of charm. Writing in 1691, 
 of the Fairies and their ways, in his " Secret Common- 
 wealth," the Rev. Robert Kirk, a firm believer, by the way, 
 in the tales which he narrated, gives us a good idea as 
 to the views which were held at that date, and indeed we 
 may say up to a much more recent period, as to the nature 
 of these arrow-heads, for it is of them he speaks. "Their 
 weapons," he says, "are most what solid earthly Bodies, 
 nothing of Iron, but much of Stone, like to yellow soft Flint 
 Spa, shaped like a barbed Arrow-head, but flung like a Dairt, 
 with great Force. These Armes (cut by Airt and Tools 
 it seems beyond humane) have something of the Nature of 
 Thunderbolt subtilty, and mortally wounding the vital Parts 
 without breaking the Skin ; of which Wounds I have observed 
 in Beasts, and felt them with my Hands. They are not as 
 infallible Benjamites, hitting at a Hair's breadth ; nor are 
 they wholly unvanquishable, at least in Appearance." 
 
 A letter of Dr. Hickes to Pepys, dated London, June ig, 
 1700, is a further proof of the prevalence of the idea at this
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 45 
 
 time. "At the same time, as I remember, he (Lord 
 Tarbut) entertained the Duke (of Lauderdale) with a story 
 of Elf arrows, which was very surprising to me. They are 
 of a triangular form, somewhat like the pile or beard of our 
 old English arrows of war, almost as thin as one of our old 
 groats, made of flints or pebbles, or such-like stones, and 
 these the country people in Scotland believe that evil 
 spirits (which they call Elves, from the old Danish word 
 Alfar, which signifies Daemon, Genius^ Saiyrus) do shoot 
 into the hearts of cattle ; and, as I remember, my Lord 
 Tarbut, or some other Lord, did produce one of these Elf 
 arrows, which one of his tenants or neighbours took out 
 of the heart of one of his cattle that died of a usual death. 
 I have another strange story, but very well attested, of an 
 Elf arrow that was shot at a venerable Irish Bishop by an 
 Evil Spirit, in a terrible noise louder than thunder, which 
 shaked the house where the Bishop was." 
 
 Besides the use of these arrow-heads as amulets against 
 the malign influence of fairies, they have been employed in 
 other superstitious practices. Every reader will be familiar 
 with the fact that one of the commonest devices of witch- 
 craft was to construct a wax or clay image of the person 
 whom it was desired to injure, and to pierce it with pins or 
 other sharp instruments. It was, of course, hoped that the 
 injury to the image would be followed by serious illness in 
 the person which it represented. Now Mr. Gomme tells us 
 that in Scotland the implement used for wounding the 
 image was sometimes a stone arrow-head, and that its use 
 was accompanied by an incantation. No doubt it was 
 believed that the effect of the injury would be intensified by 
 the use of a magica;l wea{)on such as the fairy dart. It is 
 probable that this idea is a genuine relic of the period when 
 the fabricators of these weapons lived side by side with 
 other and later races, who may have regarded them with 
 that superstitious reverence with which the aborigines have
 
 46 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 been regarded in other countries by later immigrants. This, 
 however, is a question which must be dealt with more fully 
 at a later point. 
 
 Apart, however, from the arts of witchcraft, we have 
 abundant evidence that flint flakes had their place in 
 genuine religious ceremonies in various parts of the world. 
 Thus, in the process of the embalming of the body in Egypt, 
 after the line of the first incision had been marked out in 
 the left groin with ink, an assistant, the slitter or para- 
 schistes, taking "an Ethiopic stone " says Diodorus Siculus, 
 "a knife, probably made of flint," says Mr. Budge, made 
 the required opening. Circumcision amongst the Jews may 
 be performed with a stone knife, and a similar implement 
 is used by the Arabians in the opening of the veins which 
 forms a part of the ceremony of making pledges of faith. 
 The Romans preserved a sacred flint in the temple of 
 Jupiter Feretrius, with which the Pater Patratus slew the 
 victim, offered up to consecrate the solemn treaties of the 
 Romans. " If by public counsel," he said, " or by wicked 
 fraud, they swerve first ; in that day, oh Jove, smite thou 
 the Roman people, as I here to-day shall smite this hog ; 
 and smite them so much more as thou art abler and 
 stronger." With these words he struck the hog with 
 the flint stone. 
 
 In various parts of the country, where flints were plentiful, 
 there existed regular manufactories of the weapons we have 
 been considering. One of the most celebrated of these was 
 at the place called Grimes' Graves, near Brandon in Suffolk, 
 a locality where the descendant trade of gun-flint making 
 has long been carried on. Here the Neolithic workers 
 sank shafts in search of flints and connected them together 
 by means of galleries from three to five feet in height. The 
 miners of this period had never thought of the simple 
 method of using wooden props for the roofs of their 
 galleries and hence they did not dare to carry on operations
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 47 
 
 very far from the shaft. Thus when they had carried their 
 gallery a short way and exhausted all the flints near at 
 hand, they sank a fresh shaft in a new spot and recom- 
 menced operations. In some of their old workings, the 
 tools of the Neolithic miners have been discovered, and 
 we thus learn that they used the antlers of deer as pickaxes, 
 as well as the pohshed stone celts described above. Chisels 
 made of bone and horn have also been found, and primitive 
 lamps made of cups of chalk hollowed out to contain 
 grease. Canon Greenwell gives the following account of 
 the exploration of one of these galleries which had obvi- 
 ously fallen in during the interval between two periods of 
 work. "It was seen," he writes, "that the flint had been 
 worked out in three places at the end, forming three hollows 
 extending beyond the chalk face of the end of the gdlery. 
 In front of two of these hollows were laid two picks, the 
 handles of each towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines 
 pointing towards each other, showing in all probability that 
 they had been used respectively by a right and left handed 
 man. The day's work over, the men had laid down each 
 his tool, ready for the next day's work; meanwhile the root 
 had fallen in and the picks had never been recovered. 
 
 " I learnt from the workmen that it would not ha\e been 
 safe to have excavated further in that direction, the chalk 
 at that point being broken up by cracks so as to prevent the 
 roof from standing firm. It was a most impressive sight, 
 and one never to be forgotten, to look, after a lapse it may 
 be of three thousand years, upon a piece of work unfinished, 
 with the tools of the workmen still lying where they had 
 been placed so many years ago. Between the picks was the 
 skull of a bird, but none of the other bones. These two 
 picks, as was the case with many found elsewhere, had upon 
 them an incrustation of chalk, the surface of which bore the 
 impression of the workmen's fingers, the print of the skin 
 being most apparent. This had been caused by the chalk
 
 48 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 with which the workmen's hands became coated being 
 transferred to the handle of the pick." 
 
 Other rehcs have been found in the pit-dwellings and 
 tombs, such as spindle-whorls, showing that spinning was 
 practised, chalk weights to stretch the warp and long combs 
 to push the woof, which prove that weaving was also one 
 of their occupations. They were also acquainted with the 
 
 manufacture of pottery, though 
 only by hand. Thus in their 
 industries, they attained to a 
 much higher level than their 
 predecessors, so that it is the 
 more remarkable that their 
 ideas of art were so much less 
 advanced. The really graceful 
 delineations . of animal forms 
 which we find associated with 
 the cave-dwellers have no place 
 in this period, where instead we 
 meet with spirals, concentric 
 circles, rude geometrical orna- 
 ments, in fact, alone or ahnost 
 alone. In one instance, at Locmariaquer in Brittany, a figure 
 of a stone axe in its wooden handle has been found inscribed 
 on the under surface of the capstone of the great dolmen 
 known as the Table des Marchands. This axe is repre- 
 sented as decked with a plume, and it is interesting to note 
 that its handle is depicted as curved back beyond the socket 
 for the blade, a feature which has been observed in one of 
 the very few shafted celts which have been found in this 
 country. 
 
 The burial-places of this race, so full of valuable informa- 
 tion from the relics which they contain, must next be con- 
 sidered. In some cases the Neolithic people buried their 
 dead in caverns, but their most characteristic form of 
 
 Fio. 12. — Spindle-Whorl. 
 (Scot. Ant. Mus.)
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 49 
 
 interment was under a long oval mound of earth known 
 as a long barrow, which was usually erected on the top or 
 side of a hill or eminence of ground. Such mounds of 
 earth form striking and unmistakable objects in the land- 
 scape in the parts of the country in which they occur. Tht: 
 interior of these mounds contained in some cases only a 
 pile of stones in the midst of which the corpse was placed, 
 but in other instances the internal structure was much more 
 complicated. In chambered barrows of this kind there was 
 an entrance with passages and galleries all formed, as to 
 
 Fig. 13. — A Long Barrow, with the ring of standing stones 
 
 restored. 
 
 their sides and roof, of flat slabs of stone. In these galleries 
 and transepts successive interments took place. In many 
 instances the superjacent earth has been removed, for farm- 
 ing or other purposes^ with the result that the internal 
 skeleton of stones has been left exposed.* In its simplest 
 form this skeleton consists of a large flat stone or capstone, 
 supported by others standing on their sides or ends. The 
 tabular appearance of such structures has led to their re- 
 ceiving the name of dolmen, or stone table (daiil, a table, 
 and maen, stone, Celtic). Subsequent generations of people, 
 ignorant of their real purpose, have called them by the title 
 of Druidical altars, to which they have no claim. Very 
 
 * It should be mentioned that, according to some archrrologists, 
 some of these dolmens have possibly, or even probably, always been 
 sub-aerial and never covered with a mound of earth.
 
 50 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 many of these structures exist in various parts of the 
 country, and a few examples of some of the more important 
 
 Fig. 14. — Dolmen. 
 
 Fig. 15.— Breton Dolmen. 
 
 or better known may now be cited. Kit's Coty House, near 
 Aylesford in Kent, is a well-known instance of an English
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 51 
 
 dolmen ; and others familiar to tourists are those of Chun in 
 Cornwall, the capstone of which has been estimated to weigh 
 twenty tons, and the double dolmen at Plas Newydd in the 
 Isle of Anglesey. The great Lanyon dolmen in Cornwall 
 was uncovered about one hundred years ago by a farmer, 
 
 
 
 ^< - 
 
 KIT'S COTY HOUii 
 
 Fig. 16. — Kit's Coty House. Dolmen near Aylcsford, Kent. 
 (From " A Week's Tramp in Dickensland," by W. R. Hughes.) 
 
 who supposed it to be a mere heap of earth which he 
 thought might be usefully applied to farming purposes. 
 By degrees, as the earth was carted away, the great stones 
 began to appear, and when operations were comj)leted and 
 all the soil had been cleared away, the dolmen, much as it 
 now exists, was disclosed, containing in its interior a heap
 
 52 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 of broken urns and human bones. The capstone is about 
 eighteen and a half feet long by nine wide, and is computed 
 to weigh more than fifteen tons. In 1S15 it was blown off 
 by a storm, but it was replaced in 1824, though it was found 
 to be impossible to restore one of the upright stones to its 
 position, since it had been broken in the fall. 
 
 Weyland Smith's forge on the downs near the Icknield 
 Street, and close to the White Horse of Berkshire, is another 
 instance of the uncovered stones of a long barrow. It con- 
 sists of a ruined chamber, of some remains of a gallery and 
 of a second chamber to complete the cruciform arrange- 
 ment. All these were at one time buried beneath the 
 earth and surrounded by a ring of stones. This group 
 of stones owes the name which it now bears to Wieland 
 (Norse, Volmidr), the Smith of the Teutonic mythology, and 
 must have been known by that title for a long time, for in 
 955 we find King Edred granting lands to the \vide gap 
 ' west of Welandes Smithan." Again, King Alfred, who 
 was born at Wantage in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 the remains, says, in his" translation of Boethius, "Who now 
 knows the bones of the wise Weland, under what barrow 
 they are concealed ? " 
 
 The legend which is attached to this group of stones, and 
 which has been made use of by Sir Walter Scott in his 
 novel of " Kenilworth " is that it was the habitation of an 
 invisible smith, and that if a traveller's horse lost his shoe 
 it would be replaced, if the horse was brought to the stones 
 and left there with a piece of money. 
 
 The long barrow at Uley in Gloucestershire was a very 
 complicated structure of its kind. There was, as in other 
 instances, a boundary wall laid in horizontal courses, faced 
 on the outside, and carried up to a height of two or three feet. 
 This surrounded the mound itself, which " is about 120 ft. in 
 length, 85 ft. in its greatest breadth, and about 10 ft. in 
 height. It is higher and broader at its east end than else-
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 53 
 
 where. The entrance at the east end is a triHthon, formed 
 by a large flat stone upwards of 8 ft. in length, and 47.- ft. in 
 depth, and supported by two upright stones which face each 
 other, so as to leave a space of about ai ft. between the 
 lower edge of the large stone and the natural ground. 
 Entering this, a gallery appears, running from east to west, 
 about 22 ft. in length, 4^ ft in average width, and 5 ft. in 
 height ; the sides formed of large slabs of stone set edge- 
 ways, the spaces between being filled in with smaller stones. 
 The roof is formed, as usual, of flat slabs, laid across and 
 
 Fig. 17. — Plan of the Chambers in tlie L'ley Barrow. 
 
 resting on the side slabs. There are two smaller chambers 
 on one side, and there is evidence of two others having 
 existed on the other side. Several skeletons were found in 
 this fine tumulus when it was opened many years ago." 
 (Jewitt.) 
 
 Had this barrow been denuded of earth, the stones, many 
 of which would necessarily have lost their original position, 
 would have presented similar, though more extensive, 
 remains to those of Weyland Smith's forge. In some cases 
 the stones forming the entrance and lining the galleries are 
 carved in rude patterns. Examples of this occur in tlie 
 great barrow at New Grange in the County Mealh, and at
 
 54 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Gavr Inis in the Morbihan, Brittany. It will be remembered 
 that it is on the under surface of the capstone of such a 
 dolmen at Locmariaquer that the figure of a hafted axe is 
 incised. 
 
 Again, in other cases, the barrow w^as surrounded by a 
 ring of standing stones. Such was the case, according to 
 Dr. Thurnam's restoration, at the long barrow of West 
 Kennet in Wilts, 350 ft. in length. This had a bounding 
 wall of rubble with large upright blocks interspersed at 
 regular intervals. The observation of Aristotle, to which 
 
 Fig. 18.— Stone with incised concentric circles, found at Eday, 
 Orkney. (.Scot. Ant. Mus. ) To illustrate the type of orna- 
 ment alluded to on p. 48. 
 
 Dr. Thurnam calls attention, that the Iberians used to place 
 as many obelisks around the tomb of the dead warrior as he 
 had killed enemies, perhaps gives a clue to the origin of this 
 custom. In certain cases where the mound and rubble wall 
 have disappeared, the standing stones remain, and some of 
 the so-called Druidical circles have thus been formed. 
 Indeed, Mr. Arthur Evans points out that in the most 
 primitive examples of such burial mounds, " it seems a 
 universal rule that the stone circle surrounds a central 
 dolmen or stone cist containing the remains of the dead. 
 To take, for example, some of the closest known parallels 
 to our great British monument* — the stone circles described 
 
 * Stonehenge.
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 55 
 
 by travelleps in Arabia and its borderlands are distinctly 
 associated with central interments. Mr. Palmer in his book 
 on ' The Desert cf Exodus ' states that in the neighbour- 
 hood of Sinai he saw huge stone circles, some of them 
 measuring 100 ft. in d'ameter, having in the centre a cist 
 covered with a heap of huge boulders. In the cists he found 
 skeletons in the same contracted position — the attitude of 
 sleep amongst the ' Courtmantles ' of primitive times — as 
 is seen in our own early interments." Again, he points out, 
 that the early barrows of the North are in fact a copy of a 
 primitive kind of mound dwelling, such as is still repre- 
 sented by the Gamme of the Lapp. " It is a primitive 
 dwelling of the living preserved by religious usage as a 
 dwelling for the dead in days when in all probability the 
 living had adopted houses of somewhat improved construc- 
 tion, and adapted to a less boreal climate." By studying 
 these primitive dwellings, then, we can arrive at a compre- 
 hension of the meaning of the different parts of the grave 
 mound. In the Lapp Gamme near the North Cape " there 
 are the ring-stones actually employed in propping up the 
 turf-covered mound of the dwelling, and there is the low en- 
 trance gallery leading to the chamber within, which, in fact, 
 is the living representative, and at the same time the remote 
 progenitor, of the gallery of the chambered barrow." Again, 
 the entrance to such barrows is directed towards the east, 
 a fact which may be explained by what we know of the 
 Northern dwelling-mounds, which have their doorways 
 directed towards the east also, in order that the inhabitants 
 may be awakened by the first rays of the sun in a land 
 where during a large part of the year the hours of daylight 
 are but few. " However the afterthoughts of religion may 
 have connected this usage with the worship of the sun, it is 
 in its origin to be accounted for, like the stone circle and the 
 gallery and avenue, by purely utilitarian reasons." After the 
 construction of such mounds had long ceased, pcrha[)S after
 
 56 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 their signification has been forgotten, we find the dolmens 
 associated with superstitious observances, and looked upon 
 with a certain veneration. In the earlier days of Christianity 
 in Europe, and especially in the Teutonic regions, one of the 
 great difiiculties with which the Church had to contend was 
 the tendency of its converts to revert to stone worship, and 
 various fulminations of local synods are extant against this 
 practice. For instance, we find the twentieth canon of a 
 council held at Nantes, in Brittany, ordering the " stones 
 which are venerated in ruinous places and in the forests," 
 to be dug up and thrown away so that they may be con- 
 cealed from those who were in the habit of worshipping 
 them.* 
 
 A striking instance is met with in the life of St. Boniface, 
 the apostle of Friesland, who, when he commenced the con- 
 version of that country in the eighth century, found that 
 one of the megalithic tombs in the province of Drenthe had 
 been turned into an altar for human sacrifices. Any stranger 
 who fell into the hands of the wild races of the district 
 was first made to creep through the opening between the 
 upright stones and then " sent to Odin " on the capstone. 
 The influence of the Saint was powerful enough to cause the 
 cessation of the sacrifice itself, but the practice of causing a 
 stranger, especially if he hailed from Brabant, to creep 
 between the upright stones persisted until late in the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 Many such mounds have been supposed to be habitations 
 of the fairies in these islands and on the Continent, and the 
 veneration with which they have been regarded has lingered 
 to our own days, for so late as 1859 a farmer in the Isle of 
 Man offered a heifer up as a propitiatory sacrifice so that 
 
 * " Lapides quos in ruinosis locis et sylvestribus daemon iim ludifi- 
 cationibus decepti venerantur, ubi et vota vovent et deferunt, 
 funditus effodiantur, atque in tali loco projiciantur, ubi nunquam a 
 cultoribus suis in\eniri possint."
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 
 
 57 
 
 no harm might befall him from the opening of a tumulus 
 upon his land. 
 
 The skeletons which have been found in these tombs 
 show that the dead were buried in a huddled-up position, 
 perhaps, Sir John Evans thinks, because it was the habit of 
 
 Fig. 19. — Interments in a Barrow. The lower skeleton is that of 
 a man who has been buried in a cvouched-up position. The 
 upper is a secondary interment of a later age, such as is often 
 met with in barrows. 
 
 the people of the period to sleep in that position, and not 
 stretched out straight. 
 
 As Mr. Andrew Lang puts it : 
 
 " He buried his dead with their toes 
 Tucked up, an original plan. 
 Till their knees came right under their nose, 
 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man." 
 
 But in some of these barrows, and particularly in tlie 
 south-western part of England, the bodies seem to have 
 been deposited in a sitting posture with their backs restuig 
 against the walls of the tomb. In the eastern chamlur of 
 the barrow at Charlton Abbots, there were twelve skeletons 
 which must have been originally placed scjuatting on flat
 
 58 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 stones round the walls. At West Kennet, in Wilts, six 
 skeletons, whose original position must have been the same, 
 were discovered, and similar facts have been noted at 
 Avening and Uley in Gloucestershire. 
 
 Very great interest attaches to the objects which are 
 found in great abundance interred with the dead. The 
 cleft skulls of some of the skeletons met with in many 
 instances by Dr. Thurnam, led him to beUeve that human 
 sacrifices took place at the funeral ceremony, as is the case 
 with other savage races. The bones of domestic animals 
 found in the same places were also probably the remains 
 of less cruel sacrifices. It is very likely that slaves and 
 animals were slain in order that their spirits might accom- 
 pany that of the dead man in his last journey, as the 
 warrior's horse was slain by the Scythians and by North 
 American Indians, so that it might serve its master in the 
 other world. In some cases the skull of a dog has been 
 met with, as at Knock Maraidhe, near Dublin, the idea 
 probably being the same. The Greenland missionary, 
 Cranz, says that it is the custom of the people of that 
 region to place the head of a dog in the tomb of a child, 
 " in order that the soul of the dog, Avhich can always find 
 its way home, may show the helpless infant the way to the 
 country of souls." Nilsson quotes this statement as 
 illustrative of the fact that the skulls of dogs have been 
 found in the burying-places of the Stone age in Sweden. 
 But beyond these relics of sacrifices, weapons, such as celts 
 and arrow-heads, pottery and other implements, sometimes 
 in a perfect condition and sometimes broken, and with 
 every evidence of having been purposely broken, have also 
 been discovered in great quantities. There can be no 
 doubt from what we know of the practices of savage races, 
 that these implements were placed in the grave that they 
 might be of service to the departed in the land of souls, 
 and the custom testifies to the fact that the people of the
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 59 
 
 Neolithic period had a behef in a future existence. The 
 fact that some of the implements had been broken is an 
 additional proof of this, for we know that this is done by 
 other races with the idea that the spirit of the broken 
 weapon will be utilisable by the spirit of its dead master. 
 
 Fig. 20.— Skull trephined during Life and after Death. From 
 one of the Dolmens called Cibournios or Tombs of the 
 Poulacres. AB, Healed edge of the surgical trephining; 
 BC, AD, edges whence pieces had been cut off after death. 
 (Pruni^rcs.) 
 
 A further light is thrown upon this question by the dis- 
 covery in France of skulls upon which the operation of 
 trepanning, or removing a portion of bone from the 
 cranium, had been performed. The operation was per- 
 formed at this period of course with a flint implement, and 
 sometimes took place in children or young adults, some-
 
 6o LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 times in the dead. The object probably was to open a door 
 for the escape of the demons who may have been supposed to 
 have been the cause of epilepsy or other nervous troubles. 
 If a patient survived so critical an operation, and there is 
 abundant evidence in the condition of the bone that some- 
 times patients did survive for many years, it is not wonderful 
 that he or she should have been looked upon as an indivi- 
 dual particularly beloved by the gods, and that after his 
 death pieces of his skull should have been treasured as 
 precious amulets. Such amulets have, in fact, been found 
 in French dolmens, with grooves or holes for the attach- 
 ment of a cord, and each preserves on one of its borders a 
 part of the cicatrised edge of the original opening as 
 evidence of its genuineness. The most valuable of these 
 amulets, curiously enough, have been met in the interior of 
 the skulls of persons who had suffered posthumous trepan- 
 ning. The amulets had evidently been purposely inserted 
 in the position which they occupied, and the significance 
 of this fact is thus explained by M. Broca, the distinguished 
 French anthropologist: "Were they a symbol, a repre- 
 sentation of the great portion of the skull removed by 
 trepanning? It is hardly likely, since any fragment of a 
 skull might have been employed for this purpose ; and the 
 precious amulet would not have been so lightly sacrificed. 
 The intracranial amulet meant much more than that. It was 
 a viaticum, a talisman which the deceased carried away with 
 him into another life to bring him luck, and to protect him 
 from the influence of the evil spirits who had tormented his 
 childhood. But, even if we admit the first hypothesis, it 
 none the less indicates the belief that a new life awaited the 
 dead ; for otherwise there would have been no motive 
 whatever for the ceremony of restitution. The study of 
 prehistoric trepanning and the attendant ceremonies prove, 
 therefore, incontrovertibly, that the men of the Neolithic 
 age believed in a future life, in which the dead retained
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 6i 
 
 their individuality. It is, I think, the earhest epoch to 
 which we can attribute this beHef." 
 
 Beyond these facts connected with the religious opinions 
 of the Neolithic people, certain female figures of the rudest 
 art, decked with necklaces, and in one case ornamented 
 with the figure of a stone axe, have been discovered carved 
 on the walls of artificial grottos of this period in France by 
 the Baron de Baye. These figures, which somewhat re- 
 semble the representations of the goddess Minerva on the 
 clay vases found in ancient Troy, have been thought to be 
 the tutelary deities of the inhabitants of the grottoes. 
 
 At a later date their religion appears to have been 
 Druidism, of which, though the name is so familiar, we 
 cannot be said to know a great deal. The first idea which 
 rises to the mind when the name of Druid is mentioned is that 
 of a venerable old man in a white robe cutting down mistletoe 
 with a golden sickle. From the various facts which we know 
 about the Druids, they must really have closely resembled 
 the angekoks of the Eskimo or the medicine-men of the 
 North American Indians. Strabo (born c. 64 B.C.) described 
 those whom he saw as walking in scarlet and gold brocade 
 and wearing gold collars and bracelets., whilst in a mediceval 
 Irish account the chief Druid of Tara, " is shown to us as a 
 leaping juggler with ear-clasps of gold and a speckled cloak 
 'he tosses swords and balls in the air,' and like the buzzincr 
 of bees on a beautiful day is the motion of each passing 
 the other." (Elton.) They practised human sacrifice and 
 augury from the viscera, whilst at some seasons of the year 
 human victims were "crucified or shot to death with 
 arrows; elsewhere they would be stuffed into huge figures 
 of wickerwork, or a heap of hay would be laid out in the 
 human shape, where men, cattle, and wild beasts were 
 burned in a general holocaust." (Elton.) 
 
 In Julius Ccxsar's time, and later, they taught the doctrine 
 of the transmigration of souls. " One would have laughed,"
 
 62 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 says Valerius Maximus, a writer of the first century, " at 
 these long-trousered philosophers, if we had not found their 
 doctrines under the cloak of Pythagoras." 
 
 The Romans seem to have had a certain respect for the 
 Druids of the later period when they occupied the country, 
 for Lucan, addressing the Romano-Britons, says : " Ye too, 
 ye bards, who by your praises perpetuate the memory of the 
 fallen brave, without hindrance poured forth your strains. 
 And ye, ye Druids, now that the sword was removed, began 
 once more your barbaric rites and weird solemnities. To you 
 only is given knowledge or ignorance (whichever it be) of the 
 gods and the powers of heaven ; your dwelling is in the lone 
 heart of the forest. From you we learn that the bourne of 
 man's ghost is not the senseless grave, not the pale realm of 
 the monarch below ; in another world his spirit survives still ; 
 death, if your lore is true, is but the passage to eternal life." 
 
 The religious writings of Ireland afford many allusions 
 to the Druids, St. Patrick's Hymn containing a prayer 
 against " black laws of the heathen and against the spells of 
 women, smiths and Druids," whilst St. Columba exclaims, 
 in a striking metaphor, *' The Son of God is my Druid ! " 
 The magic of the Druids has also made a great impression 
 upon the folk-stories of the same country, mention of the 
 Druidical rod as an implement of wizardy and of the 
 spells of the Druids being frequent. This has survived to 
 the present day. Thus in the story of " The Champion of 
 the Red Branch," as one example from many which might 
 be quoted, we find such expressions as " I lay on thee the 
 spells of the art of the Druid, to be feeble in strength as a 
 woman in travail, in the place of the camp or of the battle 
 if you go not out to meet the three hundred cats." 
 
 Of the doctrine of metempsychosis, mentioned above, 
 it is possible that some relics may still linger in the folk-lore 
 of the country. In Yorkshire the country people call the 
 night-flying white moths " souls," and in parts of Ireland
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 63 
 
 butterflies are said to be the souls of your grandfather. Mr. 
 Gomme mentions some further examples, one relating to an 
 instance in London where a sparrow was supposed to be the 
 soul of a dead person. In the county Mayo it is believed 
 that the souls of virgins, remarkable for the purity of their 
 lives, took after their death the forms of swans, perhaps a 
 reminiscence of the Children of Lir. In Devonshire there 
 is the case of the Oxenham family, whose souls at death are 
 supposed to enter into a bird : while in Cornwall it is 
 believed that King Arthur is still living as a raven. In 
 Nidderdale the country people say that the souls of 
 unbaptized infants are embodied in the nightjar. The 
 most conspicuous example of souls assuming the form of 
 animals is that of the Cornish fisher-folk, who believe that 
 they can sometimes see their drowning comrades take that 
 shape. In the Hebrides when a man is slowly lingering 
 away in consumption the fairies are said to be on the watch 
 to steal his soul, that they may therewith give life to some 
 other body. In Lancashire some one received into his 
 mouth the last breath of a dying person, fancying that the 
 soul passed out with it into his own body. These examples, 
 Mr. Gomme thinks, represent the last link in the genealogy 
 of the doctrine of metempsychosis, as it has survived 
 in folk-lore. Poetry may have kept alive the idea of the 
 butterfly or moth embodied in the soul, hut it did iu;t create 
 the idea, because it is shown to extend to other creatures 
 not so adaptable to poetic fancy. When we come upon the 
 Lincolnshire belief that the soul of a sleeping comrade had 
 temporarily taken up his abode in a bee, we are too near the 
 doctrine of savages for there to be any doubt as to where 
 the first links of the genealogy start from. There is scarcely 
 any need to draw attention to its non-Christian character, 
 except that folk-lore has preserved in the Nidderdale 
 example evidence of the arresting hand which Christianity 
 put upon these beliefs.
 
 64 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 The tongue of the people of the period with which we are 
 deahng was not long extinct in Ireland in the ninth century, 
 when in the famous old Irish glossary ascribed to Cormac, 
 King and Bishop of Cashel (slain 915), it is called the lam 
 or iron tongue. Professor Rhys mentions that Cormac 
 "records two of the Ivernian words known to him, 
 namely fcrn^ anything good, and ond^ a stone. But 
 these, together with Net, Corb, Ri and others in his work 
 which may be suspected of being Ivernian, have hitherto 
 tlirowu no light upon the origin of the language ; but should 
 it turn out that those who without hesitation call our 
 Ivernians Iberians, and bring them into relationship with 
 the Basque-speaking people of France and Spain, are right 
 in doing so, one could not at all wonder that Cormac 
 considered the Ivernian a dark speech. In the North of 
 Ireland that idiom may have been extinct in the time of 
 Adamnan ; and Columba in the sixth century cannot have 
 known it, which, nevertheless, does not prove that there 
 were no peasants who spoke it there in his time. How- 
 ever that may be, Adamnan mentions a name into which 
 ond, a stone, possibly enters ; to wit, that of Ondemone, 
 a place where the Irish Picts were beaten by the Ultonians 
 in the year 563 ; it seems to have been near the Bann, 
 between Lough Neagh and the mouth of that river." It 
 is possible that the earliest known title of this country, 
 Albion, may belong to this tongue. This title is found 
 in the story of the labours of Hercules, who, after he had 
 secured the cows of Geryon, came from Spain to Liguria, 
 where he was attacked by two giants, whom he killed 
 before proceeding to Italy. According to the first-century 
 geographer, Pomponius Mela, these giants were Albiona 
 and Bergyon — i.e.^ Albion and Iberion, or England and 
 Ireland, the position of the two islands in the sea being 
 symbolised in the story by its making them the sons of 
 Neptune.
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 65 
 
 There is no lack of osteological remains of the NeoHthic 
 people from which to form an opinion of their physical 
 characteristics. These remains occur with the greatest fre- 
 quency in the south-west district and particularly in Wilts and 
 Cjloucestershire, occupied by the Dobuni or Silures at the 
 commencement of history. Dr. Garson, who has examined 
 many of their skeletons, says that their skulls were large 
 and well-formed, being long and proportionately narrow and 
 of an oval shape — that is, they were dolichocephalic. The 
 ridges over the orbits and the central part of the forehead, 
 both so prominent in the skulls of the earlier race, were 
 moderately or even feebly developed. Their foreheads were 
 well formed, narrow and curved gracefully to the occiput, 
 which was full and rounded. There was no tendency to 
 prognathism or forward projection of the lower part of the 
 face, such as is seen in negroes. The jaws were small and 
 fine, and the whole facial expression must have been mild. 
 The age of the persons to whom they belong averages, 
 according to Thurnam, forty-five years, which looks as if the 
 duration of life was not very long at that period. Their 
 stature was short, averaging, according to Dr. Thurnam, 
 5 feet 6i inches, though Dr. Garson thinks that this 
 average was too high. Their bones were slender, often with 
 a well-marked ridge on the back of the thigh-bone and a 
 flattened shin-bone, which would show that the Neolithic 
 people led an active life, probably as hunters. Tacitus, in 
 speaking of the characters of the inhabitants of Britain, says 
 of the Silures, whom we may take to represent the Neolithic 
 folk : " The high complexion of the Silures, their usually 
 curly hair, and the fact that Spain is the opposite shore to 
 them, are evidences that Iberians at some earlier time crossed 
 over and occupied these parts." 
 
 This account of the Neolithic people may fitly be con- 
 cluded by fiuoting the admirable picture which Professor 
 Boyd Dawkins, putting together facts, many of which have 
 
 li
 
 66 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 been elucidated by himself, has drawn of the civilisation of 
 the period : 
 
 " If we could in imagination take our stand on the summit 
 of a hill commanding an extensive view, in almost any part 
 of Great Britain or Ireland in the Neolithic period, we 
 should look upon a landscape somewhat of this kind. Thin 
 lines of smoke rising from among the trees of the dense 
 virgin forest at our feet would mark the position of the 
 Neolithic homesteads, and of the neighbouring stockaded 
 camp which afforded refuge in time of need ; while here 
 and there a gleam of gold would show the small patch of 
 ripening wheat. 
 
 ' " We enter a track in the forest, and thread our way to 
 one of the clusters of homesteads, passing herds of goats 
 and flocks of horned sheep, or disturbing a troop of horses 
 or small short-horned oxen, or stumbling upon a swineherd 
 tending the hogs in their search after roots. We should 
 probably have to defend ourselves against the attack of 
 some of the large dogs, used as guardians of the flock against 
 bears, wolves and foxes, and for hunting the wild animals. 
 At last, on emerging into the clearing, we should see a little 
 plot of flax or small-eared wheat, and near the homestead 
 the inhabitants, some clad in linen and others in skins, and 
 ornamented with necklaces and pendants of stone, bone or 
 pottery, carrying on their daily occupations. Some are 
 cutting wood with stone axes with a wonderfully sharp edge, 
 fixed in wooden handles, with stone adzes or gouges, or with 
 little saws, composed of carefully notched pieces of flint 
 about three or four inches long, splitting it with stone wedges, 
 scraping it with flint flakes. Some are at work preparing 
 handles for the spears, shafts for the arrows, and wood for 
 the bows, or for the broad paddles used for propelling the 
 canoes. Others are busy grinding and sharpening the 
 various stone tools, scraping skins with implements ground 
 to a circular edge, or carving various implements out of
 
 NEOLITHIC MAN 67 
 
 bone and antler with sharp splinters of flint, while the 
 women are preparing the meal with pestles and mortars and 
 grain rubbers and cooking it on the fire, generally outside 
 the house, or spinning thread with spindle or distaff, or 
 weaving it with a rude loom. We might also have seen 
 them at work at the moulding of rude cups and vessels out 
 of clay which had been carefully prepared. The Neolithic 
 farmers used for food the produce of their flocks and herds, 
 and they appear to have eaten all their domestic animals, 
 including the horse and the dog; the latter animal, however, 
 probably only under the pressure of famine. 
 
 " They also had abundance of game out of the forest,' but 
 it was probably rather an occasional supply, and did not 
 furnish them with their main subsistence. The roe and the 
 slag, probably also the elk and the reindeer, and in Ireland, 
 the Irish elk, provided them with venison ; and the dis- 
 covery of the urus in a refuse-heap at Cissbury, proves that 
 the wild ox was still living in the forests, and was some- 
 times a victim to the Neolithic hunter. They also ate 
 hares, wild boars and beavers."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 The Aryan Race — Goidels and Brythons — Early Accounts 
 of Britain — Lake Dwellings — Crannogs — The Glastonbury 
 Lake Village — Pile Dwellings — Bronze Celts— Swords — 
 Personal Ornaments— Casting of Bronze— Pottery — Cloth- 
 ing. 
 
 The Celtic immigrants, whether belonging to the earlier 
 Goidelic, or to the later Brythonic wing, were members 
 of the Aryan race, a race which had attained to a consider- 
 able pitch of civilisation before the arrival of either division 
 on these shores. From an examination of the words which 
 seem to have belonged to the original tongue, we learn that 
 the undivided Aryan race reckoned its year by months 
 determined by the phases of the moon, which they styled 
 the measurer, that they had domesticated animals, could 
 count up to one hundred, and had a religion, a large part 
 of which was a profound reverence for the hearth as the 
 altar and shrine of ancestral deities. Traces of this reverence 
 are to be met with even in these days, especially in Scotland 
 and Ireland, where to " trample the cinders " is one of the 
 worst insults which can be offered to a household. It is in 
 the customs connected with the initiation of the new-born 
 child into the family circle, however, that perhaps the most 
 striking relics of this reverence have been found in recent 
 times. Pennant narrates that in the Highlands of Scotland 
 he saw at christening-feasts the father place a basket of 
 food across the fire and hand the child three times over the
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 69 
 
 food and the flames. Another striking custom, also met 
 with in the Highlands of Scotland, and described by Light- 
 foot, is when, after the birth of the child, the nurse takes a 
 green stick of ash, one end of which she puts in the fire, 
 and while it is burning receives in a spoon the sap that oozes 
 from the other, which she administers to the child as its 
 first food. "Some thousands of years ago," says Kelly* in 
 his " Indo-European Folk-lore," commenting upon this 
 custom, " the ancestors of this Highland nurse had known 
 the fraxinus ornus in Arya, and now their descendant, 
 imitating their practice in the cold North, but totally ignorant 
 of its true meaning, puts the nauseous sap of her native ash 
 into the mouth of her hapless charge." It was perhaps on 
 account of their reverence for the hearth that they regarded 
 the eating of uncooked meat with such scorn that the term 
 eaters of uncooked meat, or some similar phrase, is applied 
 in many of the derivative languages to barbarous men. 
 
 But perhaps the most important piece of knowledge which 
 they brought with them to this country was that of the 
 working of metal in the shape of bronze, the period, at least 
 the earlier part of it to which they belonged, having from 
 that circumstance received the name of the Bronze ^Vge. 
 
 As has already been mentioned, the Celtic peoples 
 came over to this country in two bands, separated from 
 one another by several centuries. The Goidels, who 
 were the first to arrive, to a greater or lesser extent 
 amalgamated with the Ivernians, whom they found in 
 possession, and seem to have in part at least assimilated 
 their Druidism, a question which will have to be more 
 fully dealt with on a future page. As to the Brythons, 
 Professor Rhys remarks that : " The name Brittones is that 
 which all the Celts who have spoken a Brythonic tongue in 
 later times own in common ; among the Kymry it becomes 
 
 * In reference to this passage, it must be remembered that Kelly 
 fully held the Central- Asian view of the Aryan origin.
 
 70 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Brython, which is one of the names they still give them- 
 selves, and from which they derive the word Brythoneg, one 
 of their names for the Welsh language. This, in old Cornish, 
 was Brethonec, and meant the Brythonic dialect of Wales 
 and Cornwall, after the Goidelic had been chased away. In 
 Breton the word assumes the form Brezonek, and means the 
 Brythonic tongue spoken in lesser Britain or Brittany. So," 
 he continues, " when one wants to speak collectively of this 
 linguistic group of Celts from the Clyde to the neighbour- 
 hood of the Loire, confusion is best avoided by calling them 
 by some such names as Brythons and Brythonic, leaving the 
 words Britain, British and Britannic for other uses, including 
 amongst them the exigencies of the Englishman who, in his 
 more playful moods, condescends to call himself a Briton." 
 The name Brythonic, which the race appears to have 
 adopted before reaching this island, means a cloth-clad 
 people, in contradistinction to a people dressed in skins, 
 some continental tribe being doubtless indicated who used 
 the hides of beasts for their clothing. When these immi- 
 grants reached this country, it cannot have been a very 
 attractive spot for occupation, covered as it was with vast 
 forests and marshes, overhung with constant fogs and 
 deluged with frequent rains. During their occupancy, in 
 the fourth century before Christ, we have indeed direct 
 evidence of the condition of the country, for at that period 
 an energetic syndicate of merchants of Massilia, the modern 
 Marseilles, being anxious to extend their trading relations, 
 fitted out an expedition, which they placed in charge of a 
 learned Greek mathematician, Pytheas by name, a contem- 
 porary of Aristotle and Alexander the Great. He twice 
 visited these shores, and from his observations we learn that 
 he was struck by the contrast which the climate of Britain 
 presented when compared with that of the South of Europe, 
 whence he came. " The natives," he says, " collect the 
 sheaves in great barns, and thrash out the corn there, be-
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 71 
 
 cause they have so little sunshine that our open thrashing- 
 places would be of little use in that land of clouds and 
 rain." He also tells us that the inhabitants made a drink 
 " by mixing wheat and honey," in which statement he 
 doubtless alludes to mead or metheglin, a compound still 
 prepared in some parts of the country. It is probable that 
 he was also the first to mention the British beer, which was 
 known to the Greek physicians by a Celtic term, curmi, now 
 cuirm in Irish and avrw in Welsh, a drink against which 
 they warned their patients as one " producing pain in the 
 head and injury to the nerves." But the authority for this 
 statement may have been another Greek explorer, Posi- 
 donius, who had been a fellow student with Cicero at 
 Rhodes, and who visited this country two centuries later 
 than Pytheas. At any rate, he is supposed to have been 
 the person from whom Diodorus Siculus learnt that the 
 inhabitants of Britain lived in mean dwellings, made for the 
 most part of reeds and wood, and that their harvests con- 
 sisted in cutting off the ears of corn and storing them in 
 underground pits, from which they fetched each day those 
 which had been longest in store to be prepared for food. 
 
 In speaking of the mean dwellings of wood or reeds, he 
 was probably alluding to the huts of wattle and daub which 
 have been found in considerable numbers in the lake 
 dwellings of the period. 
 
 Lake dwellings are of two kinds, the crannog and the 
 pile building, and it will now be necessary to say something 
 about either variety. But first it may be remarked that, 
 though different in construf;tion, the idea was the same in 
 each case, namely, to construct a habitation surrounded by 
 water, which might serve as an effectual barrier against the 
 depredations of wild beasts or of human enemies. The 
 same idea precisely led the military architects of a later date 
 to construct moats around their mounds or castles, only in 
 the latter case the lake was constructed around the island,
 
 72 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 whilst in the former the artificial island was formed in the 
 pre-existent lake. The Irish crannog seems to have been 
 inhabited to what may be called a recent period, for in 1567 
 
 -a 
 o 
 
 B 
 o 
 
 fa 
 
 c 
 
 •r CL, 
 
 c 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 1) 
 
 
 we find that " one Thomas Phettiplace, in his answer to an 
 inquiry from the Government as to what castles or forts 
 O'Neil hath, and of what strength they be, states : 'For castles,
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 73 
 
 I think it be not unknown to your honours, he trustcth no 
 point thereunto for his safety, as appeareth by the raising of 
 the strongest castles of all his countreys, and that fortification 
 which he only dependcth upon is in sartin ffresh water loghes 
 in his country, which from the sea there come neither ship 
 nor boat to approach them ; it is thought that there in the 
 said fortified islands lyeth all his plate, which is much, and 
 money, prisoners and gages ; which islands hath in wars 
 to fore been attempted, and now of late again by the Lord 
 Deputy there, Sir Harry vSidney, which, for want of means 
 for safe conducts upon the water, it hath not prevailed.'" 
 
 And again in 1603, it is stated in the " Annals of the Four 
 Masters," that Hugh Boy O'Donnell, having been wounded, 
 "was sent to crannog-na-n-Duini, in Ross Guill, in the 
 Tuaihas. to be healed." 
 
 In Scotland also they were inhabited to a late date, for 
 in some instructions to "Andro bischop of the Yllis " and 
 others in 1608 we read : "That the haill houssis of defence 
 strongholdis and cranokis in the Yllis perteining to thame 
 and their foirsaidis sal be delyverit to his Maiestie and sic as 
 his Heynes sail appoint to ressave the same to be vsit at 
 his Maiesty's pleasour.' Another crannog in the loch of 
 Forfar, partly natural and partly artificial, bears the name 
 of St. Margaret, the queen of Malcolm Canmore, who died 
 in 1097. A record of 1508 states that the artificial barrier 
 of the isle had been repaired in that year. 
 
 It will be well to learn something about the structure of 
 the crannogs of the countries mentioned above before 
 turning our attention to an luiglish example, and for this 
 purpose the accounts of some of those who have made these 
 structures a subject of special investigation, may be quoted. 
 Sir William Wilde, writing about Irish crannogs, says, " that 
 they were not, strictly speaking, artificial islands, but cluans, 
 small islets, or shallows of clay or marl, in those lakes 
 which were probably dry in 'summer lime, but submerged
 
 74 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 in winter. These were enlarged and fortified by piles of 
 oaken timber, and in some cases by stonework. A few 
 were approached by moles or causeways, but, generally 
 speaking, they were completely insulated and only ac- 
 cessible by boat; and it is notable that in almost every 
 instance an ancient canoe was discovered in connection 
 with the crannoge. Being thus insulated they afforded 
 secure places of retreat from the attacks of enemies, or 
 were the fastnesses of predatory chiefs or robbers, to which 
 might be conveyed the booty of a marauding excursion, or 
 the product of a cattle raid." On the same subject, Mr. 
 Wakeman, a well-known Irish archccologist, writes : " The 
 
 Fig. 22.— Section of Crannog in Ardakillen Lough. Co. Roscom- 
 mon (Ireland). (From Wood-Martin's " Pagan Ireland. ") 
 
 Irish crannog, great or small, was simply an island, eitaer 
 altogether or in part artificial, strongly staked with piles of 
 oak, pine, yew, alder, or other timber, encompassed by 
 rows of pahsading (the bases of which now usually remain), 
 behind which the occupiers of the hold might defend them- 
 selves with advantage against assailants. Within the 
 enclosure were usually one or more log-houses which no 
 doubt afforded shelter to the dwellers during the night- 
 time, or whenever the state of the weather necessitated a 
 retreat under cover." In Scotland their structure was 
 similar to that just described, and the method of their erec- 
 tion has been studied in that country by Dr. Munro, who 
 points out that it was a task of no small difficulty to
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 75 
 
 construct, in perhaps ten feet of water, with very likely a 
 treacherous bottom beneath it, a firm compact artificial 
 island, possibly with a circular area of as much as loo feet. 
 
 Fig. 23.— a completely drained Lake-Pei at Cloneygonnell, 
 Co. Cavan (Ireland), with site of Crannog in foreground. 
 (From Wood-Martin's "Pagan Ireland.") 
 
 y 
 
 
 ^.2> 
 
 •'•.V 
 
 ^ 2 ? 
 
 MARS H 
 
 R A I U W A Y 
 
 -4 
 
 # 
 
 
 
 Fir;. 24.— General Plan of the LakoBed shown in l-ig. 23. with 
 bites of plateaux. U'roni the same book.)
 
 76 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 He believes that the work was thus carried out: (i) Im- 
 mediately over the chosen site a circular raft of trunks of 
 trees, laid above branches and brushwood, was formed, 
 and above it additional layers of logs, together with stones, 
 gravel, &c., were heaped up till the whole mass grounded. 
 (2) As this process went on, upright piles, made of oak, 
 and of the required length, were inserted into prepared 
 holes in the structure, and probably also a few were 
 inserted into the bed of the lake. (3) The rough logs 
 forming the horizontal layers were made of various kinds of 
 wood, generally birch, it being the most abundant. These 
 were occasionally pinned together by thick oak pegs, and 
 here and there at various levels oak beams mortised into 
 one another stretched across the substance of the island, 
 and joined the surrounding piles. (4) When a sufficient 
 height above the water line was attained, a prepared 
 pavement of oak beams was constructed, and mortised 
 beams were laid over the tops of the encircling piles 
 which bound them firmly together as already described. 
 The margin of the island was also slantingly shaped by 
 an intricate arrangement of beams and stones, constituting 
 in some cases a well-formed breakwater. (5) When the 
 skeleton of the island was thus finished, probably turf would 
 be laid over its margin where the pointed piles protruded, and 
 a superficial barrier of hurdles, or some such fence, erected 
 close to the edge of the water. (6) Frequently a wooden 
 gangway, probably submerged, stretched to the shore, by 
 means of which secret access to the crannog could be 
 obtained without the use of a canoe. The crannogs dis- 
 covered up to now in England are much fewer in number 
 than those of the other parts of the kingdom, but whether 
 for size or for importance of the discoveries made therein, 
 none of them surpasses the lake-village near Glastonbury, 
 which has been for some years undergoing investigation 
 under the supervision of Mr. BuUeid. Although the finds
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 77 
 
 in this village point to its having been inhabited during the 
 Roman occuixation, in its character it belongs strictly to 
 the period with which we are now concerned. This village 
 was constructed on the edge of a mere now converted into 
 a peat moor, but when in occupation would have been pro- 
 tected from attack by the sheet of water which lay between 
 it and (Jlastonbury, which is one mile distant. It consisted 
 of a cluster of round huts which were erected upon artificial 
 platforms of clay and timber and surrounded by a stockade. 
 Each hut was from 12 to 14 feet in diameter, and was con- 
 structed of what is known as wattle and daub, that is to say, 
 a kind of wicker-work, smeared over with clay, and each 
 had a wooden door about 3 feet high. In tlie centre of 
 each floor was a stone hearth for a fire, and outside each 
 door a few slabs of lias formed a rough platform in front of 
 the wooden threshold. The stockade around the village 
 was composed of a palisading of piles from 3 to 9 inches in 
 diameter, and from 9 to 11 feet high, which were kept 
 together by a kind of rough hurdle-work. Canoes of oak 
 have been discovered by which the inhabitants gained access 
 to the mainland. It may be well to anticipate to some 
 extent what will hereafter be said of the implements of the 
 Bronze period, and to give some account of what has been 
 found in this village, it being premised that whilst it 
 belonged to the people of the Bronze age, it belonged to 
 them at a time when, through the Roman influence, they 
 had learnt the use of iron and perhaps of other things not 
 known during what was strictly the Bronze age. Various 
 implements of iron, both civil and military, have been found, 
 and the presence of some of these in an unfinished condi- 
 tion, as well as of lumps of scoriae, show that the forges 
 existed in the village itself. Glass slag has also been found, 
 which seems to show that the inhabitants manufactured the 
 beads of that material met with amongst their remains. 
 They worked in bronze, and a fine bowl, fibular, pins, and
 
 78 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 other articles testify to their skill in this direction. They 
 smelted lead ore, doubtless obtained from the neighbouring 
 Mendips, and made from it spindle-whorls and weights for 
 their fishing-nets. They made pottery partly by the aid of 
 the wheel and partly — in a rader manner— by hand, and 
 decorated it with designs of various kinds. They spun flax 
 and used the loom for weaving. Perhaps that which 
 excites the greatest admiration is the remarkable skill which 
 they showed in carpentry, beams well squared and holed, 
 wheels, ladders, doors, buckets, dishes and bowls, many 
 of them adorned with incised patterns of a flamboyant 
 character, remaining as evidences of their capabihties in 
 this direction. Besides ornamenting their persons with 
 beads, rings and pins, they seem to have painted themselves 
 with red ochre and charcoal mixed with grease. Some of 
 the human remains which have been found outside the 
 stockade are cut and broken, and some of the skulls, 
 including one of a woman, have been cut off the body and 
 stuck upon the head of a spear, to be placed probably on 
 'the stockade, just as the heads of criminals were, up to a 
 recent date, stuck upon the gates of cities or over bridges. 
 The inhabitants of the village cultivated wheat on the main- 
 land adjacent, and had flocks and herds ; they were also pro- 
 vided with large dogs. They killed for their food the red 
 deer and the roe, the beaver and the otter, as well as wild 
 geese, swans, ducks and pelicans. Such was the nature of 
 a British lake-settlement, and such the mode of Hfe of its 
 inhabitants in the third and fourth centuries after Christ. 
 The other form of lake-village, which has been met with 
 especially in the Swiss lakes, was built in a totally different 
 manner. Long piles were driven into the bed of the lake, 
 and when a sufficient number of these were in position a 
 platform was constructed upjn them, on which were even- 
 tually raised the huts in which the inhabitants dwelt. The 
 jest which Erasmus made in reference to the citizens of
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 79 
 
 Amsterdam, that he knew a city where people lived on the 
 tops of trees, might well have been applied to the inhabi- 
 tants of these villages. Such settlements still exist in some 
 parts of the world, and the description which Herodotus 
 gave of one belonging, in his day, to the Pseonians, not 
 merely shows what such constructions were like, but affords 
 a clue as to the manner in which they were built and 
 extended to meet the growing needs of the community. 
 " Their dwellings," he says, " are contrived after this man- 
 ner : planks fitted on lofty piles arc placed in t>e middle of 
 the lake, with a narrow entrance from the mainland by a 
 single bridge. These piles, that support the planks, all the 
 citizens anciently placed there at the public charge ; but 
 afterwards they established a law to the following effect : 
 whenever a man marries, for each wife he sinks three piles, 
 bringing wood from a mountain called Orbelus ; but every 
 man has several wives. They live in the following manner : 
 every man has a hut on the planks, in which he dwells, with 
 a trap-door closely fitted in the planks, and leading down to 
 the lake. They tie the young children with a cord round 
 the foot, fearing lest they should fall into the lake beneath. 
 To their horses and beasts of burden they give fish for 
 fodder, of which there is such abundance, that when a man 
 has opened his trap-door, he lets down an empty basket by 
 a cord into the lake, and, after waiting a short time, draws 
 it up full of fish." 
 
 This description of the dwelling-places particularly asso- 
 ciated with the people of the Bronze period has necessitated 
 some digression into the life at another and later date, and 
 in other countries, but we must now return to the time 
 before the Celtic inhabitants of the country had been 
 affected by Roman influence and see what light the remains 
 in our possession throw upon the state of civilLsalion of that 
 period. The most characteristic weapons and other imple- 
 ments of this age are composed of the metal bronze, for
 
 8o LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 although it is possible that there may have been a time 
 when copper was used in a pure state, such period must 
 have been of short duration, for the lesson was soon learnt 
 that the addition of a small quantity of tin produced a 
 more serviceable and harder material for the purposes for 
 which it was required. It must not, however, be supposed 
 that the manufacture of stone weapons came to a sudden 
 and complete end with the introduction of bronze. On the 
 contrary, we know, as an historical fact, tliat the English 
 forces, at the battle of Senlac, used stone mauls as well as 
 other weapons. Again, the extreme rarity of arrow-heads 
 made of bronze leads us to conclude that stone was still 
 used for this purpose, even during the Bronze period, and 
 this perhaps because that metal was too precious to be sub- 
 jected to the risk of loss which must necessarily attach to 
 such a weapon as an arrow-head. 
 
 Just as each of the Stone periods had its characteristic 
 axe or celt, so also has the Bronze age, though the weapon 
 varies more in its shape on account of the greater possibili- 
 ties opened up to the craftsman by the nature of the 
 material in which he worked, a material which was cast 
 and not hewn. But in its essential features, and this 
 particularly in the case of those celts which are supposed to 
 be the earliest in date, it was very similar in shape to the 
 stone celt of the polished period. Such early implements 
 form the first class, and are called flat celts, and some of 
 these are ornamented on their faces with patterns such as 
 lines, chevrons and herring bones produced by punches or 
 gravers. A similar form of ornamentation is found in some 
 instances on the second variety, ox flanged q.€a.?,, the edges of 
 which have projecting ledges, either because they have been 
 so cast originally, or because, after having been cast flat, the 
 edges have been hammered up so as to form flanges. The 
 third type, or winged celt, is in its simplest form an ex 
 aggeration of the flanged variety, the flanges being shorter,
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 8i 
 
 Fig. 25. — Flat Bronze Celt found in a Barrow at Butterwick, 
 Yorks, with side view and section. (Sir John Evans. ) 
 
 
 Fig. 26.— Flanged F.ronze Celt found in Dorsetshire. (Sir John 
 Evans.) The sides are decorated with a fluted chevron 
 pattern, and the faces with indented herring-bone and chevron 
 patterns, 
 
 F
 
 82 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 but much deeper. Sometimes there is a transverse stop- 
 ridge across the blade to prevent its slipping too deeply into 
 its haft, and sometimes, to assist towards the same end, that 
 part of the blade which is between the flanges and below 
 the stop-ridge is thinner than the rest. Thus a kind of 
 groove is formed on each side into which the handle fitted. 
 In some cases the edges of the flanges were hammered over 
 so as to form a kind of socket, like that often used at the 
 present day for iron implements, such as rakes and hoes. 
 
 Fig. 27. — Looped Palstave found at Brassington, Derbyshire. 
 (.'Sir John Evans. ) 
 
 This variety led up to the last and most perfect form ot 
 socketed celts, in which, as Sir John Evans puts it, the 
 haft was embedded in the blade, instead of, as in the other 
 cases, the blade being embedded in the haft. This form 
 marks an advAnce in casting, as a more perfect mould must 
 have been employed, with a core for the socket and 
 special arrangements for the ring or loop, which was often 
 placed at the side of the blade, so that the head might be 
 more securely fastened to the haft. In this variety orna- 
 mentation in the shape of reedings, pellets, circles and
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 S3 
 
 other devices is sometimes met with, the patterns being 
 raised and produced in the casting and not by the subse- 
 quent use of tools. xVs to the handling of these celts, the 
 
 Fig. 28. — Socketed and Ringed Celt with raised oinaiiient, found 
 at Kingston, Surrey. (Sir John Evans.) 
 
 simpler forms may have been attached to their hafts mucli 
 as tlie stone celts were to theirs, but the others would 
 require a crooked helve if they were to be used as a.\cs. 
 One such celt with its handle was found in Ireland, in 
 which the helve consisted of a branch with a second
 
 84 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 portion sticking out from it nearly at right angles, to which 
 the head was attached. Other implements of the same 
 
 u5 '5 i2 
 
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 3 
 
 w 
 
 ^'- - 
 
 -^% 
 
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 ^ -2 •*- 
 
 rt ?J c 
 
 £ ^ 
 
 
 C ,, ^ 
 
 •a rt 
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 J -I 
 
 •a t* 
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 X I 
 
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 0) 
 
 c 
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 pa — 
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 ^ W7 
 
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 metal which have come down to us are chisels, gouges, 
 hammers, punches, awls, tongs, socketed and tanged 
 knives, daggers, razors and sickles. Special mention must
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 85 
 
 be made of two classes of weapons, swords and lance- 
 heads. The former are leaf-shaped and their " total 
 length is generally about 24 inches, though sometimes 
 not more than 16 inches, but they are occasionally as long 
 as 30 inches, or even more. The blades are in most cases 
 uniformly rounded, but with the part next the edge slightly 
 drawn down so as to form a shallow fluting. In some 
 instances, however, there is a more or less bold rounded 
 central rib, or else projecting ridges running along the 
 greater part of the blade near the edges. They differ 
 considerably in the form of the plate for the hilt, and in 
 the number and arrangement of the rivets by which the 
 covering material was attached. This latter usually con- 
 sisted of plates of horn, bone or wood, riveted on each side 
 of the hilt plate. In rare instances the outer part of the 
 hilt was of bronze." (Evans.) Sometimes, though rarely, a 
 pommel has been cast on to the handle, and occasionally 
 a considerable part of the scabbard was made of the same 
 material as the blade, though probably, for the most part, 
 the sheaths were of leather or wood. 
 
 The spear-heads found in this island are of the socketed 
 variety, great care and skill having been bestowed on thj 
 coring. They may be divided into the following classes : 
 (i) The simple leaf-shaped, either long and narrow, or 
 broad, with holes in the socket through which to pass 
 the rivets to fasten them to the shaft. (2) The looped, 
 with eyes on each side of the socket below and on 
 the same plane with the blade. These are generally 
 of the long, narrow, straight-edged kind. (3) Those 
 with loops in the angles between the edge of the blade 
 and the socket. (4) Those with side apertures and per- 
 forations through the blade. (5) Those in which the base 
 of each side of the blade projects at right angles to the 
 socket, or is prolonged downwards so as to form barbs. 
 Besides these weapons of offence, pieces of defensive armour.
 
 86 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 in the shape of sliields, bucklers and hehnets, have been 
 "found, for a full description of which the reader is referred 
 to the work of Sir John Evans on "Ancient Bronze 
 
 Fig. 30.— Bronze P.ns found in Ireland. (Sir John Evans.) One 
 has a loop at the side, the other has a turned-over head of the 
 type described in the text. 
 
 Weapons of Great Britain," a work which must form the 
 basis of all study of this subject. 
 
 Amongst articles of personal adornment may be men- 
 tioned pins, either for fastening the clothes or for the hair.
 
 THE HRONZE PERIOD 87 
 
 which have been found in great quantities and of very 
 various patterns, the head being sometimes turned over 
 so as to be visible when stuck in thi; clothes, just as 
 that of a scarf-pin is when placed in a tie. Others have 
 rings or loops attached to them and others again are 
 
 Fig. 31.— Torque found at Wedmore, Somerset. 
 (Sir John Evans ) 
 
 ornamented with patterns of various kinds. To this 
 period also belong the torques, or twisted necklets, 
 bracelets, finger and ear rings, sometimes of gold, some- 
 times of bronze, which have been found in various parts of 
 these islands. The torque seems to have been a favourite 
 ornament of the (Jeliic race; it "lakes its name from the
 
 88 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Latin to?-(j2ies, which again is derived a toi-quendo. This 
 word torques was applied to a twisted collar of gold or 
 other metal worn around the neck. Among the ancient 
 Gauls gold torques appear to have been abundant, and to 
 have formed an important part of the spoils acquired from 
 them by their Roman conquerors. About 223 B.C., when 
 
 Fig. 32. — Bronze Caldron found in Carlinwark Loch, Kirkcud- 
 brightshire. (Scot. Ant. Mus.) It is composed of thin plates 
 of bronze riveted together. 
 
 Flaminius Nepos gained his victory over the Gauls on the 
 Addua, it is related that instead of the Gauls dedicating, as 
 they had intended, a torque made from the spoils of tne 
 Roman soldiers to their god of war, Flaminius erected to 
 Jupiter a golden trophy made from the Gaulish torques. 
 The name of the Torquati, a family of the Manila gens, 
 was derived from their ancestor, T. Manlius, having, in b.c. 
 361, slain a gigantic Gaul in single combat, whose torque he
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 89 
 
 took from his dead liody after cutting' off the head, and 
 placed it around his own neck." (Evans.) Some of these 
 torques are of great size, one in the possession of the Dlike 
 of ^^'cstminster, which was found near Holywell in Flint- 
 shire, is of gold, measures 44 inches in circumference and 
 weighs 28 ounces. 
 
 Vessels, cups and caldrons of gold and bronze were made 
 
 Fig. 33. — Stone Mould for casting flat Bronze Axes and Knife, 
 found in Ireland. (Scot. Ant. Mus.) 
 
 at this period, the last mentioned being sometimes formed 
 of thin plates of bronze riveted together, and having rings 
 or lugs by which they could be lifted. The objects in 
 bronze appear to have been cast in the following ways, as 
 summarised by Sir John Evans: (1) In a single mould 
 formed of loam, sand, stone, or metal, the upper surface of 
 the casting exhibiting the flat surface of a molten metal, 
 which was left open to the air. In the case of loam or sand 
 castings a pattern or model would be u.sed, which might li<- 
 an object already in use, or made of the desired fdrin m
 
 90 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 wood or other soft substance. Several specimens of stone 
 moulds for the casting of celts or spear-heads have been 
 discovered. (2) In double moulds of similar materials. 
 The castings produced in this manner, when in an un- 
 finished condition, show the joints of the moulds. When 
 sand was employed a frame or flask of some kind must have 
 been used to retain the material in place when the upper 
 half of the mould was lifted off the pattern. The loam 
 moulds were probably burnt hard before being used. In 
 many cases cores for producing hollows in the castings were 
 employed in conjunction with these moulds. Double moulds 
 have also been found for the casting of celts. (3) In what 
 may be termed solid moulds. For this process the model 
 was made of wax, wood, or some combustible material, 
 which was encased in a mass of loam, possibly mixed with 
 cow-dung or vegetable matter, which on exposure to heat 
 left the loam or clay in a porous condition. This exposure 
 to fire also burnt out the wax or wood model and left a 
 cavity for the reception of the metal, which was probably 
 poured in while the mould was still hot. 
 
 The pottery of the period, consisting of urns for the ashes 
 of the dead after cremation, of pots for cooking, drinking 
 vessels, &c., seems to have been made by hand, and was 
 ornamented with simple patterns formed by dots and straight 
 lines. Indeed the art of the period is very simple in its 
 character, being limited to geometrical designs, such as 
 circles, triangles, crosses, chevrons, and the like. 
 
 The clothing was of linen and wool, and portions of 
 the apparatus for spinning and weaving both of these 
 materials have been discovered. Naturally, perishable 
 fabrics such as these are but seldom found, but in the 
 Scale-house barrow at Rylstone, the body had been 
 covered from head to foot in cloth before being placed 
 in the hollow oak tree which served for a cofifin. Further, 
 a wooden colKin was found in a tumulus in Jutland, con-
 
 THE BRONZE PI-RIOD 
 
 9^ 
 
 taming a body, the clothing of which had been preserved 
 by the presence of certain salts in the water. The body 
 had been wrapped in a coarse woollen cloak which was 
 
 Fig. 34. — Pottery from a Bronze Age Cemetery in Scotland. 
 (Scot. Ant. Mus.) 
 
 almost semicircular and hollowed out at the neck. On its 
 inner side were left hanging a great number of short woollen 
 threads, which gave it somewhat the appearance of plush. 
 A box beside the body contained, amongst other articles, a 
 woollen cap, and there were also in the coffin two woollen
 
 92 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 shawls, of a square shape and with long fringes. A shirt, 
 also of wool, cut out a little at tlie neck and with a long 
 projecting tongue at one of the upper angles, had been 
 fastened round the body by a long woollen band which went 
 twice round the waist and hung down in front. Two woollen 
 leggings and traces of leather, probably representing the 
 remains of the boots, complete the equipment of this early 
 believer in Jager's all-wool theory of clothing. 
 
 The people of the era appear to have arranged their hair 
 in a large shock or pyramid, and if the length of the hairpins, 
 some of which measure twenty inches, is to be taken as a 
 criterion, this must at times have attained a huge size. 
 Like some savage races of to-day who treat their hair in a 
 similar manner, they used, at least in Switzerland, where 
 pottery head-rests of a crescentic shape have been found, to 
 support their necks alone and not their heads whilst sleeping, 
 for fear of disarranging a head of hair which must have 
 given them considerable trouble to arrange. 
 
 Besides the metal ornaments mentioned previously, they 
 decorated their persons with necklaces of stone, bone, and 
 glass, as well as of amber.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BRONZE FERIOD— continued 
 
 Camps — Maiden Castle — Yarnbury — Caer Caradoc — 
 Bridges — Stonehenge — Avebury — The RoUright Stones — 
 Folk-lore — Menihirion — Round Barrows— Celtic Religion — 
 Godiva's Ride — Physical Characteristics —Social Life. 
 
 Having in the previous chapter considered some of the 
 smaller relics of the Bronze age, there remain for investiga- 
 tion some of the larger of their works, such as camps, 
 barrows, and megahthic remains. 
 
 Most hilly parts of England afford examples of the kind 
 of earthwork known as a camp, a form of fortification 
 which consists of a circular bank of earth, called a vallum, 
 enclosing an area of variable size, and having on its outer 
 aspect a ditch called the fosse. 
 
 Sometimes there are two or three concentric series of 
 ramparts and ditches in the case of the larger and better 
 fortified camps. Though the space which is enclosed is 
 nearly always of a more or less rounded shape, it would be 
 a mistake to suppose that all British camps are circular. 
 Such no doubt is the case where the camp is placed on a 
 flat surface or where the contour of the hill favours that 
 shape, but where an oval or other figure is more in con- 
 formity with the top of the hill which had to be fortified, a 
 camp of the corresponding contour has been constructed. 
 Again, m some cases, as at the great camp of Croft Ambrey, 
 near Ludlow, the artificial ramparts are wanting on one side,
 
 94 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 but where this is the case it will be found that it is because 
 the natural declivity of the hill is so great at that part as to 
 render other defences unnecessary. It may be well here to 
 mention that the quadrilateral camps also met with through- 
 out the country, though not with such frequency as the 
 other variety, are of Roman origin, and will be more fully 
 dealt with at a later part of this work. Sometimes a camp 
 of each kind is to be found in the same neighbourhood, as 
 on the hill above Dunster in Somersetshire, where a Roman 
 camp is placed within a few hundred yards of one of the 
 circular fortifications of the Britons. The fosse and vallum 
 were traversed at one or more points by openings, often 
 guarded by advanced earthworks, and probably closed in 
 times of war with masses of timber. 
 
 But a description of a few examples will enable the 
 reader to form a better idea of what an ancient British camp 
 was like. Maiden Castle was the British predecessor of the 
 Roman Durnovaria, now the Dorsetshire Dorchester, close 
 to which it stands. It has been identified with great pro- 
 bability with the city called Dunium by Ptolemy. The 
 name appears to be derived from Celtic words meaning the 
 Hill of Strength, a title which might well be applied to one 
 of the most extensive and most strongly fortified earthworks 
 in England. It occupies the flat summit of a natural hill, 
 is looo yards long and 500 wide, and is surrounded by 
 double, and in part by triple, ditches and ramparts, the 
 latter being exceedingly steep and even now sixty feet in 
 height. It appears to have had four entrances, defended 
 by advanced earthworks, and is divided internally into two 
 parts by a ditch and bank of very much lower elevation than 
 those forming the outer defences. In having been the pre- 
 cursor of a Roman and subsequently of an English town, 
 Maiden Castle is not singular, for the same has happened 
 at other places, Old Sarum, for example, having been almost 
 certainly British, and Oswestry having been preceded by
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 95 
 
 the large triiUe-raniparted camp, now overgrown with trees 
 and nettles, which is situated about a mile otif and is called 
 Hen Dinas or Old Oswestry. It will be noted that the 
 shape of Maiden Castle is oval, in conformity with the shape 
 of the top of the hill which it occupies. For an example of 
 a great circular camp, that known as Yarnbury, may be 
 selected. This is situated about two miles from Stonehentre, 
 on Salisbury Plain and close to the old road between Bath 
 and Salisbury. It is surrounded by a double fosse and 
 vallum, the inner ditch being fifty feet deep, and the principal 
 entrance is defended by a complicated arrangement of 
 earthworks. In its neighbourhood are a host of other 
 camps of the same period. On the Herefordshire Beacon, 
 near Malvern, is another great British camp, which possesses 
 a triple fosse and vallum of irregular outline, following the 
 shape of the hill. This camp is said to have been the work 
 of, or at least to have been occupied by, the British chieftain 
 Caratacos, or, as he is generally but incorrectly described, 
 Caractacus. This chieftain's name is, however, more closely 
 associated with another camp situated on the top of the hill 
 called Caer Caradoc, which is situated near Church Stretton 
 in Shropshire, and at the foot of which tradition i)laces the 
 site of the decisive battle between Caratacos and Ostorius 
 Scapula. The ditches in this case are quite shallow, no 
 doubt because the exceeding steepness of the hill rendered 
 more formidable earthworks unnecessary. 
 
 It has been already mentioned that sometimes pit- 
 dwellings are found within ramparts of a similar character, 
 as, for instance, on the top of Chalbury Hill, familiar to 
 visitors to Weymouth. In their neighbourhood are also 
 sometimes found remains of the terrace or " lynchet " form 
 of cultivation. 
 
 In the West of England, on Dartmoor and Exmoor, have 
 been found a few bridges which have been assigned to this 
 period. One of the finest of these is known as Tarr orTorr
 
 96 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Steps, and crosses the River Barle, not far from Winsford on 
 Exmoor. It is composed of a number of solid, thougli 
 short piers built up of stones, laid on the top of one another 
 without any cement or mortar. Large flat slabs of stone, 
 stretching from one pier to the next, form the pathway, a 
 pathway which is submerged when the river is in flood, but 
 which at other times affords an excellent passage for those 
 on foot, a ford just above serving for the crossing of horses. 
 
 But the most striking stone erections of this period are 
 the great circles, of which Stonehenge is the best-known 
 example. 
 
 Tliis great, though ruinous temple, for temple it seems 
 certainly to have been, has been assigned by some to a 
 Roman or even post-Roman date, but the general consensus 
 of opinion amongst archaeologists is that it is a work of the 
 Bronze period, though of a late date, as seems to be proved 
 by the fact that it is the only circle of the kind in which the 
 stones have been hewn and shaped, all the others being 
 composed of rough and unworked boulders. Mr. Arlhur 
 Evans thinks that the construction was in part at least of a 
 gradual character, and that its foundation belongs to the 
 same age as the latest class of the round-barrows by which 
 it was surrounded — a class of barrows which it would not 
 be safe to bring down beyond the approximate date of 
 250 B.C. On the other hand, he says, if we are to accept 
 the view that the construction itself was gradual and that, 
 in particular, the blua stones were set up in groups at 
 intervals of time, we may carry down some parts of the 
 monument to a considerably later date. 
 
 The collection of stones which forms this monument is 
 surrounded by a low bank and ditch, enclosing a circle 
 100 feet in diameter, a measurement which is common to 
 several of these temples, to which the general term of 1 00 
 feet circles has been applied. 
 
 Within this circle, now almost obliterated, are a few
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 97 
 
 ^-^' 35' — (general Plan of Stonehenge. A, Stone circles ia centre 
 of circular earthen bank and ditch ; B, Standing stone, called 
 "The Friar's Heel"; C, Large fallen stone; D, D, Two 
 smaller stones on margin of earthen l«nk ; E, E, Barrows, 
 whicli, being absorbed in the eartlien haiilc, appear to have 
 been of earlif-r construction than the bank. (l'"roin Murray's 
 " Handbook to Wiltshire.")
 
 98 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 upright stones with many others in a more or less recumbent 
 position, indeed such is their confusion, that it is difficult 
 even- for experts to arrive at any certain conclusion as to all 
 the details of the perfect temple. Under these circum- 
 stances it will be better to consider Stonehenge as it probably 
 
 Fig. 36. — Conjectural Restoration of Stonehenge. A, Small 
 .Syenite trilithon, which may have stood here ; it now lies as 
 at A in Fig. 38. (From Murray's "Handbook for Wiltshire.") 
 
 was when complete and uninjured, and to indicate as we go 
 on such parts of the structure as are still recognisable. The 
 outer circle of stones, the nearest in position to the ditch, 
 consisted of thirty upright pillars, each 16 feet in height, 
 with imposts or square masses of stone passing from one to 
 the next, so as to form a continuous ring. Each upright 
 was 3J feet distant from its neighbour on either side, and 
 each had on its upper end two projections, or tenons, each of
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 99 
 
 which fitted into a corfg'sponding hole or mortice on the 
 under surface of one of the inipt)sts. It is obvious that 
 much greater security was thus attained than if the imposts 
 
 Fig. 37.— Triliihons and other Stones at Stonehenge. Notice the 
 projections on the top of the large upright stones, which fit 
 into corresponding depressions on the under surfaces of the 
 imposts. (i-Vo;n Barclay's "Stonehenge.") 
 
 had merely been laid upon the uprights. It is perhaps 
 unnecessary to state that no mortar or cement was u.sed in 
 any of the stone structures of the period. 
 
 The .stones of this circle are all of local oriifin, beini'^ the 
 sarsens or grey-wethers of Marlborough Down. 01 this
 
 lOo LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 circle, sixteen uprights and six imposts still remain in 
 position. About nine feet nearer to the centre was the second 
 circle, which consisted of unhewn pillars, probably more 
 than thirty in number, of syenite, an igneous rock, which 
 must have been brought from a considerable distance, as 
 none is known to exist nearer than Wales. These, and 
 the others of a similar character, are known as the blue 
 stones. 
 
 Each of these stones is about six feet in height, and 
 there are now only seven of them left. Within this circle, 
 which deprived of its adjuncts would not in any way differ 
 from similar simple circles in Wales and elsewhere, was the 
 most striking part of the monument, an ellipse consisting of 
 at least five and probably seven great trilithons. Each of 
 these is composed of two hewn pillars with an impost, and 
 they gradually increased in height to the central tril'ithon, 
 which is twenty-five feet in height. Of these trilithons, two 
 remain perfect and in situ, there are two other uprights 
 standing, but without imposts, and portions of the others 
 are lying on the ground. These stones are similar to those 
 of the outer circle, and no doubt derived from the same 
 place. Within the ellipse of trilithons is an ellipse of nineteen 
 pillars of syenite, the material being the same as that of the 
 stones which form the inner circle, of which seven are 
 still in place. Finally, in the centre of all is a block, 
 called, for no valid reason, the altar-stone, which was very 
 probably always recumbent. It is of a fine micaceous sand- 
 stone, and differs in character from all the other stones of 
 which the monument is composed. 
 
 Thus to summarise ; Stonehenge consisted of: — 
 
 (i) A shallow ditch and bank, which opens out at one 
 point into an avenue Hanked by a ditch and bank 
 on either side. 
 
 (2) A ring of hewn local stones, with imposts mortised 
 to them.
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 lOI 
 
 ^^010^ 
 
 P 
 
 <7, 
 
 C) 
 
 =^<D 
 
 ui 
 
 u 
 
 3 
 
 s 
 
 o 
 
 
 o <^ 
 
 c 
 
 •a 
 
 c 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 u 
 
 I 
 oo 
 
 CO 
 
 6
 
 io2 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 (3) A ring of unhewn, non-local, igneous pillars. 
 
 (4) An ellipse of local, hewn trilithons, with mortice and 
 
 tenon connection. 
 
 (5) An ellipse of unhewn, non-local, igneous pillars. 
 
 (6) A single recumbent rock of different character from 
 
 the rest. 
 It is certainly surprising that so little is said in the works 
 of early writers about a monument which would, one would 
 have supposed, have excited the wonder of all who might 
 see it. It is possible that Hecatseus, a geographer who 
 flourished about five hundred years before Christ, may have 
 alluded to Stonehenge, when he says that there is a magni- 
 ficent circular temple in the island of the Hyperboreans, 
 over against Celtica. Giraldus Cambrensis gives us the 
 mythicval tale which was told to account for it in his day : 
 "There was in Ireland, in ancient times, a pile of stones 
 worthy of admiration, called the Giant's Dance, because 
 giants, from the remotest part of Africa, brought them into 
 Ireland, and in the plains of Kildare, not far from the 
 Castle of Naas, as well by force of art as strength, miracu- 
 lously set them up; and similar stones, erected in a like 
 manner, are to be seen there at this day. These stones 
 (according to the British history) Aurehus Ambrosius, king 
 of the Britons, procured Merlin, by supernatural means, 
 to bring from Ireland into Britain. And that he might leave 
 some famous monument of so great a treason to future 
 ages, in the same order and art as they stood formerly, set 
 them up where the fiawer of the British nation fell by the 
 cut-throat practice of the Saxons, and where, under the 
 pretence of peace, the ill secured youth of the kingdom, by 
 murderous designs, were slain." As regards the explana- 
 tion of these monuments, Mr. Arthur Evans thinks that the 
 component parts of stone circles such as Stonehenge, 
 namely, the circle itself, the avenue of stones which lead up 
 to it, imperfect at Stonehenge, though better marked at
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 T03 
 
 Avebury, and the central dolmen, wanting in the instance 
 now under consideration, are all of them amplifications of 
 the simplest sepulchral forms. The circle is an enlarged 
 version of the ring of stones placed round the grave mound; 
 the dolmen represents the cist within it ; the avenue is 
 merely the continuation of the underground gallery, which 
 in the early barrows, described in a previous chapter, leads 
 to the sepulchral chamber. The trililhons are a new 
 feature in connection with the stone circle, but, as shown 
 
 Fig. 39.— Trilithons in Tripoli. (From Dr. Earth's "Travels.") 
 
 by the example of some of our later long barrows, and by a 
 comparison with the monuments of Tripoli, of Syria, of 
 India and elsewhere, are themselves only the perpetuation 
 of a part of the .sepulchral structure, the actual gateway of 
 the subterranean chamber, which remains as a ritual survival 
 when, owing to cremation or other causes, the galleried 
 chamber to which it led has itself been modified away. 
 Like the circles themselves, and like the avenue, the 
 trililhon is of sepulchral origin, and connects itself directly 
 with the worship of departed spirits. Finally, he thinks
 
 I04 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 that the oriyiiuil holy object within the central trilithons of 
 Stonehenge was a sacred tree, and in this connection he 
 reminds us that the oak was of special sanctity amongst the 
 Celtic nations, as shown, amongst other things, by the words 
 of Maximus 'J'yrius, " The Celts worshii) Zeus, and the 
 Celtic image of Zeus is a tall oak." Professor Rhys in his 
 "Hibbert Lectures" replies as follows to the question 
 "Whose temple Stonehenge was, or whose it chiefly was? 
 After giving it all the attention I can, I have come to the 
 conclusion that we cannot do better than follow the story of 
 Geoffrey, which makes Stonehenge the work of Merlin 
 Emrys, commanded by another Emrys, which I interpret to 
 mean that the temple belonged to the Celtic Zeus whose 
 later legendary self we have in Merlin." 
 
 In the same county as Stonehenge, but further north, is 
 a second collection of great stones, now unfortunately even 
 more reduced in numbers, which in the time of Charles IL 
 was described by Aubrey as surpassing Stonehenge as much 
 as a cathedral did a parish church. This monument 
 is Avebury or Abury, and the village of that name which 
 now lies within the ditch has been the destruction of the 
 temple, whose stones have been used up for building and 
 even for road-mending purposes, more than 650 having 
 thus perished. The temple was surrounded by a rampart 
 and fosse, the latter being internal and not external as in 
 the case of fortifications. This rampart and fosse form 
 nearly a circle, with a diameter of 1200 ft., a circumference 
 of 4442 ft, and enclosing, an area of 28^ acres. From 
 the top of the rampart to the bottom of the fosse is a depth 
 of 40 ft. 
 
 Inside the ditch was a circle of rough stones supposed to 
 have been 100 in number, and this again enclosed two 
 neighbouring, not concentric, circles, each again containing 
 a smaller circle and a group of stones forming what is 
 called a cove. These, it seems probable, originally contained
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 105 
 
 r^.,-^^' 
 
 Fig. 40.— Conjectural Restoration of Avebury. Silbury Hill is 
 seen in the distance. The circles of stones were much less 
 regular than is above shown, and there is no evidence for 
 Stukeley's Beckhanipton Avenue. (From Murray's " Hand- 
 book to Wiltshire.") 
 
 ^^ 
 
 I'"IC. 41. — Plan of Avebury and surrounding country. A, The 
 Kennet Avenue of stones leading to Overton Circle, O; 
 B, Stukeley's supposed avenue to Beckhanipton ; c, c, Roman 
 Road ; d, d, British trackway ; c, Beckhainpton ; ^, West 
 Kennelt Long Barrow ; k, liast Kenm-it Long Barrow. 
 (From Murray's " Handbook to Willshire.")
 
 io6 -LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 interments. An avenue of stones, of which fifteen still 
 remain, led S.W. to West Kennet, and according to 
 Stukeley, though it is more than doubtful whether he had 
 any valid reason for making the assertion, there was a 
 second avenue leading to Beckhampton in the opposite 
 direction. The size of some of the stones forming this 
 monument is immense ; one destroyed in recent years 
 weighed ninety tons, and another still remaining is esti- 
 mated to weigh sixty. It may well cause wonder as to how 
 these huge stones were transported to this spot and reared 
 up on end in the cavities prepared for them, especially by a 
 people possessed of only the rudest mechanical appliances 
 to assist them in their task. Perhaps we may obtain a clue 
 as to the manner in which the stones were moved by look- 
 ing at the pictures of the transport of the huge stone 
 figures of Egypt, as represented on some of the buildings 
 of that country. In the representation of the colossal 
 statue of Thothotpu being dragged to its place, we see the 
 figure itself on a sort of flat wheelless sled to which 
 numbers of slaves are attached by cords. The captain 
 stands on the knees of the statue to urge on those who are 
 dragging it, and an attendant on the pedestal pours water 
 on the ropes, lest their tension should cause them to take 
 fire. But we have a further example of how the work of 
 shaping and carrying these huge stones may have been 
 effected, by the way in which it is carried out by the 
 Khasis, a tribe of Northern Bengal, who break and flake 
 their blocks by heating them along the required line of 
 fracture and then pouring water upon them. They trans- 
 port 'them by placing wooden rollers underneath and then 
 harnessing numbers of men to them with ropes of rattan. 
 When it is necessary to set a block upright, one end is 
 slipped into a hole some feet in depth, whilst the other is 
 pulled upon by the ropes. And finally, when it is desired 
 to lift one block into position on the top of others, a slope
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 107 
 
 of earth is constructed leading up to the desired altitude 
 and then the impost is pulled up the slope upon rollers. 
 Obviously it is possible that huge masses can be trans- 
 ported even with rude n^eans, all that is necessary being a 
 sufficiency of men and of enthusiasm. There must have 
 been no lack of either at the building of Avebury. Before 
 passing to the consideration of any other stone circle, it 
 may be well to mention that remarkable conical earthwork 
 close by, called Silbury Hill. This mound, the largest 
 artificial earthwork of its kind in England and probably in 
 Europe, covers with its base over five acres of ground, is 
 1657 ft. in circumference and 170 ft. in height. It was 
 originally surrounded by a circle of sarsen stones, nearly 
 all of which have disappeared. Its origin and date are 
 equally doubtful ; it is apparently not sepulchral, at least 
 all excavations so far have failed to find any remains, and 
 whether it has any relation to the megalithic circle at Ave- 
 bury is a question which may perhaps never be cleared up. 
 Its gigantic size and the labour which its construction must 
 have cost afford another example of the energy and 
 engineering skill of the period. 
 
 Another interesting monument of this class is that called 
 the Rollright stones, most of which are in Oxfordshire, 
 though only just in that county. The boundary between 
 that county and Warwickshire is formed by an ancient road 
 which passes between the circle and dolmen on the one 
 hand and the menhir on the other. This circle is one of 
 the hundred feet variety, but the stones of which it is 
 composed are insignificant in size, the tallest being 7 ft. 
 and most of them ranging between 2 ft. and 4 ft. The 
 circle is locally called the King's Men. Not far off is a 
 group of stones called the Whispering Knights, which 
 consists of the remains of a collapsed dolmen. On the 
 other side of the road, and near a long artificial mound of 
 earth, of uncertain nature, which the imaginative Stukeley
 
 io8 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 called the Arch-Druid's barrow, is a single standing stone, or 
 menhir, named the King's vStone. The legend which is 
 related about these stones may be cited as a good example 
 of the kind of story which grows up around such relics. 
 The king is said to have set out with his men to conquer 
 England. Arrived at the top of the hill where the stones 
 stand he meets a witch who says : 
 
 " If Long Compton thou canst see 
 King of England thou shalt be." 
 
 Long Compton, it should be said, is a village in the valley 
 north of the stones and just invisible from I hem. The king, 
 delighted at what he supposes will be the triumphant issue 
 of his expedition, exclaims : 
 
 " Stick, stock, stone, 
 As King of England I shall be known." 
 
 As he speaks the mound of earth near the menhir rises up 
 before him and prevents him from seeing the village, whilst 
 the witch exclaims : 
 
 " As Long Compton thou canst not -see 
 King of England thou shalt not be. 
 Rise up stick, and stand still stone. 
 For King of England thou shalt be none, 
 For thou and thy men hoar stones shall be, 
 And I myself an eldern tree." 
 
 Thereupon they all turn, the witch into an alder tree, the 
 rest into stones, the menhir being the king, the circle his 
 army and the dolmen his officers, either engaged at the time 
 of their transmutation in prayer or in plotting against their 
 leader, according to different versions of the story. Further 
 traditions attach to these stones, in common with others of 
 the same character in different parts of the country, such as 
 that it is impossible to count them correctly, that they arise at 
 midnight to dance with one another and the like ; but the 
 point of greatest interest, perhaps, is related to their name,
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 
 
 TOO 
 
 which appears, according to Mr. Arthur Evans, to have been 
 properly Rollendrice, and to have meant the kingdom or 
 dominion of Roland. Thus the group of stones whose 
 
 
 Fig. 42. —Menhir, the " King Stone," at Rollright. 
 
 original name and signification had long been forgotten, was 
 in later ages associated with the name and fame of Roland, 
 the legendary champion of Christendom against the paynim. 
 In connection with this group of stones mention has been 
 made of a menhir, and it may now be well to say something
 
 no LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 about thrs kind of monument. The menhir derives its 
 name from two Celtic words meaning a standing stone, and 
 is the simplest and most obvious form of memorial or 
 monument which can be imagined. This being so, one is 
 not surprised to find that it is not specially associated with 
 any age or with any country, indeed Cleopatra's needle and 
 many of the memorials in our own towns and cemeteries are 
 nothing more than glorified menihirion. But using the term 
 as it is employed in British archaeology it is limited to 
 single, unhewn, standing stones, probably belonging chiefly 
 to the Bronze, but certainly also to the Neolithic period. 
 These stones are very variable in shape, being sometimes 
 long and comparatively narrow, like the great menhir of 
 Carnac and others, sometimes larger at the upper part, like 
 the Kingstone at Rollright^ sometimes wide flat slabs, like 
 the great Clun menhir in Shropshire, which is 8 ft. in 
 heinht, 6 ft. 6 in. in breadth and 8 in. to 12 in. in thickness. 
 Sometimes they appear to have, been erected on the summits 
 of barrows, sometimes, as we have already seen, they formed 
 a ring round their base. Mr. Stevens points out that such 
 monoliths are associated also with long barrows and with 
 ancient grave mounds in other countries. He says : " In 
 the chambered tumulus at Ablington, Gloucestershire, there 
 was found a large upright oval stone, 6 ft. in height and 
 5 ft. in width, standing on a block of stone having a natural 
 perforation and by which it was steadied and kept in its 
 place. Upon a long barrow at Duntesbourne Abbots, 
 Gloucestershire, is a monolith known as the ' Hoar Stone,' 
 and upon another long barrow in the same county is a 
 monolith known as the 'Tingle Stone.' The ancient 
 Greeks, in like manner, appear to have placed a monolith 
 (a-TTj'Kr]) upon the summit of some of their tumuli, and 
 Paris, taking his position behind such a pillar on the 
 barrow of Ilus, shot at Diomede, wounding him in the foot." 
 Such stones have been in other countries not merely
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD in 
 
 memorials of some great deed or departed hero, but objects 
 of worship, and the same was probably the case in this 
 country. Indeed Mr. Gomme calls attention to a curious 
 custom in connection with such a stone, which looks like 
 the degenerated remains of a real act of sacrifice offered to 
 a menhir. "At the village of Holne, situated on one of 
 the spurs of Dartmoor, is a field of about two acres, the 
 property of the parish, and called the Ploy Field. In the 
 centre of this field stands a granite pillar (menhir) 6 ft. or 7 ft. 
 high. On May morning, before daybreak, the young men 
 of the village used to assemble there and then proceed to 
 the moor, where they selected a ram lamb, and after running 
 it down brought it in triumph to the Ploy Field, fastened it 
 to the pillar, cut its throat, and then roasted it whole, skin, 
 wool, &c. At mid-day a struggle took place, at the risk of 
 cut hands, for a slice ; it being supposed to confer luck for 
 the ensuing year on the fortunate devourer. As an act of 
 gallantry the young men sometimes fought their way through 
 the crowd to get a slice for the chosen amongst the young 
 women, all of whom, in their best dresses, attended the 
 Ram Feast as it was called. Dancing, wrestling, and other 
 games, assisted by copious libations of cider during the 
 afternoon, prolonged the festivity till midnight." 
 
 The places of interment of this race, like those of the 
 people who preceded it, are marked by mounds or barrows, 
 which are, however, smaller, nearly always circular, and in 
 this country devoid of the passage and chambers which 
 formed a feature of the long barrow. 
 
 I'he shape of these barrows on elevation is sometimes 
 like a bowl, more rarely like a disc or even a bell. In 
 some of them the remains of the dead are buried in the 
 same crouched up position as they occupy in the long 
 barrows, in others there is an urn containing the ashes 
 which have resulted from the cremation of the corpse, and 
 in both cases there may be found miplements of different
 
 112 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 kinds laid besidr the remains. These two systems of burial 
 have undoubtedly been pursued simultaneously, and may 
 perhaps mark a divergence in religious ideas between the 
 two sections of the Celts. It is at least possible that the 
 Goidelic branch may have conformed to the funeral customs 
 of the Neolithic race, whilst the Brythonic people, perhaps 
 from veneration for the sun, perhaps from the idea of puri- 
 fying the body, may have resorted to the practice of crema- 
 tion. However this may be, it is interesting to fiad thuL 
 
 Fig. 43. — Round Barrows near Stonehenge. (After a plate in 
 Barclay's "Stonehenge.") 
 
 sometimes both kinds of Interment have been met with in 
 the same barrow, one being secondary to the other. In 
 these cases the earlier burial is usually that of the unburnt 
 body, the secondary being that of the cremated, but this is 
 not an invariable rule. So far as it goes this evidence also 
 points in the direction above mentioned that the earlier 
 Goidelic race was that which practised inhumation. There 
 are great numbers of these round barrows scattered over the 
 country, and in some parts of it many may be seen close 
 together. Around Stonehenge, for example, there are about
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 113 
 
 three hundred within a circuit of three miles. There 
 are a number of others in the vicinity of Avebury, and in 
 one spot on the road between Weymouth and Bridport 
 twenty can be seen at once, a spot, says Stukeley, "foi 
 sight of barrows not to be equalled in the world." In 
 certain places they, as well as other mounds of earth, 
 artificial and natural, have been supposed to be the homes 
 of fairies, and names such as the Fairy Know or Fairy Hill 
 applied to them. In one instance such a mound affords 
 what seems to be an example of the extraordinary persist- 
 ence and endurance of a tradition. Near the town of Mold 
 there was a cairn called Bryn-yr-Ellyllon, the hill of the fairy 
 or of the goblin, which was long sai i to be haunted by a 
 ghost in golden armour, who was seen to enter it from time 
 to time. When the tomb was opened there was found 
 within it the skeleton of what had been a fine tall man 
 with a corselet of bronze overlaid by gold, of Etruscan work, 
 says Professor Boyd Dawkins, and probably belonging to 
 the Romano-British period. Unless we are to believe that 
 the ghost really did walk, we must admit that tlie tradition 
 had been handed down of this warrior's burial in his armour 
 for perhaps fourteen hundred years. 
 
 The religion of the Celts, both Brythons and Goidels, was 
 polytheistic, and the names of some of their gods and minor 
 deities have come down to us. Of these the principal Bry- 
 thonic deity seems to have been Teutates, the god of war, in 
 whose honour the stone inscribed " Marii Toutali " found 
 in Hertfordshire was probably erected. In this country, 
 Teutates seems perhaps more often to have been spoken 
 of under the name of Camulus, a name which enters into 
 the formation of the word Camulodunum, the title of the 
 city which preceded the modern Colchester. 
 
 Taranis, another deity, seems to have been the summer- god, 
 and Nodens, the god of the sea, had a temple at Lydney on 
 the Severn even in the Roman times. Among the Goidels the 
 
 H
 
 114 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Irish Boann, a minor goddess, tlie deity of the Boyne in 
 Ireland, is an example of the personification of rivers under 
 the guise of minor deities, another instance of which in 
 Britain is Sabrina, the goddess of the Severn, 
 
 " Sabrina fair, 
 
 Listen where thou art sitting 
 Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, 
 
 In twisted braids of lilies knitting 
 The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair," 
 
 as Milton wrote in " Comus." Other minor deities figure in 
 our stories of to-day as giants. Thus Rabelais took his 
 name of Gargantua from such a half-deity, half-hero. A 
 dolmen in France is shown to this day as his tomb. 
 Goemagot, another similar personage, becomes Gogmagog, 
 the name of a range of what pass for hills in Cambridge- 
 shire, and of the well-known giants of the Mansion House. 
 
 The Celt, however, of both families, seems to. have in 
 some measure adopted the Druidism of the Neolithic 
 peoples with whom he came in contact on reaching the 
 island. In so doing he only conformed to what seems 
 to have been almost a general rule where an Aryan and a 
 non-Aryan race have come in contact, as Mr. Tylor and 
 Mr. Gomme have pointed out. Such is the case in 
 Scandinavia, where the Lapp is looked upon as being a very 
 superior magician to the later occupants of the land, and in 
 India, where the non-Aryan races, despised and harried 
 though they may be during the rest of the year by their 
 Aryan neighbours, are yet brought into the villages of the 
 latter on solemn occasions to perform the religious cere- 
 monies which are supposed to be more effectively performed 
 by them than by any other. A curious instance of this 
 is given by Walhouse, which may be cited, as showing the 
 kind of thing which may perhaps have happened in this 
 country centuries ago. " The Kurumbas of Nulli, one of 
 the wildest Nilgherry declivities, come up annually to wor-
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD 115 
 
 ship at one of the dolmens on the tableland above, in which 
 they say one of their old gods resides. Though they are re- 
 garded with fear and hatred as sorcerers by the agricultural 
 Badagas of the tableland, one of them must, nevertheless, 
 at sowing-time, be called to guide the first plough for two or 
 three yards, and go through a mystic pantomime of propi- 
 tiation to the earth deity, without which the crop would 
 certainly fail. When so summoned, the Kurumba must 
 pass the night by the dolmens alone, and I have seen one 
 who had been called from his present dwelling for the 
 morning ceremony, sitting after dark on the capstone of 
 a dolmen, with heels and hams drawn together and chin on 
 knees, looking like some huge ghostly fowl perched on the 
 mysterious stone." It is probable that the later coming 
 Aryans, here and elsewhere, might have considered the 
 inhabitants whom they found on their arrival as somewhat 
 uncanny, and, again, it is highly probable that they 
 reasoned that their priests, the Druids, having been longer 
 in occupation, were better able to approach the local 
 divinities with hope of success than those who were strangers 
 in the land. 
 
 There is a statement by Pliny that the wives and 
 daughters-in-law of the Britons attended certain religious 
 rites without clothing and with their bodies painted black 
 like Ethiopians. To which race this statement applies is 
 more than doubtful, but it is possible, if Mr. Hartland's 
 surmise is correct, that we have a trace of this rite in the 
 processions which took place in Coventry and Southam in 
 honour of Lady Godiva. Though Godgifu, or Godiva, was 
 an historical personage, her celebrated ride is purely mythical, 
 a good example, indeed, of the kind of myth which, without 
 any reason, often becomes attached to some hero or heroine. 
 The essence of the tale consists in the passage of a naked 
 woman through a town where the men were not allowed to 
 look out upon her, and such a story is not peculiar to
 
 ii6 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 England, as readers of the " Arabian Nights " will remember. 
 Now, we know that in Rome the religious rites of the deity 
 known as the Bona Dea were performed by women alone 
 and that men were ibrbidden under the severest penalties to 
 intrude upon them. It is highly probable that the rite of 
 which Pliny speaks may have been of a similar character, and 
 that it may gradually, in the manner which has been already 
 pointed out, have dwindled down and lost all its original 
 significance. The probability that this view is correct is 
 muv b increased by the fact that in the procession of Southam, 
 no very great distance from Coventry,- there were two 
 Godivas, one of whom was of the natural colour, but the 
 other was black, and formed, perhaps, the last link in 
 the chain stretching back to the woad-painted British 
 matron of Pliny. 
 
 It now only remains to speak of the physical character- 
 istics of the Celts. They were a tall race, indeed their average 
 stature of 5 feet 9 inches, as ascertained by measurements of 
 the long bones of their skeletons, exceeded the average of the 
 present inhabitants of the island. They were a longer -lived 
 race than that which they succeeded, if we are to trust Dr. 
 Thurnam's computation, that the average of the Celt was fifty- 
 five and of the Neolith forty-five years. Their skulls were 
 rounder and broader than those of the previous race, or, to use 
 the language of physical anthropology, the Celt was brachy- 
 cephalic, or round-headed, the Ivernian, dolichocephalic, or 
 long-headed, only in the physical sense of course. The 
 skull was also of large size, with a well-formed and broad 
 brow and salient ridgcs above the eyes, and with prominent 
 cheek-bones. 
 
 The stature of the Celts seems to have made a great 
 impression upon those with whom they were brought in 
 contact, for Caesar alludes to their inirifica corpora, whilst 
 Strabo, speaking of some of the Coritavi, a tribe who 
 inhabited Lincolnshire, says^ " To show how tall they were, I
 
 THE BRONZE PERIOD tt? 
 
 saw myself some of their young men at Rome, and they 
 were taller by six inches than any one else in the city." 
 Many contemporary references also leave little doubt that 
 the Celt belonged to a fair or red-haired race. Lucan 
 calls the Britons flavi, Silius Italicus says their hair was 
 golden, and Vitruvius, in a passage supposed to allude to 
 them, speaks of their huge limbs, their grey eyes, and their 
 long, straight red hair. In his perhaps partly fanciful de- 
 scription of Boudicca or Boadicea, the queen of the Iceni, 
 Dion Cassius speaks of her greatness of stature, of the 
 fierceness of her appearance, which struck all beholders with 
 awe, and of the severe and piercing expression of her 
 countenance. She had, he adds, a harsh voice, and a pro- 
 fusion of dark, ruddy hair which reached down to her hips. 
 The life of the tall, fair-haired, round-headed occupant of this 
 land during the Bronze period has been sufficiently dealt 
 with in this and the preceding chapter to render unneces- 
 sary any prolonged summary of the conditions under which 
 he existed. It will be sufficient to point out that he entered 
 the island possessed of a greater amount of culture than that 
 of the people whom he found in occupation of the land. 
 Above all else he understood the art of working in metal, a 
 piece of kno'wledge which differed, not merely in degree 
 but, in kind, from any possessed by previous inhabitants of 
 the land. In correspondence with his wider knowledge and 
 perhaps also with his greater strength, the works which he 
 undertook were of a more ambitious character than those of 
 his predecessors, and included huge earthworks, massive 
 stone monuments, and artificial island residences. In the 
 arts of spinning and weaving he was an adept, and prided 
 himself so much upon using textile clothing instead of gar- 
 ■ nients fashioned from skins, as to find in that fact the most 
 appropriate name for his race. Such was the inhabitant of 
 this country at the time of the Roman occupation, and, as 
 will be seen, or indeed has already been seen, from the
 
 ii8 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 description of the Glastonbury lake village, he lived on in 
 the land, beside his conquerors, in his own villages. And 
 when that conqueror was obliged to desert the country 
 which he had occupied for four hundred years, the Celt 
 remained behind in possession once more of full sovereignty 
 over the land. 
 
 Thus we shall here only leave him for a time, returning to 
 the consideration of the race again, after dealing with the 
 Romans and their remains.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 
 
 Condition of the Country — Forests — Wild animals — 
 Trackways — Roman roads — Camps — Cities— Silchester — 
 Uriconium — Corinium. 
 
 When the Romans took possession of this country, it can 
 only have been their insatiable zeal for colonisation, coupled 
 perhaps with some knowledge of the mineral riches which it 
 afforded, which could have induced them to take so much 
 trouble over what must have appeared a singularly unin- 
 viting spot. For such, the accounts of the earlier visitors, 
 whose opinions remain on record, declare it unanimously to 
 have been. They speak of its stormy sky, obscured with 
 constant rain, of its atmosphere chilly and damp even in 
 summer-time, and of the dense fogs, but rarely pierced by the 
 rays of the sun, which hung over it like a pall. The im- 
 mense forests, with which the land was covered, condensed 
 the rain, fallen timber choked up the streams, and caused 
 them to spread their waters into wide marshes, so that only 
 the higher grounds lifted themselves from the morasses and 
 woods. 
 
 It is a little difficult to realise how great a portion of 
 the surface of this island was covered with forest at the 
 time we are speaking of, and even down to a much later 
 period. Nearly the whole of Warwickshire was covered over 
 by the Forest of Arden {see Map), the district now occupied 
 by Birmingham and the adjacent Black Country towns l)eing
 
 I20 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 then a dense woodland, penetrated by the httle stream of 
 the Rea, and traversed by one trackway, the Ryknield 
 Street. In fact, at a very much later period, it was said 
 that a squirrel could leap from tree to tree for nearly the 
 whole length of Warwickshire. To-day we can gather some 
 idea of its limits by the names of the places which existed 
 around its fringes, like Wooton Wawen, with its pre-Con- 
 quest church, on its southern border, and Woodend on its 
 northern. North of Worcester, the Forest of Wyre, which 
 still exists, though shorn of most of its ancient glory, 
 extended as far as Chester. Another still existent forest, 
 Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, associated with Robin Hood 
 and his crew, was, according to Camden, anciently set with 
 trees, whose entangled branches were so twisted together 
 that they hardly left room for a man to pass. Of one of its 
 outliers, Charnwood Forest, the name only remains, for the 
 district has long been disafforested. The Forest of Dean 
 was described as "very dark and terrible " on account of its 
 gloomy paths and rides, whilst Denbighshire, up to the 
 fifteenth century, was one immense forest, from the Dee to 
 the region of Snowdonia. In the South of England that 
 vast piece of woodland, the Andredsweald, or Forest of 
 Anderida, stretched for more than one hundred and twenty 
 miles continuously between the North and South Downs, 
 and formed a barrier far more impervious than seas, rivers, 
 or mountains. These dense woodlands, with their frequent 
 marshy bottoms, were inhabited by numerous wild beasts. 
 The huger animals of an earlier .period had, of course, long 
 since disappeared, but wolves swarmed in Arden and 
 Sherwood, and the wild ox, or urus, and wM boar were 
 objects of the chase at a period long after that with \vhich 
 we have now to do. In fact, in the time of Henry II., 
 we hear of the citizens of London hunting both the 
 last-named animals in the forests of Middlesex. Wolves 
 disappeared finally in England somewhere in the fifteenth
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 121 
 
 century, though they appear to have lingered in the re- 
 cesses of the Irish forests until the eighteenth. When the 
 bear disappeared is not known, for though it is recorded 
 that the city of Norwich gave one of these animals yearly to 
 Edward the Confessor, it is possible that it was not a native 
 wild beast. Beavers, which have been extinct for a long 
 time, must have been plentiful in the wood(;d swamps, 
 judging from the places called after them, such as Beverley, 
 in Yorkshire; Bevere, near Worcester ; and Nant Fran^on 
 (the glen of the beavers), near Llyn Ogwen, in North 
 Wales. 
 
 Through these woods in some districts, but more frequently 
 along the tops of high ranges of hills, the Celtic people had 
 cut narrow roads, known by the name of trackways, remains 
 of which may be seen in various parts to the present day. 
 Of the Ryknield Street, which ran through Arden, from the 
 Fosse Way, near Stow, to Wall on the 'Watling Street, pieces 
 remain here and there, which must very closely resemble 
 the condition of tliat road when actually in use. One 
 ])ortion of this way which is probably still much in its 
 primitive state is Buckle Street, a narrow trackway which 
 runs along the top of the Cotswold Hills, above Broadway, 
 and another little altered portion crosses the fields between 
 Alcester and Wixford. Another ancient trackway which 
 preserves its original appearance is called the Portway, and 
 runs along the top of the Longmynd, above Church 
 Stretton, in Shropshire, while a second way of the same 
 kind crosses, close to the same place, the lower Watling 
 Street, and ends in the valley called the Cwms, behind 
 Caer Caradoc. Another called the Ridgeway, runs along 
 the top of the range of hills which intervenes between 
 Weymouth and Dorchester, and many other examples might 
 be cited, from which only one further instance, and that the 
 most striking, shall be selected. Along the top of the Downs 
 above the Vale of White Horse, skirting Ashdown, the
 
 122 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 ^scandune of Alfred's decisive battle, and that ancient 
 barrow, Weyland Smith's forge, is a broad grassy road, 
 marked off from the surrounding fields by low banks, and 
 called in that part of the country the Green Road. This 
 ancient way, which was one of the Quatuor Chimini of the 
 Confessor's laws, hereafter to be dealt with, differs from the 
 other three apparently in never having been remade by the 
 Romans, by whom it must nevertheless have been used. 
 Under the name of the Icknield Street, Acling Street, and 
 other terms, it makes its way from the neighbourhood of 
 Gloucester to Icklingham, in Norfolkshire. Its ancient 
 name was the Icenhilde Weg, the path of the warriors of 
 the Iceni, a Celtic tribe who dwelt in the district which is 
 now Norfolk. This street gives us a good idea of what the 
 British trackways in their fullest development must have 
 looked like, and one of the great aims of the Romans was 
 to construct out of them wide and well-made roads along 
 which bodies of troops might be rapidly and easily trans- 
 ported from one part of the country to another. Their road- 
 making, like all their other works, was carried out in a most 
 systematic and careful manner, the exact method of con 
 struction varying with the character of the land through 
 which the road had to pass. Thus in the neighbourhood 
 of Lincoln the roads through the marshes were upon piles. 
 On the other hand a part of the Great Fosse Road, which 
 still remains as a monument to the engineering capabilities 
 of the Romans, was constructed of the following layers : 
 (i) Pammentiim, or foundation of fine earth beaten in 
 hard. 
 
 (2) Stainmen, or the bed of the road, which was com- 
 
 posed of large stones, sometimes mixed with mortar. 
 
 (3) Kiideratio, made of small stones also mixed with 
 
 mortar. 
 
 (4) The Nucleus, which was formed by mixing lime, 
 chalk, pounded bricks or tiles ; or again, by mixing 
 gravel sand, and lime with clay.
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 123 
 
 (5) The Summti7n Dorsum, or top of the road, forming 
 the actual surface exposed to the wear and tear 
 of the traffic. 
 
 Of these roads, three beside the Ickiiield Street were, 
 in the time of Edward the Confessor, called the Quatuor 
 Chimini, and placed under the King's Peace, that is to say, 
 crimes committed upon them were tried in the King's Court, 
 and not in any local court, as would have been the case had 
 they taken place on any other road. These three were the 
 Watling Street, the Fosse Way, and the Ermine Street, and 
 nmch labour has been spent on the task of tracing out the 
 exact line of each, a task rendered none the easier by the 
 fact that there are several roads of each of these names, in 
 some cases quite unconnected with one another. A few 
 words must be devoted to describing the course of each of 
 these ways ; and here it may be said that our knowledge of 
 the Roman roads and stations is largely drawn from the 
 Itinerary of Antoninus, a description of the roads compiled 
 probably for military use and ascribed to the age of 
 Hadrian or Severus. The most celebrated of the four roads 
 received at a later date from the Saxons the name of Watling 
 Street, a title, by the way, which, as we learn from Chaucer, 
 was also given to the Milky Way {see Map). Starling 
 from London, it ran north-west through St. Albans (Veru- 
 lamium), Dunstable, Fenny and Stony Stratford, Towcester 
 (Lactodorum), crossed the Fosse Road at a place now called 
 High Cross, traversed Wall (Etocetum), and finally reached 
 Wroxeter (Uriconium). Here it met a second but smaller 
 road of the same name, which, starting from Caerleon-on- 
 Usk (Isca Silurum), passed through Kenchester (Magna), 
 near Hereford, Leintvvardine (Branodunum), and the Stret- 
 ton Valley. 
 
 Places with names such as Stretton, Stretford, Stratford, 
 and the like, found along these and other great roads of 
 the time, derive their titles from their proximity to the 
 ancient "street."
 
 124 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 The Fosse Road started from a point north of Seaton, in 
 Devonshire, passing thence north-east through Bath (Aquje 
 Sulis), Cirencester (Coriniuni), and Stow-on-the-Wold, to 
 High Cross already mentioned. Thence through Leicester 
 (Rat^) and Newark it pursued its course to terminat at 
 Lincoln (Lindum Colonia). The Ermine Street in later 
 times ran nearly due north from London to Lincoln, but 
 it is probable from the silence of the Roman itineraries as 
 to any direct road between the former city and Huntingdon, 
 that the only part of the street which existed at the time 
 with which we are now dealing was the northern portion 
 between Huntingdon and Lincoln. 
 
 These great streets were provided with many of the 
 conveniences possessed by our own main roads at the 
 present day. They were marked by milliaria, or mile- 
 stones, a number of which have been found in different 
 parts of the country along the course of former Roman 
 highways. They bore, as is shown by the following example, 
 found some time ago about two miles from Leicester 
 (Ratae), not merely the distance from the nearest town, 
 but also the titles of the reigning Cfesar and the year, so 
 that it is possible to tell the date at which each was placed 
 in its position. 
 
 IMP. CAES. 
 
 mv. TRAIANI. PARTH. F. NER. NEP. 
 
 TRAIAN. HADRIAN. AVG. P. P. TRIB. 
 
 POT. IV. COS. III. 
 
 A. RATIS. 11.* 
 
 Along the roads, at distances varying from seven to twenty 
 miles, were placed posting-stations (mansiones) which, at 
 
 * " Imperatore Caesare Divi Trajani Angxisti, Maximi Nobilissimi 
 Parthici Filio Divo Augusto Maximo Nobilissimo Hadriano Tri- 
 bunitii Potestatis Quarto Ter Consulate. A Ratis Duo." 
 
 During the emperorship of the divine, august, most great and 
 noble Ca;sar Hadrian, son of the divine, august, most great and 
 noble Trajan, conqueror of Parthia, in the fourth year of his tribu- 
 nitian power : thrice consul. Two miles to Leicester.
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 125 
 
 first intended for the use of the military only, eventually 
 came to resemble the inns of our own day, and provided 
 hospitality for travellers of all kinds. In many places the 
 cemeteries were placed by the sides of great roads ; indeed, 
 so many funeral monuments have been discovered by the 
 side of the road between York and Tadcaster (Calcaria), 
 that it has received the name of the Street of Tombs. 
 
 As the Romans pushed their military operations deeper 
 and deeper into the heart of the country, they were naturally 
 confronted with the necessity of providing suitable accommo- 
 dation, either temporary or permanent, for their troops. 
 Where possible they, no doubt, saved themselves the 
 trouble of constructing fortifications of their own by 
 utilising, with or without modification, those British camps 
 whose occupants had fled or been expelled. Hence we meet 
 with many fortresses which have been successively used by 
 these races and by those who came after them in the land, 
 such as old Sarum, the Roman Sorbiodunum, a place whose 
 history is an instance of what has occurred at many another 
 spot of less strategic advantage and fame. "Celt and 
 Roman alike," writes Mr. Green, " had seen the military 
 value of the height from which the eye sweeps nowadays 
 over the grassy meadows of the Avon to the arrowy spire of 
 Salisbury; and admirable as the position was in itself, it 
 had been strengthened at a vast cost of labour. The camp 
 on the summit of the knoll was girt in by a trench hewn so 
 deeply in the chalk that from the inner side of it the white 
 face of the rampa;rt rose one hundred feet high, while strong 
 outworks protected the api^roaches to the fortress, from the 
 west and from the east." This fortress long held out against 
 the progress of the West Saxons, barring their ai:)proach up 
 the .Avon Valley, and finally fell, probably because want of 
 food or water caused its defenders to evacuate it. It was 
 afterwards held by the .Saxons and Danes, and here Canute 
 died. In Norman times, William the Conqueror summoned
 
 126 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 his barons to Old Sarum to renew their oath of fealty. Its 
 decay dates from the time when the Bishop and clergy, 
 weary of squabbles with the military, and probably also 
 influenced by the chronic want of water, migrated to the 
 plains and founded the present City of Salisbury. In later 
 times, Old Sarum appears as the rottenest of rotten boroughs, 
 whose two members were returned by one elector, and now 
 its earthworks alone remain as an imperishable monument 
 of its former greatness. 
 
 But where the Romans had to undertake the construction 
 of a camp from the beginning, the plan which they pre- 
 ferred was that of a quadrangle, with four gates or entrances, 
 one in each side, and often protected by advance earth- 
 works. Of these earthworks, castra exploratoria, or tempo- 
 rary fortifications, such as might be thrown up by the 
 advance guard of an army, and castra estiva, which were 
 intended to be used during a whole season, are generally 
 placed on the tops of hills, and, consequently, are not 
 so regular in their outline as the more permanent con- 
 structions. Careful rules were laid down by the Roman 
 authorities on castrametation as to the selection of 
 localities for the camps, and Hyginus, in a treatise of the 
 kind, enumerates the objects which should be avoided as 
 neighbours for the proposed camp. These he calls novercce, 
 a word meaning mothers-in-law, that much abused character 
 having thus early acquired an evil reputation. " Those 
 defects which our ancestors called novercEe," he says, 
 " should always be avoided ; such as a hill commanding 
 the camp, by which the enemy can descend in attack, or 
 see what is done in the camp ; or a wood where the enemy 
 can lie in ambush ; or ravines or valleys by which they can 
 steal unawares on the camp ; or such a situation of the 
 camp that it can be suddenly flooded from a river." 
 Castra statlva, or stations which were intended for pro- 
 longed occupation, were generally placed on lower ground
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 127 
 
 and in the vicinity of water, ^^'he^ fully developed, this 
 kind of camp was called legionary, and an example of the 
 kind at Caistor in Northamptonshire (which indeed derives 
 its name from this castra) is an oblong, 1349 feet in length 
 and 1 1 20 in breadth, and covers about 33 acres of ground. 
 In such a camp, the gate facing the enemy was called the 
 Porta Praetoria, and from it led a straight wide path, the Via 
 Principalis, to the gnima, or measuring point, behind which 
 was situated the Pr?etorium. On this were the altar for 
 public sacrifices, the Auguratorium, where the auspices 
 were consulted, and the Tribunal, from which the troops 
 were harangued. A second Via Principalis cut the first at 
 right angles and led from the Porta Principalis of one side 
 to that of the other. The gate at the opposite side to the 
 Praetorian, and therefore furthest from the enemy, was called 
 Porta Decumana. In the interior, the positions of the leader 
 and his staff, of the various troops and of the workshops, 
 were marked out with that precision so characteristic of the 
 military genius of the Romans. 
 
 Even the most perfect form of camp, however, was more 
 or less of a temporary expedient, and often the castra stativa 
 proved to be the forerunner of the later walled city. " A 
 Roman camp was ' a city in arms,' and most of the British 
 towns grew out of the stationary quarters of the soldiery. 
 The ramparts and pathways developed into walls and streets, 
 the square of the tribunal into the market-place, and every 
 gateway was the beginning of a suburb, where straggling 
 rows of shops, temples, rose-gardens, and cemeteries, were 
 sheltered from all danger by the presence of a permanent 
 garrison. In course of time the important positions were 
 surrounded with lofty walls, protected by turrets set apart at 
 the distance of a bowshot, and built of such solid strength 
 as to resist the shock of a battering-ram. In the centre of 
 the town stood a gioup of public buildings, containing the 
 courthouse, baths and barracks, and it seems likely that
 
 128 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 every important place had a theatre or a circus for races 
 and shows. The humble beginnings of our cities are seen 
 in the ancient sketch of a visit to central Britain, in which 
 a poet (Statius) pictured the arrival of the son of a former 
 governor, and imagined a white-haired old man pointing 
 out the changes of the province. ' Here your father,' he 
 says, ' sat in judgment, and on that bank he stood and 
 addressed his troops. Those watch-towers and distant 
 forts are his, and these walls were built and entrenched by 
 him. This trophy of arms he offered to the gods of war, 
 with the inscription that you still may see ; that cuirass he 
 donned at the call to arms ; this corselet he tore from the 
 body of a British king." (Elton.) In some instances their 
 situations were not identical, as in the case of the quadri- 
 lateral Roman camp, locally called Poundbury, situated 
 on a hill a little distance north of Dorchester, which was 
 the parent of the Roman Durnovaria, on whose remains 
 Dorchester stands. But here the alteration in position was 
 probably due to the greater proximity of the second site to 
 the water supply. In other cases, the town grew up 
 actually inside the earthworks, which may, as at Wareham, 
 though altered, persist to the present day. Where the 
 walled city was built from the commencement as such, and 
 of set plan, or where it grew out of a legionary camp, it was 
 constructed of a quadrilateral shape, as may be seen at 
 Dorchester (where avenues of trees mark out the foundations 
 of the walls), and was provided with a gate at each side. 
 In such towns two main streets ran at right angles to one 
 another so as to connect the gates of opposite sides, and 
 where they intersected they formed the cross, which we find 
 in the centre of towns like Gloucester, Worcester and Dor- 
 chester. But in other cases the city grew up fitst, and 
 when it became advisable subsequently to provide it with 
 walls, they had to accommodate themselves to the shape of 
 the collection of houses and could not assume a rectangular
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 129 
 
 form. Such is the case at Silchester, where we have 
 perhaps the most perfect example of a Roman city wall in 
 England. A\'hen the Roman troops were withdrawn from 
 this country there existed in it fifty walled towns, not count- 
 ing the stations placed along the course of the more 
 important roads. Of these, twenty-eight deserved to rank 
 as cities, two of them, Eburacum (York) and Verulamium 
 (St. Albans), belonging to the highest class or municipia, 
 and nine to the second or colonia. It may perhaps be 
 interesting to give the names of the colonia, one of which 
 has long since out-topped not merely its fellows but also 
 the two municipia in importance. They were Glevum 
 (Gloucester), Linduni (Lincoln), Deva (Chester), Camulo- 
 dunum (Colchester), Londinium (London), Rutupiae (Rich- 
 borough, the port of prime importance at that time), Aquas 
 Sulis (Bath), Isca Silurum (Caerleon-on-Usk), and Cambo- 
 ritum (close to Cambridge). 
 
 The reader will perhaps obtain a more clear idea of the 
 construction and contents of a Roman city if a few 
 examples are first described, and then the most salient 
 features common to all are separately dealt with. The 
 remarkable remains of Silchester, which might, were money 
 forthcoming, be made into an English Pompeii, are situ- 
 ated a short distance from Reading, close to the village of 
 Mortimer Fielding. Nearly the whole of the wall is present 
 and in a wonderfully perfect condition, its extent being i^ 
 miles. It is composed largely of flint, mixed, however, 
 with other stones, and is intersected with bonding courses, 
 not, as in all other walls in England of the same period, 
 made of brick, but of flat slabs of stone. It is from 15 
 to 21 feet in height, from 9 to 15 feet in thickness, and 
 is strengthened by buttresses placed against its inner face. 
 It has the usual four gateways, and in addition, a smaller 
 exit directly opposite the amphitheatre, which is, as cus- 
 tomary, placed outside the walls. Beyond the walls, and 
 
 I
 
 I30 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 at some small distance from them, is a fosse, which is 
 I GO feet in width and from 12 to 14 feet in depth, 
 and still in places is filled with water. This city contained, 
 besides a number of residences, a forum forming a 
 parallelogram 276 by 313 feet, which was surrounded by 
 
 Fig. 44 — Plan of Silchester, showing the walls and some of the 
 objects of interest. N. S, W, E, the principal gates ; a, Small 
 gate leading to b, amphitheatre ; c, forum ; d, basilica ; e, site 
 of Roman Christian basilica ; f, site of circular tomple ; g, 
 " Cavalry barracks " ; h, baths ; 3, modern church ; K, K, in- 
 trenchments ; L, L, L, remains ot Fosse ; m m Villas ; n, 
 Hypocaust. 
 
 an ambulatory from 12 to 15 feet in width. Along its 
 northern side was a row of shops, amongst which have been 
 identified those of a wine merchant, a fish-seller, from 
 whom were bought some at least of the oysters whose 
 shells litter the remains of Silchester so profusely, a butcher, 
 whose steel-yards and flesh-hooks have been found, a 
 poulterer, in whose shop were some of the steel spurs used 
 for arming game-cocks fpr a fight, and a jeweller. Attached
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 131 
 
 was also a hall for the use of merchants, which measured 
 30 by 60 feet. There was an apsidal basilica 276 by 60 feet, 
 with a gallery on one side, and a central nave sustained by 
 two rows of pillars with Corinthian capitals. Around it were 
 a series of smaller rooms, in one of which was found the 
 eagle or standard of a legion, a unique discovery so far as 
 this island is concerned. There have also been identified 
 one or more temples, the usual baths, and a Christian church. 
 A further range of buildings may have been cavalry barracks. 
 To all these objects further attention will be paid in the 
 next chapter. 
 
 Uriconium, the modern Wroxeter, situated at the foot 
 of the \\^rekin, in Shropshire, must also have been a place 
 of great importance. "The town," says Mr. Green, "was 
 strongly placed at the foot of the Wrekin, not far from the 
 bank of the Severn, and was of great extent. Its walls 
 enclosed a space more than double that of Roman London, 
 while the remains of its forum, its theatre and its amphi- 
 theatre, as well as the broad streets which contrast so 
 strangely with the narrow alleys of other British towns, 
 show its wealth and importance. With its storm by the 
 West Saxons the very existence of the city came to an end. 
 Its ruins show that the place was plundered and burned, 
 while the bones which lie scattered among them tell their 
 tale of the flight and massacre of its inhabitants, of women 
 and children hewn down in the streets, and wretched 
 fugitives stifled in the hypocausts whither they had fled 
 with their little hoards for shelter. A British poet sings 
 piteously, in verses still left to us, the death-song of 
 Uriconium, 'the white town in the valley,' the town of 
 white stones gleaming amongst the green woodlands. The 
 torch of the foe had left it, when he sang, a heap of black- 
 ened ruins, where the singer wandered through halls he had 
 known in happier days, the halls of its chief Kyndylan, 
 ' without fire, without light, without song,' their stillness
 
 132 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 broken only by the eagle's scream, the eagle 'who has 
 swallowed fresh drink, heart's blood of Kyndylan the fair.' 
 Of this great city even less remains above ground than of 
 Silchester, the most prominent portion being a bit of the 
 city wall, long known in the district as the ' Old Works.' " 
 
 This fine fragment is about twenty feet in height and 
 seventy-two in length. Like other Roman walls it is 
 erected upon a good foundation, on which are laid one or 
 two set-off courses of stone. Upon- this is placed a series 
 of courses of shaped stones, then a string or bonding 
 course of flat tiles, then more stones, another course of 
 tiles and so on. In fact this alternation of tile and stone is 
 characteristic of Roman walls in this country, that fine 
 fragment, recently threatened with destruction by a railway 
 company, the Jewry Wall, a portion of the fortifications of 
 Ratse, the Roman Leicester, having no less than sixteen 
 alternations of stone and tile. In some cases instead of the 
 courses of tiles having been laid flat, they have been placed 
 in a herring-bone manner. Outside the area of the wall in 
 places can be seen the remains of the fosse and ramparts 
 with which it was surrounded. As has been mentioned in 
 another chapter, the ruins of Uriconium, after its sack and 
 burning, were used as a stone quarry for the building 
 operations of later ages. The pillars of the gateway lead- 
 ing into the churchyard are topped with capitals which once 
 surmounted the pillars of some edifice in the Roman city, 
 whilst another pillar, hollowed out internally, forms the 
 font. Its stones are found not merely at Wroxeter and at 
 Atcham in the walls of the Norman churches of those two 
 places, but are said to have been used in great numbers in 
 the construction of the Abbey of Lilleshall. 
 
 It is not, therefore, surprising that there should not be 
 much of Uriconium left above ground. Our knowledge of 
 what it was is gained from the excavations which have been 
 undertaken there from time to time, but as nearly all the
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 133
 
 134 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 places which have been disclosed have been covered up 
 again, in order that the land may be used for agricultural 
 purposes, the visitor will be disappointed if he expects to 
 see any number of the objects described as existing at 
 Uriconium by the books dealing with it. In fact, he will 
 learn more as to the habits of the citizens of Uriconium by 
 visiting the museum in Shrewsbury, where are collected 
 many of the objects which have been found from time to 
 time, than he can from the few reHcsto be seen at Wroxeter. 
 In the course of the excavations were exposed the usual 
 basilica and baths, together with shops, one of which, 
 apparently the property of a worker in glass or metal, or of 
 an enameller, possessed a furnace or forge, built of red 
 clay, the interior surface of which had been completely 
 vitrified by the intense heat to which it had been exposed. 
 Four or five feet from it stood a curious roughly-formed 
 grey stone, circular in shape and with a flat top, which 
 may have been used for a work-table. The villas, here 
 as elsewhere, had been warmed by a heating apparatus 
 under the floors of the rooms, called a hypocaust, which 
 will be more fully described in the next chapter. In one of 
 the hypocausts were found the remains of three of the 
 inhabitants, referred to in the passage quoted above. One 
 of these skeletons was that of a woman, another, that of a 
 very old man, was found in a crouching position in one 
 corner of the low chamber into which he had crept, with 
 his savings, for near his remains was found a heap consist- 
 ing of 132 coins and a few nails, the latter being the 
 only remnants of the wooden box in which the money had 
 lain. The third skeleton, like that of the first, was a 
 woman. No doiibt when the sack of the town took place 
 these three wretches crawled into the hypocaust by the 
 narrow passage through which the flames and heat entered, 
 in the hope that they might escape the notice of their 
 barbarian foes. But whilst hiding there they must have
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 135 
 
 been stifled, either by the hot air and smoke belonging to 
 the hypocaust, or by the conllagration in which the city 
 itself perished. 
 
 Corinium, the modern Cirencester, was probably built on 
 the site of a British camp, and was surrounded by walls, 
 fifteen feet in height and two miles in circuit, which en- 
 closed a parallelogram. It was placed at the junction of 
 several important roads, as the Fosse ran through it, also 
 another great highway called the Ermine Street (not, of 
 course, that mentioned earlier in this chapter), whilst, finally, 
 another road which led to Bath and received in Saxon times 
 the significant name of Akeman Street,* from the condition 
 of the gouty sufferers who travelled along it, also traversed 
 the city. 
 
 It was the chief town of the Cotswold district, a district 
 distinguished above all other parts of England by the 
 number, size and magnificence of its villas, and is said 
 to have been occupied by Ostorius Scapula prior to his 
 campaign against Caratacos. One may gather from the 
 words of Stukeley not merely what extensive remains there 
 were in existence at his day, but also how it is that so many 
 of them both there and elsewhere are no more to be seen. 
 " Here/' he says, " are found many mosaic pavements, 
 rings, intaglios, and coins innumerable, especially in one 
 great garden, called Lewis Grounds. I suppose it was the 
 Prsetorium. Large quantities of carved stones are carried 
 off yearly in carts, to mend the highways, besides what are 
 useful in building. In the same place they found several 
 stones of the shafts of pillars, 6 ft. long, and bases of 
 stone (as the tenant expressed hijr.self) near as big in com- 
 pass as his summer-house adjoining ; these, with cornices, 
 very handsomely moulded, and carved with modillions and 
 
 * It is right to say that this etymology has been objected to by 
 some who find in the word Aqua (water) the derivation of the first 
 syllable of the name.
 
 136 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 the like ornaments, were converted into swine troughs. 
 Some of the stones of the bases were fastened together with 
 cramps of iron, so that they were forced to employ horses to 
 draw them asunder. Capitals of these pillars were likewise 
 found." 
 
 Like the villas in the district to which it belonged, the 
 houses of Corinium were notable for the beauty and diversity 
 of their tesselated pavements, of many of which we fortu- 
 nately possess full details, which will be dealt with in the 
 next chapter. Here have also been found funeral monu- 
 ments and other inscriptions, some on the walls of houses. 
 Outside the wall of the city was an amphitheatre. 
 
 It would be tedious to give further accounts of the 
 general details of the Roman towns in Britain, but what has 
 been said will show how immeasurably civilisation had 
 advanced upon the lake villages of the previous era, lake 
 villages which, be it remembered, were still existing in 
 England, side by side with, and only partially influenced by, 
 the culture of the cities which we have been considering.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 
 
 — continued 
 
 The Roman city — Cemetery — Pomoerium — Amphitheatre 
 — Gates -Forum and Basilica — Shops — Baths — Temples — 
 Christian Church — Barracks. 
 
 The outlines afforded in the last chapter of the Romano 
 
 British cities must now be filled in 
 
 by a more complete description of 
 
 some of the prominent objects found 
 
 in or near them. This may [)erhaps 
 
 be St be effected by taking them in 
 
 the order in which they would 
 
 naturally be met with by a stranger 
 
 visiting a city for the first time. 
 
 Approaching by one of the great 
 
 roads, the attention of the traveller 
 
 would probably first be attracted by 
 
 the numerous tombstones which he 
 
 would see by its side, setting forth 
 
 the names, ages and conditions of 
 
 those who were interred beneath. 
 
 These would, in the great majority 
 
 of cases, as is natural, having regard 
 
 to the condition of the country, be 
 
 1^ 
 
 RVFVSSlTAtavfSCHOVI 
 MEREOES-tXSTtSTFCi/RWE 
 
 / 
 
 ^ 
 
 Fig. 46. — Roman Itjmb- 
 stone from Uriconium. 
 (Wright.)-' 
 
 * The inscription may be thus translated: " Rufus Sita, of the 
 sixth cohort of the Thracians, forty years of age, served twenty-two
 
 138 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 either soldiers or their relatives. Some of these are adorned 
 with carvings like that on which a Roman soldier on horse- 
 back is represented as bestriding his prostrate British foe. 
 A few instances out of the many which have been collected 
 must suffice. 
 
 (i) A military tombstone from Uriconium. The original 
 inscription is on the left, the full Latin in the centre, and 
 the translation on the right. 
 
 M. PETKONIU3 
 LF. MEN 
 VIC. ANN 
 XXXVIII 
 MIL. LEG 
 XIII. GEM 
 MILITAVIT 
 ANN. XVIII 
 SIGN. FVIT 
 H. S. E. 
 
 Marcus Petronius, 
 Lucii filius Menenia, 
 Vic sit annis 
 xxxviii 
 
 miles legionis 
 xiii gemitiffi, 
 militavit 
 annis xviii, 
 Signifer fuit. 
 Hie situs est. 
 
 Marcus Petro 
 
 son of Lucius, of the Men- 
 
 enian tribe, lived 38 
 
 years, 
 
 a soldier of the fourteenth 
 
 legion, called Gemina ; he 
 
 served as a soldier 
 
 eighteen years, 
 
 and was a standard-bearer. 
 
 He lies here. 
 
 (ii) The next instance is that of a family tombstone from 
 the same place, which was intended originally to commemo- 
 rate three persons, being divided into three compartments, 
 but for some reason the third, which was probably intended 
 to bear the name of the husband and brother (?) of those 
 to whom the first two sections belong, has remained unfilled 
 up. In the first compartment appears : 
 
 D. M. 
 
 Diis Manibus. 
 
 To the Gods of the Shades. 
 
 PLACIDA 
 
 Placida 
 
 Placida 
 
 AN. LV. 
 
 Annorum Iv. , 
 
 aged fifty-five years. 
 
 CUR. AG 
 
 Curam agente 
 
 erected by the care of 
 
 CON I. A 
 
 Conj uge annorum 
 
 him who was her husband 
 
 XXX 
 
 XXX. 
 
 for thirty years. 
 
 years in the ranks. His heirs have caused this monument to be 
 erected in accordance with the instructions of his will. He is buried 
 here."
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 139 
 In the second : 
 
 D. M. 
 
 Diis Manibus. 
 
 To the Gods of the Shades. 
 
 DEVCCV 
 
 Deuccu 
 
 Deuccus 
 
 S. AN. XV 
 
 s, annorum xv. 
 
 aged fifteen years ; 
 
 CVR. AG 
 
 curam agente 
 
 erected by the care of 
 
 FRATRE. 
 
 fratre. 
 
 his brother. 
 
 (iii) One final instance may be given of an inscription on 
 the coffin of a child, discovered near Holdgate in Yorkshire : 
 
 D. M. siMPLiciJE. FLORENTINE To the Gods of the Shades of Sitn- 
 
 ANiME iNNOCENTissiME plicla Florcntina, a most innocent 
 
 QUE. vixiT MENSES DECEM soul, who lived ten months. 
 
 FELicius. SIMPLEX. PATER FECIT Felicius Simplex, her father, of the 
 
 LEG. VI. V. Sixth legion, the Victorious, made 
 
 this. 
 
 Approaching still nearer the city the pomoerium would 
 appear, an open space outside the walls which might not be 
 built upon. Mr. Gomme thinks that in the name of the 
 parish of St. Martin's Pomeroy, London, we have a relic of 
 the pomoerium of Londinium, just as the "pummery," an 
 open space outside Dorchester, may be that of Durnovaria. 
 
 Before entering the city, the amphitheatre Avould also be 
 visited, and of these open-air places of amusement we have 
 several good examples in this country, that near Dorchester, 
 known as Maumbury, being the finest. This is an oval 
 earthwork, enclosing a space 218 ft. in length and 163 ft. in 
 width, and has been constructed by excavating the chalk 
 and heaping it up into a rampart 30 ft. high. This ramjiart 
 is interrupted by two openings at its opposite ends, by which 
 entrance was gained to the interior. It rises gradually to 
 attain its maximum height midway between the openings, 
 and was no doubt once arranged in tiers to accommodate 
 the rows of spectators. In much later days, in fact, in the 
 last century, it was used as the public place of execution, 
 and it is calculated that ten thousand persons have been 
 present in it on such occasions. Another amphitheatre is
 
 I40 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 situated near Cirencester, in which the bank, 20 ft. in 
 height, encloses a space 148 ft. by 134 ft. Few vestiges of 
 the seats remain here, though, if we may trust the account 
 of earher writers, they must have been much more distinct 
 in comparatively recent times. An amphitheatre outside 
 the walls of Caerleon on-Usk goes by the name of King 
 Arthur's Round Table, and, as we have seen, there is a 
 fourth outside Silchester. The amphitheatre inspected, the 
 
 Fig. 47.— Roman Gate at Lindum (Lincoln). (Wright.) The 
 figure is reversed, the smaller arch being really to the right of 
 the large one. 
 
 traveller would next approach the wall, the general structure 
 of which has already been sufficiently described, and enter 
 the city by one of its gates. At Lincoln one of the smaller 
 entrances tp the city of Lindum Colonia still remains, and 
 is called the Newport Arch. The original design of this 
 gateway no doubt consisted of a large central archway, with 
 two smaller posterns, one on either side, but of the latter, 
 one has completely disappeared. The main arch consists 
 of twenty-six huge wedge-shaped blocks of stone without 
 any regular keystone, and is 16 ft. in diameter. Passing
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 141 
 
 through the gateway and following one of the main streets 
 to the centre of the city, the forum and basilica would be 
 reached. The reader can form a good idea of what these 
 important buildings were like from the following account of 
 those of Silchester, given by Mr. Joyce. The forum pre- 
 sented a straight line of unbroken wall, without a projection, 
 
 Fig. 48. — Plan of Foram (the square enclosure) and Basilica (the 
 oblong enclosure to the left) at Silchester. The former is 
 separated by an ambulatory from rows of shops and offices, 
 and the latter has a lateral apsidal recess and tv/o apsidal 
 tribunes. (After a plan in the A rc/ueologia. ) 
 
 having one entrance at some hundred feet from its western 
 termination. Between the entrance and that western end 
 rose the basilica, towering over all the other buildings, and 
 over the forum itself. Against this wall of the basilica, 
 close to the intersection of the two great vice, was an in- 
 scription in honour of the local god, the Segontian Hercules. 
 The forum proper was, therefore; on the left baud at
 
 142 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 entering by this northern doorway, and the basilica and 
 council-chambers on the right. Confining ourselves first 
 to the forum, properly so called, and excluding for the 
 present any other buildings which lie within its plan, the 
 visitor, immediately upon passing through the entrance, 
 would have found himself standing in an avnbulato y, which 
 stretched away to his left hand, and might be followed, 
 without a break, completely round three sides of the entire 
 edifice, making the circuit until it arrived on the southern 
 side, at an exit corresponding to the doorway on the north ; 
 any one walking along it, however, must pass by the great 
 entrance, which was at the centre of the eastern side. The 
 range of the shops extended the whole way along the inner 
 part of this ambulatory, forming a sort of bazaar, except on 
 the south side, where the rooms were larger, and had other 
 uses. Within the range of shops, again, was a second line 
 of ambulatories, enclosing on three sides the great central 
 court or quadrangle of the forum. The general plan may, 
 therefore, be described as a rectangular court, encompassed 
 round three of its sides by symmetrical ranges of not very 
 lofty buildings, which contained a double row of ambula- 
 tories, having between their lines a series of chambers, used 
 for shops or for pubUc business. The fourth side of the 
 central court was formed by the side wall of the basilica, 
 which extended its whole length. The range of rooms lying 
 between the double range of ambulatories, on the south 
 side, was not used for shops, but for the offices of the public 
 departments, to which there would be perpetual resort out 
 of the forum. These rooms are more stately in size, and 
 were probably loftier than the shops ; they also are only 
 five in number, and are distinguished, by their arrangement, 
 as a group constructed for an especial purpose. 
 
 The central and the two end rooms (all alike in size) are 
 rectangular, but those on each side of the central room have 
 semi-circular ends, implying that they were built for the
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 143 
 
 reception of boards or committees, with a president and 
 assessors. In this group of pubhc offices the business of 
 the aedile, quaestor, and the revenue was carried on. The 
 inner ambulatories at each side opened into the basihca, 
 and there was most Hkely also an entrance to it from the 
 central court. Passing now, therefore, out of the forum 
 proper into the basilica, the first particular which at once 
 arrests the attention is its magnitude. Including the two 
 tribunals, which face each other at the extreme ends, this 
 basilica extended entirely across the forum. 
 
 Its total length consequently, measuring from the outside 
 of its north end to the outside of its south end, was not less 
 than 276 ft.; or, omitting the tribunals altogether, the 
 central space was about 230 ft. long by 60 ft. wide. This, 
 however, by no means fills up the plan between the 
 wide party wall next the forum and the west exterior wall. 
 All along the whole west side of the basilica were spacious 
 chambers (to certain of which uses have been assigned from 
 the articles found within them), that at the centre being un- 
 equivocally the curia, or principal hall of council. This 
 latter was quite open to the basilica along its entire front, 
 was always a lofty room, and at Silchester was ascended by 
 two steps ; the back of it was formed by a wide shallow semi- 
 circle, so as to accommodate a large council board, and it 
 was lined with a dado of white Italian marble sawn in thin 
 slabs, and secured by small iron clamps. The largest room, 
 however, along this range was a great apartment, 60 ft. 
 long, which occupied the northern end, and to which, from 
 the connection Vitruvius mentions between merchants and 
 basilicffi, the name of the Hall of Merchants has been 
 assigned. It must not be forgotten that of the spacious 
 chambers nothing remains but the outline of their several 
 floors. To revert to the great basilica itself, it might with 
 propriety be described as consisting really of two courts, 
 placed end to end. No septum or division, nor any indica-
 
 144 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 tion whatever of one, has been discovered, but the dimen- 
 sions (that is to say, the length as compared with the 
 breadth) almost indicate that such was the purpose of 
 its original designer. A Roman basilica was built upon 
 such a plan that its nave or central area (which was very 
 lofty) had on either hand an aisle in two stories. The 
 lower story of the aisle was formed by a colonnade of large 
 pillars, and the upper by a gallery behind a parapet, having 
 along its front a range of smaller pillars, which stood 
 symmetrically over the large ones. The colonnade below 
 had thus to support an enormous weight, and it was usual to 
 give strength and firmness to the bases of the columns 
 by placing them upon a massive substructural wall, which 
 wall, built beneath the floor of the basilica, kept all the 
 columns true to the level, and greatly aided them to bear 
 the superincumbent pressure without sinking. At Silchester 
 nave and aisles are obliterated, the splendid colonnade 
 is represented by a few blocks of weather-worn shafts and 
 by some fragments of well-wrought capitals ; but the massive 
 substructural wall on one side of the basilica, which sup- 
 ported its long range of pillars, remains embedded still in 
 the ground, and is no less than 5 ft. wide. Of the 
 corresponding wall, upon the oppposite side of the centre, 
 not the slightest vestige has been recovered, though care- 
 fully sought for. 
 
 Portions of shafts of two sizes (as might be expected) lay 
 about among the debris in the centre. The diameter of 
 the largest was 3 ft., that of the smaller, i ft. 10 in. 
 Parts of two bases have also been met with, one of them 
 having the torus mouldings fairly marked still, but both 
 being more or less defaced. Fragments of capitals of 
 a very enriched style and excellent workmanship have 
 also been discovered, but unfortunately no pieces of sculp- 
 ture and only a few fragments of inscriptions have come 
 to light. Much curious ironwork has been from time
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 
 
 M5 
 
 to time found in the forum, amongst other things, the keys 
 of the shops in the ambulatories, the styU with which the 
 tradesmen kept their accounts, door-hinges (one especially, 
 which appears to be made to keep a door closed by a 
 spring at the back), snap-lock bolts, rings in pairs for the 
 handles of double doors, nails of every size and shape. A 
 small iron axe, knife-blades of various sizes, the hooks of 
 the butchers' steel-yards found in the shops of the butchers, 
 and the blade of an oyster-knife in the fishmonger's. 
 The bronze articles consist principally of fibulae of various 
 patterns — small armlets, pieces of a chain-bracelet with a 
 
 Fig. 49. — Roman Pottery from 
 
 Castor (Durobrivas). 
 
 (Wright.) 
 
 Fig. 50.— Roman Pottery 
 
 from Upchurch. 
 
 (Wright.) 
 
 snap,' some playthings, such as a toy-anchor and tiny game- 
 cock, a (juaint little long-legged horse, meant apparently to 
 rock by balancing on a small sphere of metal (though none 
 now exists), a tiny axe (probably one of a set of pendent 
 ornaments), a scale-bottom, some very small handbells, 
 toilette implements and studs of curiously modern shape. 
 Besides the shops incidentally mentioned here in the last 
 chapter, the visitor would probably find one or more 
 devoted to the sale of the various fictile wares made or im- 
 ported by the Romans. Of pottery, two kinds appear to 
 have been made in this country, that of Upchurch on the 
 
 K
 
 146 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Medway, which was of a blue-black colour and hard in 
 texture, and that called Durobrivian, from its place of 
 manufacture (Durobrivae, or Castor in Northamptonshire). 
 This was of a superior character to the other ware, being 
 better designed and often ornamented in white relief with 
 hunting scenes and other groups of figures or animals. 
 Its colour was generally bluish or slaty, though vases of 
 a dark copper hue have also been found. The potteries of 
 this district must have been very numerous, since they are 
 said to have extended for twenty miles along the river Nen, 
 
 Fig. 51.— Samian Pottery. (Wright.) 
 
 and to have employed at least 2000 men. A still more 
 beautiful form of pottery found in quantities in Britain was 
 the .Samian ware. This does not appear to have been 
 made in this country but was imported from abroad, is of a 
 fine red colour and has a highly polished surface. It was 
 evidently much valued by its possessors, for we find pieces 
 which have been accidentally broken and afterwards 
 mended with rivets, just as a valuable piece of porcelain 
 might be treated to-day. This ware is ornamented with 
 raised patterns representing trees, animals, hunting aiid 
 mythological scenes. 
 
 Of one or other of these kinds of pottery the most varied
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 147 
 
 articles might be purchased, from a baby's bottle, for such an 
 article has been found at Colchester, to large and beautiful 
 bowls and dishes. Terra-cotta statuettes manufactured at 
 Richborough, glass cups, bowls and beads, would perhaps 
 have been found in the same shop. Another store which 
 the traveller might visit was that of the local apothecary. 
 The elaborate surgical instruments, some of them so 
 strikingly like those still in use, which have been discovered 
 at Pompeii, have not as yet been met with in Britain, though 
 a surgical lancet has been found at Uriconium. At several 
 places, however, stamps have been found which were used 
 by oculists to mark the wax on the tops of their pots of 
 
 \A T aA/Tl mp A"r3^e:imRT' 
 
 Fig. 52. — Oculist's Stamp. The inscription is for an ointnicul — 
 " -Ad Cicatrices et Aspritudines " — for scars and roughnesses. 
 (Scot. Ant. Mus.) 
 
 ointment. One of these, discovered also at Uriconium, 
 betrays the same touching belief in the efficacy of his 
 remedy to cure all ills that marks the patent medicine man 
 of our own time. It is circular and bears an inscription, 
 which, translated reads : " The dialibanum (or eye-salve) of 
 Tiberius Claudius, the physician, for all complaints of the 
 eyes, to be used with eggs." 
 
 Another found at Bath belonged to a physician called Titus 
 Junianus, and bore a different inscription on each of its four 
 sides, so as to be used for the stamping of pots of ointment 
 of various qualities. The first of these seems to have been 
 employed in cases of cataract, the second is a ccrusomae-
 
 148 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 linuin, or gulden ointment, the third probably an astringent 
 eye lotion made of galls or some part of the oak, and the 
 fourth is more doubtful in its meaning, but is said to be 
 " delicta a medicis," or as we should now put it, "recom- 
 mended by the faculty." 
 
 Passing to another part of the city the visitor would 
 probably be anxious to inspect the baths, so essential a 
 feature of every Roman town. So devoted were the 
 Romans to their baths that it is said that there were at 
 one time as many as 850 of these establishments in the 
 city of Rome, and that some of them were capable of 
 accommodating several thousand bathers. The Roman 
 bath closely resembled the Turkish bath of to day, which 
 is indeed its hneal descendant. The arrangement of such 
 a bath is sufficiently well known to render any descrip- 
 tion of its ancient representative unnecessary, so that it will 
 suffice to say that in addition to the processes with which 
 we are familiar the bather was oiled all over in the apody- 
 terium, a large chamber where he left his clothes, and that 
 an additional room, called the sphceristerium, was provided 
 in which games were played and athletic exercises performed. 
 One of the most celebrated of the Romano-British baths is 
 that at Bath, a place long noted for its constant supply of 
 hot water, charged with salts of great benefit in gouty 
 ailments. The Britons, who appear to have known these 
 waters before the coming of the Romans, had placed them 
 under the patronage of one of their goddesses named Sul. 
 This personage was equated by the Romans with Minerva, 
 and altars dedicated to the goddess under the double name, 
 " Deee Suliminervge," have been found at fjath. Large 
 portions of the Roman baths have been uncovered, 
 including an oblong bath with steps leading down into it, 
 on which the bathers could sit, which measured 8^ ft. by 
 30 ft., and a circular bath 25 ft. in diameter. At Silchester 
 extensive baths have also been exposed, no less than sixteen
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 149 
 
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 I50 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 chambers having been laid bare. Amongst these are the 
 praefurnium, or furnace, where the heat for the sweating- 
 rooms and water was obtained, chambers with hypocausts 
 beneath them, a large apodyterium, and a swimming-bath. 
 The modern visitor to any town cannot be said to have fully 
 explored it until he has seen its principal churches, and our 
 traveller would find numerous temples in any city which he 
 visited, though few traces of such now exist. We know, 
 however, from history that there was a temple to Claudius 
 at Camulodunum (Colchester), and an inscription com- 
 memorates the building of another to Neptune and Minerva 
 at Regnum (Chichester). The remains of a temple to 
 Suliminerva at Bath are of a debased Corinthian style of 
 architecture, and others have been discovered at Caerleon, 
 Silchester and elsewhere. Various inscriptions which have 
 been discovered tell us of the foundation or restoration of 
 temples which have now disappeared. Besides this there 
 are numerous altars with inscriptions dedicating them to 
 Roman or British divinities, such as that discovered at 
 Tarraby on the Roman wall, the inscription of which when 
 translated reads: "The second sacred Augustan Legion, 
 under the charge of yElianus, Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Second Legion, Oppius Felix being his Deputy Lieutenant, 
 dedicate this altar to Mars, the great local Deity ; and took 
 care to have it set up." Two others found at Chester are 
 dedicated respectively to " Nymphis et Fontibus " (the 
 nymphs and fountains) and "Genio loci" (the genius of the 
 place). Perhaps one of the most interesting buildings, 
 however, of a religious character, is the early Christian 
 basilica recently discovered at Silchester. This small 
 edifice stood east and west, and consisted of a central 
 portion 29^ ft. long and 10 ft. wide, with a semicircular 
 apse at the west end. North and south of this v/ere two 
 narrow aisles only 5 ft. wide, terminating westwards in some- 
 what wider chambers or quasi-transepts ; the northern of these
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 151 
 
 was cut off from the aisle by a thin partition wall. The 
 eastern end of the building was covered by a porch, extend- 
 ing the whole width of the three main divisions. The 
 central division retains considerable portions of its floor of 
 coarse red-tile tessarre, or cubes, with, just in front of the 
 apse, a panel 5 ft. square of finer mosaic. The design 
 of this panel consists mainly of four squares filled with 
 black and white checkers, around which is a border of red 
 and black tessarce with an outer edging of white. " It is 
 generally assumed," says the account by Mr. St. John Hope, 
 from which the above facts have been extracted, " that in a 
 church like this, with the altar at the west end instead of 
 the east,* the celebrant stood during Mass behind the altar 
 and facing eastwards, this eastward position being the 
 essential thing, and not the position of the altar in the 
 building. The clergy were arranged in a semicircle around 
 the apse, behind the celebrant, and the deacons stood in 
 front and on either side. The choir of singers occupied the 
 western part of the nave, 
 
 ■" The state here of the red tesselation of the nave and apse 
 raises, however, some unexpected difficulties. In the first 
 place, there is so little room between the mosaic panel and 
 the apse wall that there cannot have been any seat here for 
 the clergy. In the next place, the floor of the apse, which 
 extends right up to the wall, not only shows no signs of wear, 
 but the edges of the tessar?e are so sharp that it is quite 
 certain that they cannot have been walked upon for even a 
 very short period. The mosaic panel is also not worn at 
 all. East of the panel, on the other hand, the red tessarse 
 are considerably worn, and those on each side also show 
 
 * There can be no reasonable doubt that the altar stood upon 
 the panel of fine mosaic in front of the apse, and that it was at first 
 a wooden table. Some small patches of pink cement upon the 
 surface of the mosaic seem, however, to show that the wooden altar 
 was replaced at a later time by a more substantial one in stone or 
 marble.
 
 152 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 signs of wear. The eastern position of the celebrant was so 
 universally the custom of the Church that the floor ought 
 certainly to show traces of wear on the west side of the 
 altar, but this it does not, and the conclusion therefore 
 seems inevitable that the apse floor had been relaid just 
 before the destruction of the building (which is unlikely), or 
 that the tessarae were effectually protected by being con- 
 stantly covered by a mat or carpet. 
 
 " To the east of the church is a tile foundation about 4 ft. 
 square. This is clearly the place of the labrum, or laver, in 
 which the faithful used to wash their hands and faces before 
 entering the church, and the shallow pit in front was pro- 
 bably covered by a pierced stone, and served to carry off 
 the waste water. The water itself could be obtained from 
 the well west of the church, to which, as there are no other 
 buildings near, it seems to have belonged." 
 
 It is probable that in many of the cities the traveller 
 might have found a theatre, but only in one, Verulamium, 
 or St. Albans, have any remains of such a building been dis- 
 covered. This theatre was a little over 190 ft. in diameter. 
 Its two outer walls were on the plan of a Greek theatre, 
 comprising 240 degrees of a circle, and between them 
 was a corridor 9 ft. wide. This was not continuous all 
 round, but was interrupted by stairs and walls. The stage 
 was 46 ft. long and 8 ft. 9 in. deep. At its east side was 
 a room with a coarse tesselated pavement, which was set 
 apart for the players — in fact, the green room. The walls 
 were painted in fresco after the manner customary to such 
 buildings, and when discovered the colours were quite 
 fresh. 
 
 In Silchester a range of buildings has been discovered, 
 which has been conjecturally called the cavalry barracks. 
 Whether such was its real purpose or not, there can be no 
 doubt that these large cities must have been provided with 
 accommodation for the soldiers stationed in them. From
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 153 
 
 
 
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 154 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 the inscriptions on tombstones and altars, to which allusion 
 has already been made, and from the marks on tiles and, in 
 the case of the Roman Wall, on the stone quarries, whence 
 they obtained their building materials, a very good idea can 
 be formed of the position of the various legions whose head- 
 quarters were situated in this country. Each of these legions 
 had, like many modern regiments, a sub-title, besides the 
 number which it oflicially bore. Thus the sixth legion was 
 called, " Victrix " and the second " Augusta." The head- 
 quarters of the former was at York, of the latter at Caerleon, 
 and of the twentieth, whose title was Victoria Victrix, or 
 Valens Victrix, at Chester. 
 
 There would still remain for our traveller, after he had 
 seen the various objects of interest mentioned in this chap- 
 ter, the group of buildings which constituted the great body 
 of the town, the villas or houses of its residents. It will, how- 
 ever, be more convenient to describe the private residence 
 of a Roman gentleman as it existed in the country, and this 
 will form a part of the next chapter. It would not, however, 
 be right to leave the city without alluding to the system of 
 drains which it possessed. An important work of this kind, 
 constructed on a similar model to the Cloaca Maxima at 
 Rome, has been found at Colchester.
 
 CHAPTER YIII 
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 
 
 — continued 
 
 The Roman Villa— Hypocausts—Tesselated pavements — 
 Chedworth Villa— Mines— Methods of Burial— The Roman 
 Wall — Nature of the Roman occupation. 
 
 The villa, in the country especially, during the latter part 
 of the Roman occupation of the land, formed an extensive 
 series of buildings for the accommodation of some wealthy 
 person, his family, servants, and workmen. It consisted, as 
 a rule, of three parts, the villa urbana, which contained the 
 dining- and sitting-rooms, bed-chambers, baths, and apart- 
 ments of the family generally, the villa rustica, for the 
 slaves, workmen, and stables, and the villa fructuaria, 
 where were the corn and oil stores, barns, granaries, and 
 such like necessary offices. 
 
 These buildings usually occupied four sides of a square, 
 forming a quadrangle, round the inner faces of which ran a 
 verandah, or cryptoporticus, by which access was gained to 
 the various rooms, and into which their windows looked. 
 Thus the maximum protection from rain and storms was 
 obtained. These windows, in Britain at least, were usually 
 glazed with sheets of crown or plate glass. In some cases 
 ground glass was employed, and there were even instances 
 in which windows were composed of coloured glass, alto- 
 gether a striking contrast to the inadequate casements of 
 Saxon and Norman times. As all traces of these buildings
 
 156 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 save their floors and the lower parts of their walls have dis- 
 appeared, it is impossible to say with absolute certainty 
 whether they consisted of more than one story, but as we 
 known that the ancient Romans entertained the greatest 
 objection to sleeping on the ground floor of a house, there 
 can be little doubt that their houses consisted of two, or 
 perhaps even of three stories, and that the bed-chambers 
 were on the upper floors. It is, however, highly probable 
 that these upper stories, and possibly also the upper part of 
 the walls of the ground floor, were made of wood, whilst 
 only the lower part of the latter was constructed of stone. 
 These walls would consist of wooden frames with the inter- 
 spaces filled in with " wattle and daub," in fact they would 
 closely resemble the old " half-timber houses " of a later 
 date, before the interstices of the framing timbers had been 
 filled in, as they so often have been, by bricks. The roofs 
 were covered perhaps in some cases with the tiles which the 
 Romans made in such numbers, but in the south-west of 
 England it was customary to use for this purpose small slabs 
 of oolite, now called " Stonesfield slates," which were cut into 
 a lozenge shape, and drilled with holes so that they might be 
 attached to the roof timbers by nails. It is very possible 
 that these may also have been fastened on the outsides of 
 the walls as a further protection against the weather. The 
 rooms were warmed by hypocausts and flue-tiles, a method 
 which has been several times alluded to, and must now be 
 more fully described. In constructing a room on the 
 ground floor, a series of pillars (pilse) were erected, either of 
 stones or of bricks, laid on top of one another. On these 
 a continuous floor of red tiles was laid down, so that, as in 
 some of our modern houses, there was a space some two 
 or more feet in depth between the actual floor of the room 
 and the subjacent earth. This space was called the hypo- 
 caust. On the layer of brick slabs, which was called the 
 suspensura, was laid down a stratum, about 6 in. in
 
 THE. ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 157 
 
 thickness, of concrete, formed of pounded bricks and lime, 
 which formed the foundation for the actual tesselated floor 
 of the room. This consisted of patterns, often of a highly 
 complicated nature, formed in a mosaic, composed of cubes 
 of stone of various colours, of brick, terra-cotta, and, in rare 
 instances, of glass. In Cirencester the materials used were, 
 for white, chalk ; for cream colour, hard fine-grained oolite ; 
 for grey, the same altered by fire ; for yellow, also oolite ; 
 
 Fig. 55. — Hypocaust at Corinium (Cirencester). (Wright.) One 
 of the pilae supporting the floor is of stone, the others are of 
 tiles. Between the last row and the wall on the left is a row 
 of upright flue tiles, and in the wall itself are two apertures 
 for conveying the hot air. 
 
 for chocolate, old red sandstone ; for slate-colour and black, 
 stone from the lower lias. The various shades of red and 
 also black were made of brick or terra-cotta, and in one 
 case, the transparent ruby colours of the flowers surrounding 
 a head of Flora were composed of pieces of glass. 
 
 Such floors may still be seen in the halls of public and 
 even private buildings of modern erection, and they have 
 the advantages of being durable, beautiful and easily cleaned. 
 A large number of such pavements have been discovered
 
 ivs 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 in this country and will be found figured and described in 
 Morgan's work on " Romano-British Mosaic Pavements." 
 A favourite subject for such a floor was that of Orpheus, 
 
 who is represented in the 
 centre of the pavement with 
 his lute, surrounded by the 
 birds and beasts whom he 
 had charmed by its strains. 
 
 A description of one ela- 
 borate pavement found at 
 Cirencester, and described 
 by Buckman and Newmarch, 
 must suffice as an example 
 of the more ambitious efforts 
 of this kind. It consisted 
 of nine medallions, each of 
 which was nearly 5 ft. in 
 diameter ; these were in- 
 cluded in an octagonal frame, 
 formed of a continuous 
 twisted guilloche, in which 
 bright red and yellow tessarae 
 prevailed. Within all the 
 octagons, with the exception 
 of the central one, were 
 central medallions, surrounded also by the twisted guilloche, 
 but with tessarce of a subdued colour, in which olive green 
 and white prevailed, this arrangement giving greater brilliancy 
 and effect to the pictorial subjects within each circle, which 
 was greatly heightened by inner circles of black frets, of 
 various kinds, in the different medallions. The centra 
 medallion was distinguished from the '■est by a double 
 twisted guilloche circle, in which black, green, ruby red, 
 yellow and white were the colours employed. The inter- 
 vening spaces, arising from this arrangement, consisted of 
 
 Fig. 56. — Orpheus with his Lute, 
 executed in tessarae. Part 
 of a Roman pavement at Cir- 
 encester. (After a figure in 
 the ArchcBolovical Journal. )
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 159 
 
 square and triangular lozenges, which had pla.i. black frets 
 internally. The borders presented the continuation of the 
 bright coloured twisted guilloche, forming the whole within 
 a square ; then followed a guilloche of a colder tone, which 
 was succeeded by the labyrinthine and the tiiangular black 
 frets, finished by a wide border of greyish tessarce, which 
 was relieved by a central line of few rows of the white ones. 
 The pictorial representations of the medallions formed two 
 series, one consisting of groups, the other of heads, symbo- 
 lical of the seasons. In the centre is a much mutilated 
 
 Fig. 57.— a Lion executed in tessaroe. One of the figures of 
 animals around the figure of Orpheus in the Cirencester 
 pavement. (After a figure in the Archaological Journal.) 
 
 representation of the Centaur, and the other groups consist 
 of Action and his dogs; Silenus, with his wine-cui), seated 
 upon an ass; Bacchus and, probably, his panther. The 
 heads are of I-'lora, Ceres, and Pomona, typifying Spring, 
 Summer and Autumn, the fourth head, which no doubt 
 represented ^Vinter, having disappeared. Such a floor, 
 however beautiful and cleanly, would suffer from the dis- 
 advantage of being exceedingly cold, and as the Romans, 
 who were natives of a warmer clime, had already enough to 
 suffer in this direction, they combated the double effects of 
 the climate and of their cold floors by introducing beneath 
 the latter in the hypocaust a constant supply of hot air from
 
 i6o LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 a picTfurnium, or furnace, the heat and smoke from which 
 circulated amongst the pilae and was, in many cases at least, 
 carried off through hollow bricks or flue-tiles laid in the 
 \valls and terminating, as we learn from a mosaic of an 
 Algerian house, in chimney-stacks, with pots and cowls like 
 those of the present day. Thus not only the floor but the 
 walls radiated hot air and must have maintained an equable 
 and comfortable temperature throughout the house. The 
 upper rooms would, of course, only be warmed by the 
 flue-tiles. As wood was almost exclusively used for 
 fuel, there would be but little soot, and thus the difficult 
 task of cleaning such exceedingly narrow flues would be 
 obviated. 
 
 In towns, at least, as Professor Middleton points out, 
 there was a regular water supply, large lead mains being 
 laid under the paving of the streets, and rising mains 
 branching off right and left to the houses. These led up 
 to cisterns on the upper floors, from whence descending 
 supply-pipes were laid on to various parts of the house, 
 exactly as in our modern system. Air-chambers were often 
 introduced to diminish the risk of pipes bursting from the 
 hydraulic pressure, the confined air acting as a spring. A 
 cubical lead box was usually placed at the point where the 
 rising main to the house branched off from the street main ; 
 this seems rather a clumsy way of making a junction, but it 
 apparently answered its purpose very well. Very neatly- 
 made water-cocks and draw- taps of bronze were used, and 
 the turncocks in the mains had movable key-handles like 
 those now in use. The draw-taps were very like those used 
 in Italy, often formed in the shape of an animal's head, with 
 handles either fixed, or, more often, movable ; they nre 
 frequently very graceful in form^ and are always very skilfully 
 made and fitted so as to avoid leakage. 
 
 The interior of the walls was covered first with a layer of 
 plaster, on which was spread a finer composition, on which
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN i6i 
 
 again were executed, in fresco, bands or simple patterns in 
 various colours. 
 
 It will perhaps be well to give a fairly complete account 
 of one villa, which may serve as an example of the dwelling- 
 
 P^DDnnriri 
 
 Tf 
 
 Fig. 58— Plan of Chedworth Villa. A, Chamber with tesselated 
 pavement ; B, bath ; C, sweating chamber ; D, room with 
 pilfE of hypocaust in situ , E, prsefurnium or heating chamber 
 of bath ; F, possibly the forge. Here pigs of iron were 
 found. The buildings represented in the upper part of the 
 figure form the Villa Rustica. 
 
 place of the Roman period, and for this purpose that at 
 Chedworth, not far from Cheltenham and amongst the 
 Cotswold Hills, may be selected. This villa occupies three 
 sides of a square, and so far as has at present been made 
 out, did not possess that part known as the Fructuaria. In 
 the first part of the Urbana were a series of rooms whose 
 tesselated pavements are much mutilated. The larger of
 
 i62 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 these rooms lias a tesselated pavement representing a dance, 
 apparently emblematical of the seasons, as one of the figures, 
 which may represent winter, is warmly clad, and carries in 
 his arms a hare or rabbit. These were probably the living 
 rooms of the house, and next to them was the bath, which 
 formed a part of every respectable house, and was modelled 
 on those of the city, though of course on a much smaller 
 scale. The amount of wear to which the stone step, leading 
 out of the hot room, has been subjected, shows the length 
 of time during which this villa must have been occupied, 
 and the extensive use to which the bath was put. At right 
 angles to this group of buildings is a second row, the 
 Rustica, containing the rooms of the servants, also provided 
 with baths. A small building in the grounds contains a 
 pool, which may have been used for the storage of live fish, 
 and an altar, and there is a lime-kiln in the immediate 
 vicinity. The numerous pigs of iron which have been found 
 in this villa seem to show that amongst the offices attached 
 to it was a forge, no doubt a very necessary part of a Roman 
 provincial's establishment. One of the most interesting 
 things about this villa is the discovery which has been 
 made, under the foundation stone of the main entrance, 
 of the Greek letters x ^'""d p, forming in combination the 
 first two letters of the name of Christ. A similar pair of 
 letters has been discovered in four other instances in this 
 villa, and their occurrence leads to the belief that its 
 occupant was a Christian Roman. On this account some 
 have surmised that the small building with the pool, already 
 alluded to, may have been a baptistery, but it is scarcely 
 probable that this is a correct explanation of its purpose. 
 In this villa have been found a number of knives, hinges, 
 keys, locks and spoons, also a steelyard for weighing. These 
 and other objects connected with the villa are placed in a 
 small museum on the spot, and all the remains have been 
 carefully protected from cold and damp, and preserved in a
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 163 
 
 manner \Yhich may serve as a model for other proprietors of 
 Roman antiquities. 
 
 Mention was made some pages back of the leaden water- 
 pipes of the Roman cities, and this leads to a mention of the 
 mining operations of the Romans, which enabled them to 
 procure the lead and other minerals which they used in their 
 numerous manufactures. They appear to have mined lead 
 extensively in the Mendip Hills, where many traces of their 
 operations are visible. Indeed, a pavement, now unfortu- 
 nately destroyed, which was apparently inspired by scenes 
 of a mining nature, was found at a villa at Pitney in 
 Somersetshire. In one of the apartments of this villa was 
 a pavement containing, in a square, nine whole-length 
 human figures, each four feet in height. The central figure 
 was probably that of the owner of the villa, holding a cup 
 of coin in his hands to pay his dependents. The remaining 
 figures were male and female alternately, and bore in their 
 hands the different instruments still in use for smelting ore, 
 such as rakes, forks, pincers, and long iron rods, crooked 
 and straight ; also canisters, or smelting-pots, from which 
 coin is dropping. The same metal was also obtained at 
 Snead and other mines, near Bishop's Castle in Shropshire ; 
 and a large pig of lead was found in that district, together 
 with Roman spades in what is called the Roman Gravels 
 Mine, which bears the stamp 
 
 IMP HADRIANI AVG. 
 
 and is now in the Mason College Museum. Copper mines 
 of Roman date exist at Llanymynech in Shropshire, where, 
 in a large shaft called the Ogo, or hole, several skeletons, 
 together with some tools and coins of the reign of Anto- 
 ninus, were found in 1761. Similar mines have also been 
 found near Machynlleth in Wales. Iron was chiefly worked 
 in the Forest of Dean and along the Wye, where great 
 quantities of scoriae and ashes have been found, in such
 
 i64 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 bulk, in fact, at one place as to have procured for it the 
 name of Cinderford. Under Great Doward Hill, near the 
 Wye, there is the remains of an excavation called King 
 Arthur's Hall, which was a Roman mine. The Forest of 
 Anderida, which occupied the Weald of Sussex and Kent, 
 was another source of iron ; and in the Midlands the Roman 
 town of Alauna, now Alcester, was a place where iron was 
 smelted. Tin was worked in Cornwall before the Roman 
 occupation, and there is no doubt that this mineral was 
 also mined by them in the same county. It is highly 
 probable that they obtained silver, and even possible that 
 they may have found gold in this country. 
 
 In the case of former races who have occupied this land 
 we have seen that valuable information as to their habits 
 and possessions has been afforded to archaeologists by the 
 remains which have been found in their graves. In the 
 case of the Romans we have so many other sources of 
 information on which to rely that the interments take quite 
 a secondary place, but they must not be completely passed 
 over. 
 
 The Romans dealt with their dead either by cremation 
 or by burial of the unburnt corpse. In the former case 
 the body was burnt outside the city, as cremation within 
 the walls was forbidden by the laws of the Twelve Tables. 
 A coin was placed in the mouth for the payment of 
 Charon, the ferryman of the nether regions, and the body 
 was consumed on a pyre, either in the burial ground, or, in 
 the cases of wealthy persons, in some private place of 
 cremation. The common burning-places were called 
 ustrina, and remains of such have been discovered in a 
 Roman cemetery at Littlington, near Royston. This 
 cemetery is enclosed within strong walls, which form a 
 square of 390 feet. At two of the corners level spaces, free 
 from interments but covered with ashes, mark the sites of 
 ustrina. The ashes, resulting from the cremation, were
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 165 
 
 placed in glass or pottery urns, and buried with various 
 objects, such as lachrymatories or tear bottles, lamps, vases, 
 Cv;c. A group of Roman tumuli called the Bartlow Hills 
 exists on the borders of Essex and Cambridgeshire. One of 
 of these, when opened, presented a wooden sepulchral 
 chamber, which contained a glass vessel with charred bones 
 in it, several other glass, bronze and earthenware vessels, 
 a bronze lamp, a folding seat, and two bronze strigils, 
 or scrapers, such as were used in the bath. Professor 
 
 Fig. 59. — Contents of a Roman Sepulchre discovered at .Avisford 
 in Sussex. (Wright.) The square bottle, of green glass, in 
 the centre contained calcined bones. Around it were arranged 
 on the floor three earthen vases with handles, several paterre, 
 a pair of sandals (to the left) studded with numerous hexagonal 
 brass nails, an oval dish containing a transparent agate of the 
 size and shape of a pigeon's egg, and a small double- handled 
 glass bottle. Three lamps were placed on supporting projec- 
 tions of the stone. 
 
 Henslow was present at the opening of another sepulchral 
 chamber at Rougham, in Suffolk, and has given an account 
 of its structure and contents. It consisted of four walls of 
 bricks and mortar, covered with a roof of tiles, the interior 
 depth being 2 ft. 3 in. " On removing one of the smaller 
 tiles in the upper range,' he says, " I had the satisfaction of 
 peeping into a chamber in which was a large glass vase, 
 which owing to the joint effects of lime and corruption had 
 fallen to pieces ; and its fragments were now lying towards 
 the north corner, in a confused heap, intermi.xed with the
 
 i66 LIFE liN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 burnt human bones it had contained. Upon the heap was 
 lying a beautiful glass lachrymatory, slightly injured in its 
 projecting rim. Everything else was entire, and eight 
 pieces of pottery appeared still to retain the very positions 
 in which they had been placed by the sorrowing friends and 
 attendants of the deceased, sixteen or seventeen centuries 
 before. An iron rod ten inches in length was driven firmly 
 into the south-west wall, between the uppermost courses of 
 bricks, and not far from the south corner. This was 
 directed so as to stretch out towards the centre of the 
 chamber, and from its extremity another iron rod depended 
 vertically, twisted, like the first, in the manner of a torque. 
 To the bottom of this was attached an open iron lamp, of 
 rather small dimensions, which still contained a lump of 
 carbonaceous matter, evidently the remains of the wick.'' 
 
 In other cases where the body was interred whole, it was 
 placed in a wooden, clay, stone, or lead cotifin, together 
 with lachrymatories and other objects. In the case of 
 leaden coffins, an ornamentation of scallop shells, rings, 
 and bead or fillet mouldings in raised relief, is found on the 
 exterior, and the corpse seems in every instance to have been 
 embedded in liquid lime. In one case the Hme in a stone 
 sarcophagus retained a perfect cast of the female form which 
 it had contained. 
 
 Any account of the Roman remains in Britain would be 
 incomplete without some notice of the Roman Wall, which 
 has been so fully described by Dr. Collingwood Bruce. 
 This remarkable undertaking stretched for seventy-three 
 and a half miles from Wall's End in the east to Bowness in 
 the west, and was intended to guard the province from the 
 attacks of the savage tribes of the northern part of the 
 island. On its northern side runs a trench, which keeps 
 close to it, and is only discontinued when the wall skirts a 
 cliff, where it would have been of no service. Its average 
 depth is fifteen feet and its width thirty-five. The wall
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 167 
 
 itself was of stone obtained from the quarries of the district, 
 some of which contain inscriptions recording the legions 
 and their commanders who had been engaged upon the 
 work. It was about twelve to fifteen feet in height, six to 
 nine feet in thickness, and carried a parapet. 
 
 Along the wall were situated various groups of buildings, 
 intended for the accommodation of the troops which guarded 
 the frontier. The largest of these were the stations, which 
 were in fact small towns, covering from five and a half to 
 five and three-quarters of an acre. Each had its own walls 
 and gates, and contained houses of a much plainer type 
 than those in the more sheltered cities of the south. It is 
 probable that these stations were erected prior to the wall 
 itself for the protection of the soldiers engaged in its con- 
 struction. There were about seventeen or eighteen of 
 them — that is, there was one about every four miles. The 
 remains of several exist, those of Borcovicus, now called 
 Housesteads, being the most perfect. At intervals of a mile 
 were erected castella, quadrangular buildings, measuring 
 "fifty by sixty feet, and having two gates, and between each 
 of these, at distances of about three hundred feet from one 
 another, were four watch-towers. Thus the wall was most 
 completely guarded from one end to the other. On the south 
 side of the wall was a rampart or vallum, consisting of a trench 
 and three walls made partly of earth, partly of stone. This 
 rampart does not keep close up to the wall like the northern 
 trench, but follows an easier line of country, whereas the 
 wall seems to have been of choice placed on the steepest and 
 most difticult spots. It is also not quite so long as the wall, 
 falling short of it by about three miles at each end. A 
 military road, constructed of stone, ran all along the wall on 
 its southern side, and between it and the rampart. This 
 road, which is about twenty feet wide, did not hug the wall, 
 but took the shortest way between one camp and the next. 
 There was a second road south of the rampart. Another
 
 i68 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 wall still further north connected a series of camps and 
 stretched between the Firths of Forth and Clyde. The 
 remains of this work are known as Graham's Dyke. We 
 find, then, that during the Roman occupation of this country 
 it presented, at least so far as the cities and places which 
 the Romans themselves occupied, all the evidences of a 
 high state of civilisation, a civilisation which in many ways 
 startlingly resembles that of our own day, which is in glaring 
 contrast to the period which succeeded it, and which makes 
 us feel how many years the clock was put back by the 
 advent of the barbarian Saxons. It has in fact taken 
 us fourteen hundred years to re-learn the lesson that it 
 is necessary to provide public baths for the inhabitants of 
 our large cities. But it may be asked what effect the 
 civilisation of their masters produced upon the British 
 inhabitants of the land, and this point has been so skilfully 
 dealt with by Mr. Gomme, that I shall quote his observa- 
 tions upon it in extenso. " That the Britons could not and 
 did not step into the place of their Roman masters (on their 
 departure) seems," he says, " to be shown clearly enough. 
 At any rate, so far as my own opinion is concerned, I 
 cannot ignore the importance of the fact, strangely under- 
 valued, if not overlooked, by all historians, that the British 
 did not levy a national or imperial force to stem the tide of 
 Saxon conquest. So significant a fact surely suggests that 
 the Roman occupation of Britain was not a social occupa- 
 tion, but a military one, and that Roman Britain meant 
 little more than the few thousand luxurious occupiers of the 
 villas, the merchants of the cities, together with the various 
 garrisons in the military stations which dominated the 
 . country. Let it be granted that these several centres of 
 Roman life gathered round them numerous British followers, 
 and by this means permeated a portion of the British popu- 
 lation with Roman manners and ideas. But such influence 
 as we have here cannot have affected the course of British
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN 169 
 
 history in any considerable degree. It is true that when 
 the Roman legions left Britain they had transformed the 
 most important of the British camps into military stations 
 of great strength, and connected them with one another by 
 a vast and splendid system of roadways, along which troops 
 could march to the relief of any garrison threatened or 
 attacked. But then we find that all these advantages were 
 not made available at a time when the bitterest foe of these 
 early times made havoc in the land. And yet during one 
 bright period of island independence, when Carausius defied 
 the imperial power, the whole military system of Britain — 
 land forces and sea forces alike — was in full and successful 
 operation, giving the world a foretaste of what could be 
 done with such splendid machinery. But Carausius was a 
 Roman soldier, with Roman soldiers under him ; the unity 
 of purpose shown by his action was the result of the Roman 
 military hold upon Britain. But there is no unity of 
 purpose after the departure of the Roman legions. The 
 contrast between the united effort under Carausius, and the 
 action of the British tribes when real necessity, not the 
 personal ambition of a hero, ought to have called forth the 
 best efforts of a whole people, presents to my mind the true 
 key to the light understanding of the Roman occupation of 
 Britain. If the Romano-British chiefs and princes with 
 their followers, betook themselves to the country villas, and 
 to the towns, when these places became deserted by their 
 whilom conquerors ; if they there carried on the luxurious 
 modes of life, and used the ornaments, and adopted the 
 social ceremonial of the Romans, as they may have done 
 according to the evidence of archaeology, the evidence 
 of history precludes us from believing that they also adopted 
 the system of government and defence which lay ready to 
 their hands, fresh from the mould of Imperial Rome. 
 Such a .system, if properly carried on, would, in producing 
 connected British action, also have produced the germs of
 
 170 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 British nationality. How little indeed was the chance 
 of this is fully shown by the results. Roman commanders 
 or their descendants might be represented by Aurelius 
 Ambrosius and by the heroic Arthur, or Artorius as 
 Mr. Coote has so acutely identified the name; but these 
 and other chiefs, even if they themselves lived up in thought 
 and aspiration to the traditions of their ancestry, and could 
 think of and wish for a British military force, never succeeded 
 in commanding anything better than bodies of armed Celtic 
 tribesmen, whose ideas and hopes did not extend beyond 
 the narrow limits of tribal society. If, then, the English 
 conquerors of the British met men organised like themselves 
 into tribal groups ; and if we remember that nearly four 
 hundred years before Csesar and Plautus and Agricola had 
 met the ancestors of those self-same tribal groups, is not the 
 conclusion irresistible that the character of the Roman 
 occupation was that of a military holding only, and not 
 a colonisation? Is it not further to be concluded that its 
 influences did not set loose to any appreciable degree the 
 social forces of a higher civilisation upon an intelligent 
 though barbarous people ? Such a result must have formed 
 in the end a system of culture and civilisation resembling 
 in the main outline the original from which it sprang, 
 and capable in its turn of influencing a still more barbarous 
 conqueror. But so far from this being the case, we find 
 that the Roman conquerors found the country occupied by 
 tribes of more or less barbarous people, and they left it 
 with the tribal organisation still practically unbroken."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION 
 
 The Church in Britain — Intermixture of Races — Saxon 
 earthworks — Relations to subsequent Norman Castles — 
 Offa's Dyke — Methods of Burial — Weapons and other 
 objects found in graves — Art — Church architecture. 
 
 The civilisation described in the last chapters was now to 
 be completely swept away. The Saxons, Jutes and Angles 
 gradually drove the British either to the western side of the 
 island, or to take refuge in the fastnesses of some of the 
 almost impenetrable forests. Here they seem to have 
 lingered longer than in other parts of the island. Indeed, 
 in the Forest of Arden and in the Forest of Elmet, near 
 what is now Leeds, the British seem to have been able to 
 hold their ground long after most other parts of England 
 had-been cleared almost entirely of their British inhabitants. 
 This clearance is exemplified by the history of the Christian 
 Church founded either directly from Rome, or indirectly, 
 through the Church of Southern Gaul, in this country. It 
 had suffered during the various persecutions ordered by the 
 Roman Caesars and during that of Diocletian, St. Alban, 
 whose name is now attached to the Roman city of Veru- 
 lamium, underwent martyrdom at or near that town. But 
 in time the Church began to enjoy a greater tranquillity, its 
 sacred edifices took their places in the cities, as at Silchester, 
 and it even began to gain adherents among the wealthy and 
 powerful, if the evidence already cited with regard to the
 
 172 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Chedworth villa is to be regarded as conclusive. Moreover, 
 we find that at the Synod of Aries, held in 314, there were 
 present Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adel- 
 phius of Caerleon-on-Usk, bishops whose Sees were placed 
 in important Romano-British cities, as representatives of 
 the episcopate of the Church in Britain. Two at least of 
 the bishops of the province remained in their cities as long 
 as it was possible for them to do so, after the Saxon in- 
 vasion — namely, Theon of London and Thadioc of York, 
 but they two, we are told, were eventually obliged to fly, 
 and, taking with them their reliquaries and sacred vessels, 
 find refuge, with their expatriated flocks, in the fastnesses of 
 the Cambrian mountains. For many years a barrier of 
 heathendom intervened between the British Christians and 
 those on the Continent, a fact which accounts for their 
 complete or almost complete isolation from communion 
 with the rest of the Church. As the conquest was carried 
 further westward, the extermination of the natives seems to 
 have become relatively less, so that in the soulh-west parts of 
 the island we find less and less evidence in the names of 
 the places of Saxon predominance in the district, and more 
 and more evidence of the continued occupation of it by its 
 British inhabitants. Mr. Green has pointed out that the 
 percentages of places whose termination in " ton " shows 
 them to have been of Saxon origin, becomes relatively fewer 
 the more we approach the south-west corner of the island. 
 This termination, he tells us, north of the Mendips — in the 
 country which had been won in the early days of West- 
 Saxon invasion — bears to all other names the proportion 
 of about a third. Between Mendip and Barrett, in the 
 country conquered by Centvvine, it reaches only a fourth. 
 Across the Barrett, but east of the road from Watchet to 
 Wellington, the proportion decreases to a fifth ; and west- 
 ward of this it becomes rapidly rarer, and varies in different 
 districts from an eighth to a tenth. In other words, the
 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION 173 
 
 British population, which had withdrawn before the sword 
 of CeawUn, rested in quiet subjection beneath the sword of 
 Ine. In Exeter we find a good example of this double 
 occupancy, for the southern half of the city was English, 
 whilst the northern, as shown by the dedications of the 
 churches to Celtic saints, remained in the hands of the 
 British. Such double cities are met with in other parts of 
 England, as at Shrewsbury, where the Welsh suburb of 
 Frankwell, beyond the Severn, and approached from the 
 town by the Welsh bridge, had its own peculiar laws and 
 customs, and no doubt, at one period, also its population 
 of a different race. But in the greater part of the island 
 the native population was exterminated or driven out, at 
 least to a large extent. Reasoning again from the evidence 
 afforded by place names, Mr. Green says, " The designations 
 of the local features of the country, the names of hill and 
 vale and river, often remain purely Celtic. There are ' pens ' 
 and ' duns ' among our uplands, ' combes ' among our 
 valleys, 'exes' and 'ocks' among our running waters.* 
 But when we look at the traces of human life itself, at the 
 names of the villages and hamlets which lie scattered over 
 the country-side, we find them purely English. The 'vill' 
 and the ' city ' have vanished, and in their place appear the 
 ' tun ' and ' ham ' and ' thorpe ' of the new settlers." 
 
 It is, of course, possible, even probable, that some at 
 least of the British inhabitants were held as thralls by their 
 Saxon conquerors, but on the whole the latter may be said 
 to have fairly cleared a large portion of the island of its 
 inhabitants before commencing to settle down and construct 
 their strongholds and settlements, after their own pl^n. 
 The huge communal camps of the British and the military 
 works of the Romans were not in accordance with the spirit 
 
 * The invaders must, of course, have learnt the Celtic names for 
 these places from members, perhaps living with them as slaves, of 
 the tribes whom they displaced.
 
 174 I>^FI^^ IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 of the new comers, whose settlements were of a purely 
 family kind. No doubt during the struggle of conquest 
 they may at times have utilised some of the earthworks 
 which they found ready to their hands, just as the Romans 
 had done before them, and they undoubtedly threw up 
 earthen ramjiarts themselves as temporary measures. The 
 Roman cities and villas they either sacked and burnt, or 
 left to crumble to decay, for, at least during the earlier part 
 of their occupation of the land, they did not make any 
 permanent use of them, but ratlier regarded them with a 
 superstitious horror. The first fortifications which they 
 themselves constructed were called buhrs or burgs, a word 
 from which we have obtained our modern title of borough. 
 These earthworks were of a totally different nature from 
 those of the British period, being intended for the occupa- 
 tion and defence of the lord and his household, for the 
 protection of his tenants in case of attack, and as places 
 where in time of war their flocks and herds might be safely 
 housed. Sometimes they were perfectly new erections, in 
 other cases pre-existent Roman ramparts appear to have 
 been used for a part of the fortifications. Mr. G. T. 
 Clark has given a full account of these earthworks in his 
 " Mediaeval Military Architecture," which may here be 
 quoted. " These works, thrown up in England in the ninth 
 and tenth centuries, are seldom, if ever, rectangular, nor 
 are they governed to any great extent by the character of 
 the ground. First was cast up a truncated cone of earth, 
 standing at its natural slope, from twelve to even fifty or 
 sixty feet in height. This 'mound,' 'motte,' or 'burh,' the 
 ' Mota ' of our records, was formed from the contents of a 
 broad and deep circumscribing ditch. This ditch, proper 
 to the mound, is now sometimes wholly or partially filled 
 up, but it seems always to have been present, being in fact 
 the parent of the mound. Berkhampstead is a fine example 
 of such a mound, with the original ditch. At Caerleon,
 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION 
 
 175 
 
 Tickhill and Lincoln it has l)een in part filled up; at 
 Cardiff" it was wholly so, but has been recently most care- 
 fully cleared out, and its original depth and breadth are 
 seen to have been very formidable. Though usually 
 artificial, these mounds are not always so. Durham, 
 Launceston, Montacute, Dunster, Restormel; Nant Cribba, 
 
 Fig. 60.— Plan of a Burh. The mound and its ditch are at the 
 upper part of the figure. The base-court, with rampart, ditch 
 and entrance, are below. 
 
 are natural hills ; Windsor, Tickhill, Lewes, Norwich, Ely 
 and the Devizes are partly so ; at Sherborne and Heading- 
 ham the mound is a natural platform, scarped by art ; at 
 'I'm bury, Pontefract and liramber, where the natural plal- 
 fijrm was also large, it has been scarped and a mound 
 thrown up upon it. Connected with the mound was also a 
 base-court or enclosure, sometimes circular, more commonly 
 oval or horse-shoe shaped, but if of the age of the mound
 
 176 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 always more or less rounded. This enclosure had also its 
 bank and ditch on its outward faces, its rear resting on the 
 ditch of the mound, and the area was often further 
 strengthened by a bank along the crest of the scarp of the 
 ditch. Now and then, as at Old Sarum, there is an 
 additional but slighter bank placed outside the outer ditch 
 — that is, upon the crest of the counterscarp. This was 
 evidently intended to carry a palisade. The mound is 
 either central or at other times is placed in one corner of 
 the enclosure, no doubt with the idea of concentrating the 
 stables and other offices in one part and of making the 
 mound itself a part of the exterior defences." The top of 
 the mound was probably surrounded with a strong fence of 
 wood, and formed the earthen keep of a primitive form of 
 castle. In examples which can be seen in Herefordshire, 
 Shropshire, and elsewhere, these earthworks remain un- 
 touched, save by the hand of time, but in many places they 
 have been utilised by the Normans when they in turn took 
 possession of the land. In some cases the earthen bank 
 was perhaps found to have too small an area on the top, or 
 for some other reason to be unsuited for the purposes of 
 the Norman builder. This appears to have been the case 
 at Holgate in Shropshire, where the Saxon mound of 
 remarkable steepness, but with a very small area at the top, 
 stands between the church and the remains of the castle 
 founded by one Helgotus, shortly after the Norman con- 
 quest. In a great majority of cases, however, when the 
 Norman took possession of the Saxon lord's lands, he also 
 took over his " buhr " or stronghold, and converted it into a 
 fortress after his own manner, by building a keep upon the 
 mound and walls within the outer defences. Thus were 
 formed the outer and inner baily of a castle. An artificial 
 mound, however, such as that of a Saxon burh, had not 
 the solidity or stabihty necessary for the erection of the 
 rectangular tower keep, which the Norman used when he
 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION 
 
 177 
 
 was building on a perfectly new site, and of which the 
 Tower of London presents an example. He was obliged 
 to modify his architecture and build what is called a 
 shell-keep, an altogether 
 
 
 lighter form of building, 
 
 consisting of a wall, 
 
 governed in its shape by 
 
 the form of the mound 
 
 on which it stood, and 
 
 sometimes strengthened 
 
 by pilasters These 
 
 keeps, many of svhich 
 
 exist in the country, 
 
 point in most cases to 
 
 the presence of an earlier Saxon mound and ditches. 
 
 Such an earthen castle or burh was the fortified house 
 
 of a strong man ; the ton or tun was the enclosed 
 
 and fortified village or single large farm. The tun was 
 
 Fig. 61. — A Rectangular Norman 
 Keep. 
 
 Fig. 62. — A Norman Shell-keep. 
 
 surrounded by a rampart and a ditch, and the crest of the 
 former was further guarded by a palisade or by a thick 
 hedge. Inside the enclosure thus formed lay, if it was a 
 village, tlie houses of the inhabitants, the smaller farms 
 
 M
 
 178 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 with their cattle-sheds, barns and other offices. In the 
 centre was either a sacred tree or a mound, at which were , 
 held the meetings of the householders for the regulation of 
 the affairs of the village and the appointment of the village 
 officers, of whom more will be said in a later chapter. 
 These tuns often originated as small clearings in the virgin 
 forest, by which they were surrounded, in which respect 
 they resembled the first settlements of the backwoodsmen 
 of America or any other primitively afforested country. 
 But the bands of forest intervening between neighbouring 
 villages were jealously preserved by the Saxons as means of 
 defence, for the dominant character of such settlements 
 was their primitive independence one of another. Thus 
 we find amongst the customs of the period that any person 
 crossing the belt of forest to visit the village was bound to 
 give notice of his coming by blowing a horn, or run the risk 
 of being slain by the first person whom he might meet. 
 Each of these tuns was known by the naaie of the real or 
 supposed ancestor of the family by whom it was founded. 
 Thus if Mr. Green's view as to the first-named place is 
 correct, Birmingham was the ham or home of the Beorm- 
 i^]gs or children of Beorm, just as Leamington was the ton 
 or village of the Leamings or children of Leam. 
 
 Besides. the earthworks just mentioned, various long lines 
 of cniljankmcnt in different parts of the country have been 
 assigned to the Saxon period. The most important of these 
 is the dyke bounding, in a large part of its course, the eastern 
 frontier of AVales, which bears the name of Offa, and is sup- 
 posed to have been erected by the orders of that monarch. 
 Professor M'Kenny Hughes has, however, thrown consider- 
 able doubt upon this hypothesis, and thinks that it may 
 have been the work of British, Roman or Romano-British 
 hands, so that its exact period, as well as that of similar 
 dykes in that and other parts of the country, must still be 
 considered to be unsettled.
 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION 
 
 179 
 
 The methods of interment used by the Saxons were 
 various. In the earlier times they seem to have been buried 
 generally after cremation, in a 
 mound erected over the remains 
 of the funeral pyre, which was 
 called a ''hlow," a word which ap- 
 pears in names such as Ludlow, or 
 " bearw," whence our modern term 
 "barrow." Somewhat later, cre- 
 mation seems to have been discon- 
 tinued, and the body was mterred 
 in a pit in the ground, either at 
 full length or doubled up ; and 
 with it were buried the short knife 
 or seax, from which the national 
 name derived its origin, the long, 
 double-edged iron sword, the spear 
 and the shield, with other articles 
 sometimes of great value. We find 
 this custom alluded to in the poem 
 of Beowulf, which contains many 
 facts of interest concerning the life 
 and customs of the Saxons in their 
 pagan condition. After telling of 
 the burning of the body of Beowulf, 
 it describes how they raised 
 
 ' A pile on the earth all unweaklike 
 
 that was 
 With war-helms behung, and with 
 
 boards of the battle, 
 And bright byrnies, e'en after the boon that he bade 
 Laid down then amidmost their king mighty -famous 
 The warriors lamenting, the hef lord of them. 
 Began on the burg of bale-fires the biggest 
 The warriors to waken ; the wood-reek went up 
 Swart over the smoky glow, sound of the llame 
 
 Fig. 63. — Angio-Saxon 
 Tomb at Ozingell. 
 The warrior's spear i5 
 at bis left hand, lii^ 
 knife at his right, and 
 the sword across liis 
 loins. The circlii 
 marks the probable 
 outline of his shield, 
 of which Iho central 
 boss alont! remaiiih. 
 (Thesaiiruy ("lanlo- 
 rum. )
 
 i8o LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Bewound with the weeping (the wind-blending stilled), 
 Until it at last the bone-house had broken." 
 
 And after the process of cremation was over 
 
 " Wrought there and fashion'd the folk of the Weders 
 A howe * on the lithe.f that high was and broad, 
 Unto the wave-farers wide to be seen ; 
 Then it they betimbered in time of ten days, 
 The battle-strong's beacon ; the brands' very leavings 
 They bewrought with a wall in the worthiest of ways, 
 That men of all wisdom might know how to work. 
 Into burg then they did the rings and bright sun-gems, 
 And all such adornments as in the hoard there 
 The war-minded men had taken e'er now ; 
 The earl's treasure let they the earth to be holding, 
 Gold in the grit, wherein yet it liveth, 
 As useless to men-folk as ever it was." 
 
 In some instances the Roman places of interment and 
 even the long barrows of the Neolithic period were utilised 
 by the Saxons for the purposes of burial, but such secondary 
 interments can be distinguished by the character of the 
 articles buried with the dead. Saxon cemeteries, where 
 numerous interments have taken place, have been dis- 
 covered in many parts of the country, as at Sleaford, where 
 the graveyard occupied an area of 3600 square yards, and 
 seems to have contained about six hundred graves. These 
 were arranged in rows, each body being about ten feet from 
 the next, and buried at a depth of nearly three feet. Most 
 of the bodies found in this cemetery were doubled up, with 
 the knees bent and the hands placed in front of the face. 
 The body was laid on the left side, with the head towards 
 the west and the face to the north. A few instances of 
 cremation were also met with in this cemetery, the graves in 
 these cases containing sepulchral urns, filled with calcined 
 bones. A curious feature in this instance is the complete 
 absence of swords in the interments, no trace of any such 
 
 * A mound or barrow, . t Body.
 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION iSi 
 
 weapon having been found, though knives, buckles, brooches 
 and other ornaments of bronze, glass, amber and ivory were 
 met with. 
 
 It will now be necessary to describe some of the com- 
 moner weapons and other articles found in these graves 
 somewhat more fully. The swords made of iron, with 
 either single or double edges, were often three feet in 
 length, and possessed in some cases highly ornamented 
 hilts, which were wrought of silver or bronze, and inscribed 
 with legions in runic letters, a fact which is alluded to in 
 the poem of Beowulf. 
 
 " Now spake out Hrothgar, as he looked on the hilts there, 
 The old heir-loom whereon was writ the beginning 
 Of the strife of the old time, whenas the flood slew, 
 The ocean a-gushing, that kin of the giants 
 As fiercely they fared. That was a folk alien 
 To the Lord everlasting ; so to them a last guerdon 
 Through the welling of waters the Wielder did give. 
 So was on the sword-guards all of the sheer gold 
 By dint of the rune-staves rightly bemarked, 
 Set down and said for whom first was that sword wrought, 
 And the choice of all irons erst had been done, 
 Wreath-hilted and worm-adorned." * 
 
 The scabbard of such a sword was of wood, and was tipped 
 and^ edged with bronze. The sword was slung from the 
 girdle, and so also was the short, triangular-bladed knife, 
 which was probably also used as a dagger. Of the spear, 
 as a rule, only the iron parts — viz., the head and the ferule 
 and spike of the lower end— remain, the ashen sliaft having 
 perished. On the breast of the corpse the shield, made of 
 linden-wood, the yellow war-board of Beowulf, was laid 
 flat. It is highly probable that it was originally covered 
 with leather, but nothing usually remains of it except the 
 
 * This passage, with those previously quoted from the same 
 poem, is taken from the translation published by the late Mr. 
 William Morris and Mr. Wyatt in the Kelmscott edition.
 
 l82 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 larae iron boss which formed its centre. Coats of ringed 
 mail have also been met with in these graves, as well as 
 
 helmets, made entirely or 
 in part of iron or brass. 
 These were often orna- 
 mented with a figure of 
 the sacred boar, or some- 
 times with an image of 
 AV^oden. The Saxons dis- 
 played a remarkable skill 
 in goldsmith's work, and 
 many personal ornaments 
 of a very high excellence 
 have been found in their 
 graves. Amongst the most 
 characteristic of these are 
 the fibulje or brooches, 
 which are of different 
 shapes and made of various 
 metals. Sometimes they 
 are circular and made ot 
 gold, ornamented with fili- 
 gree work and jewels, usually 
 garnets or enamel. Fibular 
 of this type are believed to 
 have been chiefly made by 
 the Jutes. The pattern as- 
 sociated with the Angles is 
 that of a T, generally made 
 of gilt bronze or brass. 
 
 Fig. 64. — Anglo-.Saxon Fibute. 
 (Wright.) The upper right 
 fig. was found at Sittingbourne, 
 Kent, is of gold and set with 
 rubies, garnets and blue stones. 
 The upper left fig. was found at 
 Ingarsby, near Leicester, and 
 that below it at Stowe Heath, 
 near Icklingham, Suffolk. The 
 two small objects between the 
 circular fibulas were found on 
 Stowe Heath in Suffolk. The 
 lowest fig. on the right was 
 found at Ashendon, Bucks, and 
 is set with pieces of coloured 
 glass. 
 
 and sometimes of very large 
 dimensions. The form supposed to be characteristic of 
 the Saxons is saucer-shaped, and is also made of brass 
 or bronze. Very numerous buckles have been found, and 
 also chatelaine;s, which, with their various pendant objects,
 
 THE SAXON OCCUPATION 
 
 183 
 
 including keys, seem to have been largely worn b}- the 
 Saxon women. The Saxon pottery known to us largely 
 consists of cinerary urns of the period when cremation was 
 the rule. Such urns are generally hand-made, of a dark- 
 coloured clay, and are ornamented with projecting knobs 
 or bosses at the sides, zigzags, circles, squares and other 
 
 Fig. 65.— Anglo-Saxon Glass Tumblers. (Wright.) 
 
 figures which might have been easily impressed upon them 
 with a sharpened stick. The Saxons worked in glass with 
 much greater skill, the material differing chiefly from that 
 of the Roman period in being thinner, not so fine in 
 texture, and more subject to an opalescent change. Their 
 beads of glass were often variegated with stripes of different 
 colours, but the art'cles which are rrost chaiacteristic of 
 their skill as glass-workers are tumblers. These vessels, 
 which really deserved the name to which they gave rise, 
 were incapable of standing, having rounded or pointed bases, 
 which were perhaps designed originally on the lines of the 
 Roman amphora, or perhaps were constructed on the lines 
 of that primitive drinking \essel a cow's horn. They were 
 ornamented with twisted cords and ridges of glas.s, and 
 sometimes had liollow projections opening out from ihem.
 
 1 84 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Their love of ornament was not confined to work in metal 
 and glass, for after they had embraced Christianity they 
 became celebrated for the beauty of the manuscripts and 
 illuminations which their scribes produced, and not less for 
 the elaborate bindings, partly composed of plates of metal 
 and studded with crystals, which they constructed for their 
 safe keeping. The peculiarity of Anglo-Saxon illumination, 
 says Godwin, consists in an elaborate intricacy, the intro- 
 duction of panels within the letters, the use of spiral lines 
 and ribbon-work, and the filling up and ornamentation with 
 lizard-like animals of every conceivable shape. 
 
 It will not be necessary to deal at any length with the 
 religious views of the Anglo-Saxons, since so much has been 
 written about them in readily accessible manuals. The 
 names of some of their principal deities still remain in daily 
 use as the names of the days of the week. Woden or Odin, 
 whose name is found in our Wednesday, has given it also to 
 many other objects in England such as the Wansdyke, and 
 to places such as Wednesbury, near Birmingham, or Wodens- 
 beorh, where the hill, on which now stands the Church 
 of St. Bartholomew, is said to have previously possessed a 
 temple dedicated to the worship of Odin. Thor or Thunor, 
 after whom we name Thursday, was the wielder of the 
 hammer, and the Celt or stone axe came to be looked upon 
 as his characteristic weapon. Fairies and elves entered, 
 largely into the Saxon mythology and find a place in. the. 
 names of the period, many of which, such as Aelfred 
 (fives' counsel) are compounded of the word aelf^ a fairy. 
 
 After the introduction of Christianity, various churches 
 were erected by the Saxons, or at least at a pre-conquest 
 date, of which the most remarkable example is the tiny 
 edifice at Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath, which was built at 
 the end of the seventh century, by St. Ealdhelm, to com- 
 memorate the victory of Cenwealh over the West Welsh, at 
 that place, in 652. The chief characteristics of this style of
 
 THE SAXOX OCCUPATION 
 
 185 
 
 Fig. 66.— Illuminated Page from a Saxon Manuscript, traditionally stalnl to 
 ha\e lipen executod by the Vmerablo Bede. (From a figure in Westwood's 
 
 " Anglo-Snvoii Manuscripts.")
 
 1 86 
 
 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 architecture are — (i) the alternation of stones laid perpen- 
 dicularly and horizontal!)' to form the sides of doorways and 
 windows, an arrangement known as " long and short work " ; 
 
 (2) the absence of buttresses to the walls, which are, how- 
 ever, provided with a slightly raised series of pilasters, 
 designed probably to hold the plaster or stucco in position ; 
 
 (3) the circular or triangular shape of the arches of windows 
 and doors. The edifices are adorned in some instances 
 
 Fig. 67. — The Anglo-Saxon Church at Bradford-on-Avon. (After 
 a figure u\ the Archuological Jonriial.) 
 
 with exceedingly rude carvings. Such are some of the most 
 characteristic objects associated with the Saxon invaders of 
 this country, and if they have been very briefly touched upon, 
 it is because the period is one which receives more attention 
 in ordinary text-books of history than those which preceded 
 it, so that a detailed account is rendered less necessary. 
 
 As to the culture of the period, it will have been gathered 
 that it was, especially at the time of the invasion, very much 
 lower in the scale of civilisation than that which it extermi- 
 nated and replaced. Of the development and gradual evolu- 
 tion of the life of the tune into a state of things belonging 
 to comparatively recent history something will be said in 
 the next chapter.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 
 
 The Tribal Community — Its members — The strangers livmg 
 withit — The Chieftain— His house — The Village community 
 ^The Hall — Evolution of the Manor-house — The Lord of 
 the Manor — How a Manor was formed — The Inhabitants 
 of the Village —The Land around it — Its Allotment — The 
 Manor of Westminster at the Conquest — The Island of Heis- 
 geier. 
 
 Without entering into details on this matter, it may be 
 said without much fear of contradiction that the Tribal was 
 an- earlier system than the Village, and on that account it 
 will be necessary first of all to turn our attention to its 
 peculiarities. As it existed to a later date in Wales than in 
 other parts of the country, it is but natural that we should 
 have fuller records of the tribal system in that country than 
 elsewhere, and when we come to study it we find that the 
 ruling principle which underlay all its regulations was that 
 of the blood-relationship existing amongst a group of free 
 tribesmen. 
 
 No one who did not belong to the kin could become 
 a member of the tribe, save under the most exceptional 
 circumstances, and this, although tribesmen and non-tribes- 
 men existed side by side. The gulf between the two classes 
 was wide, though not absolutely impassable. Residence in 
 Wales, at least according to the laws of the southern part 
 of the principality, for no less than nine generations, made 
 the ninth descendant a Cymro. Averaging the interval
 
 i88 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 between each link in the chain of descent as twenty years, 
 it would take more than a century and a half for the descend- 
 ants of a family of non-tribesmen, constantly intermarrying 
 with non-tribesmen, to become admitted to the tribe. This 
 length of time might be curtailed if marriages took place in 
 each generation with Cymraes women, for after four genera- 
 tions of such marriages, when the family blood would be 
 seven-eighths Cymric, the family would become naturalised 
 tribesmen. But there was an even speedier method of 
 entering the kin, and that was by the stranger's purchase of 
 his freedom at the risk of his life, in defending the lives or 
 privileges of tribesmen. The laws provided for the cases as 
 follows : "(i) If a person be killed, and his kindred shall 
 not obtain right, and his kinsmen proceed to avenge their 
 kin, and they deem their number small, and if a stranger 
 come and proceed along with them upon the privilege of kin, 
 saying, ' I will go along with you to avenge your kin, and will 
 take upon myself the slaughter and blood of him whom ye 
 also shall take upon yourselves,' and they kill one or more, 
 on account of their kin, such stranger obtains the privilege 
 of kin. (2) If a person be condemned to lawful wager of 
 battle, either for land or soil, or for any crime, and he should 
 dread in his heart entering into personal combat, and a 
 stranger should arise and say to him, ' I will go in thy stead 
 to combat,' and he should escape thereby, such stranger 
 acquires the privilege of a brother to him, or nephew, the 
 son of a sister." Nothing can show more powerfully the 
 value attached to kinship than the care which was taken 
 to preserve its rights for the children of those who had them- 
 selves committed such crimes against the tribe as to have 
 become kin-wrecked, or deprived of their own rights. Such 
 rights of all kinds were preserved intact until the ninth 
 generation, when, if they were not claimed, they lapsed. 
 The law relating to this is most striking. " If the ninth man 
 come to claim land, his title is extinguished, and that person
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 189 
 
 is to raise an outcry that from being a proprietor he is be- 
 coming a non-proprietor, and then the law Hstens to that 
 outcry, and assigns to him a free tribesman's portion, and 
 the outcry is called ' an outcry over the abyss.' " What, asks 
 Mr. Seebohm, is this terrible "cry over the abyss " but the 
 last despairing cry of a kinsman on the point of losing 
 for ever, for himself and for his descendants, his rights of 
 kinship? 
 
 The strangers who lived alongside the tribe, but not of 
 it, suffered under certain disadvantages, the signiticance of 
 which is not difficult to understand when one has grasped the 
 fundamental idea of the system. Their evidence was of no 
 value against a free Cymro. Whilst every tribesman must 
 have his " sword and spear and bow, with twelve arrows in 
 the quiver," always ready, no weapons of any kind were 
 permitted to a stranger until the third generation, nor were 
 the rights of hunting or horsemanship allowed to any but 
 an innate Cyrr.ro. Finally, without the consent of the lord 
 whom he served, the stranger could not become a scholar, 
 a smith, or a bard. But if his lord did not interfere with 
 him until he was tonsured as a scholar, or until he had set 
 up a smithy of his own or graduated in song as a bard, he 
 was free. The Triads, from which we obtain so much 
 information as to ancient Welsh customs, tell us that the 
 object of these precautions was to keep the stranger class 
 weak and unorganised, " to guard against treaclicry and 
 ambush," and "to prevent the ])lotting of strangers and 
 their adherents, lest alltuds (or aliens) obtain the lands of 
 the innate Cymry." 
 
 The idea of chieftainsliip of such a tribe naturally 
 evolved itself from that of the headship of the house- 
 hold, the holder of which was the chief of the kin to 
 the fourth descent. But side by side with the idea 
 of the chieftancy of the kindred, there appears to have 
 gradually developed in the Welsh system a territorial lord-
 
 igo LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 ship, which, with its various classes of followers and its 
 courts, seemed to the eyes of the Norman lawyers closely to 
 resemble the manorial system. Superior to all these minor 
 rulers was the Brenhin or King of Aberffraw, whose 
 authority extended over all Wales ; for though the two other 
 divisions of that country, Gwent and Dimetia, each had its 
 own Brenhin, they were inferior and subject to him of 
 yVberfifraw, just as the Ard-Ri of Ireland was a king over 
 other kings of lesser powers and jurisdiction. 
 
 We gain a considerable insight into the manner of life 
 of the period by what the laws teach us as to the provision 
 which had to be made for the Brenhin when he was 
 travelling through his dominions. The house in which he 
 lay had to be provided by the aliens, and consisted of six 
 columns or poles, probably often newly-felled trees, placed 
 in parallel rows of three and fastened together at the top to 
 the roof-tree, thus forming a kind of nave. Then at some 
 distance behind the poles low walls of stakes and wattle 
 shut in the aisles. The roof was covered with branches and 
 thatch, and there were wattle doors of entrance at the end. 
 Along the aisles behind the poles were placed beds of rushes, 
 and the footboards of the beds were used as seats during 
 the daytime. All houses put up in this way were alike, and 
 each piece of timber had its customary value, from the poles 
 and the roof- tree down to the stakes and the wattles. The 
 fire was in the middle between the central posts and divided 
 the upper portion, where the chief and his principal officers 
 sat, from the lower end of the hall which was reserved for 
 the humbler folk. The silentiary stood by one of the central 
 posts, and it was his duty to call attention, when required, 
 by striking it with his staff. A most interesting parallel to 
 this hall is found in the description in the Boldon Book of 
 the hunting lodge which the villeins of the Bishop of 
 Durham had to provide for the great hunt of that prelate, 
 and this parallel shows us how widespread was the custom
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 191 
 
 of erecting such a temporary habitation at a time when 
 great houses were few and far between. This hall was to he 
 constructed in the forest and to be 60 ft. long and 16 ft. 
 wide between the posts, and to have a steward's room, a 
 chamber and a "privat." The villeins had also to construct 
 a chapel 40 ft. long by 15 ft. wide, for which they received 
 two shillings of charity, and to make their portion of the 
 hedge round the lodges. On the departure of the bishop 
 they received a full tun of beer. Such are some of the 
 glimpses which we gain of the life in the earlier or tribal 
 community, which we must now leave in order to study the 
 origin of the village life of England as exemplified in its 
 village communities. Such villages, as shown by Mr. 
 Thorold Rogers, consisted for the most part of the abodes 
 of the villagers, which were built of wattles smeared inside 
 and out with mud or clay. These were crowded around 
 the church, which was the common hall of the village. It 
 was also the place of refuge in time of danger, and indeed, 
 coming down to a later period, no one can look at the solid, 
 low-built, small-windowed towers of the Norman churches 
 along the ^Velsh marches without feeling that that they were 
 intended for fortresses as well as for the most prominent 
 features of places of worship. The only houses of any im- 
 portance in the village were those of the lord, the priest, and 
 the miller. What these were like, says Mr. Gomme, may be 
 gathered from such a house as that known as Gatacre Hall, 
 which existed down to some eighty years ago in Shropshire, 
 and closely resembled such primitive Aryan abodes as may 
 be found in Media. It was nearly an exact square. At 
 each corner, and in the middle of each side, and in the 
 centre was an immense oak, hewed nearly square and with- 
 out branches, set with its head on large stones laid about a 
 foot deep in the ground and with its roots uppermost, which 
 roots, with a few rafters, formed a complete arched roof. 
 Such a house is a permanent edition of the temporary 
 
 t)'
 
 192 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 abode of the Brenhin of Aberffraw, and shows us that the hall 
 is the first and central point of the house, a fact which Mr. 
 Green has insisted upon, when deahng with Saxon times. 
 "The hall was the common living place of all the dwellers 
 within the house. Here the ' board/ set up on trestles 
 when needed, furnished a rough table for the family meal ; 
 and when the board was cleared away the women bore the 
 wooden cups for beer, or drinking-horns, to the house-master 
 and his friends as they sat on the settles or benches ranged 
 round the walls ; while the gleeman sang his song, or the 
 harp was passed round from hand to hand. Here, too, 
 when night came and the fire died down, was the common 
 sleeping-place, and men lay down to rest upon the bundles 
 of straw which they had strewn about its floor." 
 
 No doubt the single-roomed house was the earliest form, 
 and its next development would probably be the addition 
 of a second story for sleeping purposes. 
 
 As it is interesting to see how such simple abodes 
 developed into the stately and splendid manor-house of 
 Elizabethan and Jacobean times, the following account, in 
 which Mr. Baring Gould attempts such a task, may be 
 quoted. Describing some fifteenth-century examples in 
 his own neighbourhood, he says of one such house: "It 
 has stained-glass coats of arms in the hall-window. This 
 house has been used as a farmhouse for three hundred 
 years at least, but it was originally the seat of an influential 
 family in the county. Now what are its arrangements ? 
 There is a porch ; from the porch you enter the hall, with 
 a huge fireplace and stained glass in the windows ; but do 
 not imagine a baronial hall, but a low room, seven feet to 
 the rafters unceiled. Behind the hall is a lean-to back 
 kitchen which, I suspect, is a latter addition. Beside the 
 porch a dairy and larder. A winding stair of stone, and 
 you reach the bedroom. I say the bedroom, because 
 positively there was only one, with a huge six-light window
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 193 
 
 opening into it, over the porch, dairy, and hall. In the hall 
 the family sat — squire, ladies, serving-men, and maids ; up- 
 stairs — let us trust with some sort of screen between them — 
 the whole community slept in one room. In Queen Anne's 
 time this arrangement was too primitive even for the farmer, 
 and an additional wing was erected, with a drawing room 
 below and a second bedroom upstairs. But, no, perhaps I 
 am wrong in thinking and asserting that the entire family of 
 ^;quire and retainers pigged upstairs in one room ; on further 
 considerUion, I believe that the serving-men slept on the 
 benches and in the straw on the ground about the fire of 
 the hall : and very probably so did the sons of the squire. 
 Upstairs he had his four-poster with curtains around, but the 
 daughters and servant-girls had their uncurtained truckle 
 bedsteads in the same room. An advance was made when 
 partitions were erected, constituting a series of bedrooms; 
 but even then all the rooms communicated with each other. 
 Usually this was the arrangement : in the centre of the 
 house, upstairs at the stair-head, slept the squire and his 
 v.-ife; on the right hand, through a door, marched the sons 
 and serving-men to their beds; and through a door on the 
 left hand trotted the daughters and the maid-servants to 
 their beds. In a will as late as 1652 a gentleman leaves 
 his dwelling house to his son Thomas, 'and my will is 
 that my daughter Joan shall have free ingress, egress, and 
 regress to the bedd in the chamber where she now lyeth, so 
 long as she continueth unmarried,' which is explicable 
 enough when we understand how the bedrooms opened one 
 out of another, and how the master of the house commanded 
 the approach to them by .sleeping at the top of the stairs. In 
 the" parish of Little Hempston, near Totnes, is a perfect 
 example of a house of the time of Richard II. It was pro- 
 bably a manor-house of the family of Arundell, but was 
 given to the church, and become the parsonage. It is 
 absolutely unaltered and is of extraordinary interest. It 
 
 N
 
 194 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 consists of a quadrangle; with buildings on all four sides, 
 but the central court is only about twenty feet by twelve 
 feet, into which all the windows look from sunless rooms. 
 The only exception is the hall-window which has a southern 
 aspect. The hall was heated by a brazier in the centre, and 
 the smoke went out at a louvre in the ro6f. There was one 
 gloomy parlour, with a fireplace in it, opening out of this 
 hall. All the rest of the quadrangle was taken up with 
 kitchen, porter's lodge, cellar, and stables. Upstairs one 
 long dormitory. The hall window, in such houses, for long 
 remained a prominent feature. Often it forms a bay, and 
 in the side of it may frequently be found a lavatory. The 
 ladies of the house sat in this window at their needlework, 
 whilst in the smaller houses the cooking went on at the hall 
 fire. The hall served, as we have seen, as kitchen, dining- 
 room, parlour, and bedroom for the men. In Elizabeth's 
 reign the bay of the bay window became more prominent, 
 and was even .sometimes cut off from the hall by panelling. 
 The ceiling of the bay is low, whereas that of the hall is high, 
 the ladies began to loolc to their comforts, but they had no 
 separate fire in this bower. If their fingers became cold, 
 they had to run into the hall and warm them at the common 
 fire. Then, still later, came parlours as separate rooms, 
 generally on the side of the hall opposite to the entrance, 
 and often forming a wing projecting at right angles. At first 
 all houses of any importance affected the quadrangle ; but 
 the dwelling-house formed only one side of it, the others 
 were occupied by stables, cow-houses, barns, and lodge. 
 The windows all looked into the yard. When, however, 
 this arrangement ceased to be necessary, because of the 
 greater security in the country, the owners pulled down their 
 farm-buildings and reconstructed them behind the house, so 
 that a little sun might look in at their windows, and that 
 they might have a little prospect out of them other than 
 heaps of stable manure and the walls and roofs of cow-
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 195 
 
 houses. There still remain, however, in certain districts on 
 the borders of Dartmoor, a number of the early manor 
 houses thus constructed and quite unaltered, left. unaltered 
 because their protection is needed from the boisterous gales. 
 When the farm buildings before the house were removed, 
 the house itself presented a perfectly plain straight front, 
 occasionally with a plain projecting porch, but not usually. 
 The projecting porch was erected later, because the front 
 entrance was exposed by the removal of the farm buildings. 
 Eliminating these erections, the earliest houses of Henry II. 's 
 reign were plain long buildings. Then a porch was added. 
 Next, at right angles, a set of superior apartments or a parlour 
 was erected, and the house was changed to the shape of a 
 capital F. Increased wealth and need of accommodation, 
 fashion and compliment to the reigning sovereign, made the 
 house' assume the shape of H or E. But the old quad- 
 rangles, very small, remain often where least expected. 
 They have been glazed over, and turned into a central 
 staircase." 
 
 The centre of the village, considered as a cluster of houses, 
 was that of the lord, and he himself was its culminating 
 point, if it be regarded as a congeries of human beings. The 
 lord or Thcgn held his manor of the king, in return for 
 certain services, military and otherwise, always including the 
 three great duties, the trinoda jiecessttas of the Rectitu- 
 dines, in which were summed up the duties of the various 
 persons connected with manors. These three duties were — 
 "fyrd," the accompanying the king upon his military expedi- 
 tions ; " buhrbote," the aiding him in the building of his 
 castles ; and " brigbote," the maintenance of the bridges of 
 the district. The lord of a village may have gained it in 
 the first place as the leader of the band of warriors who 
 drove out its original possessors, or he may have obtained 
 it by a grant from the crown or from some great lord, or, 
 again, he may have carved it out for himself from the waste
 
 196 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 forest-land which covered so mucli of the country. It 
 was in the second of these ways that the abbeys became 
 possessed of so many manors, where the abbot was repre- 
 sented by a reeve who acted as the head of the village. 
 
 The last process is perhaps the most interesting from 
 tlie point of view of this book. One can easily picture 
 the formation of such a village by some energetic pioneer, 
 who, having laboriously made a clearing in the forest, 
 erected his wattle house, tilled his scanty fields, and gradually 
 enlarged his borders and his population by the accession 
 of fresh persons anxious to form a part of his village. Such 
 a process must often have taken place, and its termination 
 would be the conversion of the new village into a manor 
 by grant of the land from the crown or the over-lord, after 
 it had been cleared and colonised. As Mr. Seebohm 
 points out, we get a glimpse of this process, and of the 
 transition of the soil, from being laen-land (land granted as 
 a benefice to a thane for life) to becoming boc-land (land 
 of inheritance permanently made over by charter or deed), 
 in a book written by King Alfred, and entitled "Blossom 
 (jatherings from St. Augustine." The king describes how 
 the forest provides every requisite for building, shafts and 
 handles for tools, timbers for house-building, fair rods with 
 which many a house may be constructed and many a fair 
 tun timbered, wherein men may dwell permanently in peace 
 and quiet, summer and winter, which, he adds parentheti- 
 cally, is more than I have done yet. There is, he says, an 
 eternal " ham " above, but He that has promised it through 
 the holy Fathers might in the meantime make him, so long 
 as he was in this world, to dwell softly in a log-hut on laen- 
 land, waiting patiently for his eternal inheritance. So we 
 wonder not, he proceeds, that men should work in timber 
 felling and in carrying and in building, for a man hopes 
 that if he has built a cottage on laen-land of his 
 lord's, with his lord's help he may be allowed to lie
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUiNITIES 197 
 
 there awhile, and hunt and fowl and fish, and occupy 
 the laen as he likes on sea or land, until through his 
 lord's grace he may perhaps some day obtain boc-land 
 and a permanent inheritance. Finally, he completes 
 his parable by contrasting the log-hut upon laen-land, 
 and the permanent freehold " ham " on the boc-land or 
 hereditary manorial estate. 
 
 The lands around a village of the kind with which we are 
 dealing were of two kinds. There was first the personal 
 demesne of the lord, his home-farm, which he tilled for himself 
 by the work of his villeins and theows or slaves, or let out for 
 money if he pleased. Secondly, there was the remainder of 
 the land which was held in villenage. This introduces us to 
 the class of inhabitants known as villeins, who held lands 
 from the lord, at his will, and in return for certain services 
 hereafter to be named. They were the highest class of 
 villagers and formed the jury at the Ilalimote or manorial 
 court. Their holdings were hereditary, and passed by 
 re-grant of the lord, from father to son by the rule of primo- 
 geniture, on payment of the customary heriot or relief, 
 exacted down to recent times, many years after the services, 
 which the lord was supposed to have rendered for it, had 
 fallen into desuetude. They could and did make wills, and 
 but for certain other features of their position might have 
 been looked upon as free men. But they had to perform 
 certain services for their lord, and these were of ihrce 
 kinds :— (i) Week-work, or so many days, generally three, of 
 labour for the lord. The amount and kind of this work, 
 whether reaping, ploughing or otherwise, was regulated by 
 custom. (2) Precaria;, or boon-work, which was special 
 work performed at recjuest and sometimes counted as part 
 of the week-work, sometimes as extra to it. (3) Payments 
 in money or kind or work rLiulcrcd by way of rent or 
 Gafol, with various dues, such as Kirk-scot, Heartii penny 
 and Easter dues. AM these of course might have been looked
 
 igS LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 upon as being of the nature of rent, rates and taxes, but there 
 were other rules to which the villeins were subject which 
 were far more distinctly servile than those just enumerated. 
 Thus if a villein wished to marry his daughter to any one, he 
 had first to obtain a licence from his lord. If she lost her 
 chastity, the father was fined, and if the village jury became 
 cognisant of the fact and did not report it to the lord^ they 
 were all fined. No villein might sell an ox without his 
 lord's permission, and if he left the village, he was searched 
 for, and, when found, arrested as a fugitive and taken back. 
 He must also use his lord's flour-mill for the grinding of his 
 corn. 
 
 A somewhat inferior class of villagers was that of the 
 cotarii or bordarii, sometimes possessed of no land, some- 
 times of only a garden. In other cases they had a holding 
 possibly of only one acre, or even so many as ten, in the 
 open fields near the village. But typically the cotarius was 
 a cottager — indeed, our present word is derived from the 
 earlier — who held, in addition to his cottage, five acres in 
 the open fields. He was subordinate to the villein, did not 
 ordinarily share in the deliberations of the manorial court, 
 put no oxen into the village plough-team and took no 
 part in the common ploughing. He performed services for 
 his lord of a character somewhat more trivial than those of 
 the villein. Below the cotarius was the servus or slave, but 
 before dealing with him it will be well to say something 
 about the corporate character of the village, a strongly 
 marked feature in such communities. It possessed several 
 officials, such as the blacksmith, whose duty it was to keep 
 in repair the ironwork of the ploughs of the village, and the 
 carpenter, who had charge of the woodwork. These officials 
 held their lands free from the ordinary services on account 
 of the duties which they performed for the community. 
 The affairs of the village were arranged at the Folkmoot, 
 which was held at some sacred tree or mound or stone.
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES igg 
 
 Here its officials were appointed, its lands distributed and 
 its other business transacted. The Folkmoot was in fact a 
 kind of village council, like those recently re-established, 
 but with much wider powers, since it could inflict punish- 
 ments for offences against its laws. 
 
 In all the corporate life of the village the villeins took the 
 main, often the sole share, the cotarii were sometimes 
 allowed to assist in it, but the servus or thew was an abso- 
 lute serf, and had no part whatever in the deliberations of 
 the Folkmoot, however much they might affect him. The 
 class of servi or theows, sprang, says Mr. Green, " mainly 
 from debt or crime. Famine drove men to bend their 
 heads in the evil days for meat; the debtor, unable to 
 discharge his debt, flung on the ground his freeman's sword 
 and spear, took up the labourer's mattock, and placed his 
 head as a slave within his master's hands. The criminal, 
 whose kinsfolk would not make up his fine, became a serf 
 of the plaintiff or of the crown. Sometimes a father sold 
 his children and wife into bondage when pressed by need. 
 In any case the slave became part of the live-stock of his 
 master's estate, to be willed away at death with horse and 
 ox, whose pedigree was kept as carefully as his own. His 
 children were . bondsmen like himself, even a freeman's 
 children by a slave mother inherited the slave's taint. ' Mine 
 is the calf which is born of my cow' ran an English proverb. 
 It was not, indeed, slavery such as we have known in modern 
 times, for stripes and bonds were rare ; if the slave was slain, 
 it was by an angry blow, hot by the lash. But his master 
 could slay him if he would ; it was but a chattel the less. 
 The slave had no place in the justice-court, no kinsmen to 
 claim vengeance or guilt- fine for his wrong. If a stranger 
 slew him, his lord claimed the damages ; if guilty of wrong- 
 doing, his skin paid for him under his master's lash. If he 
 fled he might be chased like a strayed beast, and when 
 caught he might be flogged to death. If the wrong-doer
 
 200 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 were a woman she might be burnt." No doubt the dialogue 
 of ^Ifric, in which the inquirer holds a conversation with 
 a theow, represents fairly what must have been the feelings 
 of so miserable a class. The inquirer asks, "What sayest 
 thou, ploughman ? How dost thou thy work ? " and the 
 ploughman replies, " Oh, my lord, hard do I work. I go 
 out at daybreak driving the oxen to field, and I yoke them 
 to the plough. Nor is it ever so hard winter that I dare 
 lurk at home, for fear of my lord, but the oxen yoked, and 
 the ploughshare and coulter fastened to the plough, every 
 day must I plough a full acre or more." " Hast thou any 
 comrade ? " "I have a boy driving the oxen with an iron 
 goad, who also is hoarse with cold and shouting." " What 
 more dost thou in the day ? " " Verily then I do more. 
 I must fill the bin of the oxen with hay, and water them, 
 and carry out the dung. Ha ! ha ! Hard work it is ! be- 
 cause I am not free." 
 
 The land around the village which belonged to the villeins 
 and cottars was not cut up into fields separated from one 
 another by hedges as is our land now. On the contrary, 
 the fields were quite open, and the separate holdings were 
 divided from one another by narrow strips or balks of turf, 
 so that they must have very much resembled what we are 
 now beginning to be familiar with as allotment pieces, in 
 the neighbourhood of many towns and villages. Roughly 
 speaking each of these strips of land would be about an acre 
 in size, and arranged so as to be of the most convenient 
 size for ploughing. Indeed, the names of the divisions by 
 which land is measured recall the primitive importance of 
 the plough, for the furlong is the " furrow-long," or the 
 length of the furrow which the plough made before it was 
 convenient to turn it, and as this is called qiiarentena in 
 the Latin documents of the period, we gather that it con- 
 sisted of forty rods. The word rood corresponds to as 
 many furrows as could be made in the breadth of a rod,
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 201 
 
 and four of these rods or roods laid side by side made and 
 still make up the statute acre. 
 
 Between the ends of the strips were often little bits of 
 land, filling in disused corners perhaps awkwardly situated 
 for ploughing. These were called '"no man's land," "any 
 man's land," " Jack's piece," or, in Scotland, consecrated 
 as a propitiatory offering to the devil, under the name of 
 "Cloutie's crofc," or "the gudeman's field." It is highly 
 probable that we may find an explanation of this fact 
 in the custom existing elsewhere amongst primitive people 
 of leaving a patch of uncleared ground in the neigh- 
 bourhood or even in the midst of land which they were 
 breaking up for cultivation, such patch being intended as a 
 place of refuge for the sylvan deities whose dominions had 
 been invaded. 
 
 The strips of arable land were arranged in three fields 
 or areas, one of which was fallowed each year, a regular 
 rotation of crops being thus insured. They were divided 
 up amongst the villeins, each of whom possessed a certain 
 number, not lying side by side as one would have suj)- 
 posed, but scattered here and there apparently at hazard 
 over the tiiree fields. The normal holding for a villein was 
 called a virgate and consisted of thirty acres, ten in each of 
 the three fields. Such a portion of property was also called 
 a yardland. Although there seem to have been some varia- 
 tions in this matter, as a rule there seem to have been fmir 
 virgates — i.e., one hundred and twenty acres in a hidu (;f 
 land. Four of these, again, were taxed forty .shillings for 
 scutage or maintenance of a knight, that area of land 
 bearing, therefore, the name of a knight's fee. The hide 
 was also called a carucate, a word which is derived from the 
 Latin caruca, a plough or plough-team. A carucate, therefore, 
 being the amount of land capable of being cultivated by a 
 full o.vteam, which, it may parenthetically be said, consisted 
 of eight beasts, may very well have varied with the nature
 
 202 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 of the soil and country, and this in fact we find it did. 
 We have already seen that the communal officers took 
 charge of the village ploughs, and the beasts which drew 
 them were the property of the villeins, the size of whose 
 holdings determined the number of animals which each was 
 required to supply. Thus the smallest division of land 
 which a villein might hold was a bovate, and as this word is 
 derived from the Latin bos, an ox, it suggests the possession 
 of one of these animals. Double this amount of land was a 
 virgate, the normal holding of the villein, who must supply 
 two oxen to the team. The hide or carucate, containing 
 four virgates, would then correspond to the full team of 
 eight. The same system of co-operative ploughing explains 
 apparently the way in which the pieces of land came to be 
 scattered over the three fields. The Welsh laws relating to 
 the co-aration of the waste, or communal ploughing, throw 
 considerable light on this subject. Here also the team 
 consisted of eight oxen, and all those who shared in its 
 benefits had to supply their quota, whether of beasts or 
 implements, which were handed over to the common 
 ploughman. When the ground was ploughed, the first erw 
 (a piece of ground about the size of an acre) went to the 
 ploughman, the second to the owner of the plough irons, the 
 third to the outside sod-ox, the fourth to the outside sward- 
 ox, the fifth to the driver, from the sixth to the eleventh 
 inclusive to the remaining oxen, the owners of the beasts 
 being in each case of course meant, and, finally, the twelfth 
 was reserved for plough-bote, that is for the maintenance of 
 the wood-work of the plough, and thus the " tie " of twelve 
 erws was completed. In case of disputes as to the quality 
 of the work done, there was a very common-sense method 
 of settling the matter. " Let the erw of the ploughman be 
 examined as to the depth, length, and breadth of the 
 furrow, and let every one's be completed alike." It is quite 
 easy to see how by such a division of the ploughed land, the
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 203 
 
 owner of, say, the outside sward ox, might have his strips 
 scattered over the whole area and at some distance from one 
 another. But there was yet another way in which this 
 might have occurred, for, as Mr. Gomme has pointed out, in 
 some cases there was an annual re-distribution of the strips 
 by lot. He gives the following instance of how this took 
 place up to a recent date. In the parishes of Congresbury 
 and Puxton (Somersetshire) are two large pieces of common 
 land, called East and West Dolemoors (from the Saxon dai, 
 which means a share or portion), which were divided into 
 single acres, each bearing a different and peculiar mark cut 
 in the turf — such as a horn, four oxen and a mare, a pole- 
 axe, cross, dung-fork, oven, duck's nest, hand-reel, and hare's 
 tail. On the Saturday before old Midsummer, several pro- 
 prietors of estates in the parishes of Congresbury, Puxton 
 and Week St. Laurence, or their tenants,- assembled on the 
 commons. A number of apples were previously prepared, 
 which were marked in the same manner as the above men- 
 tioned acres. These were distributed by a young lad to each 
 of the commoners from a bag or hat. At the close of the 
 distribution each person repaired to his allotment, as 
 determined by the apple, and took possession of it for the 
 year. 
 
 It, will now sum up these facts as to the village, if we 
 take one example of a manor, and see how it was divided, 
 and for that purpose we may choose that of Westminster. 
 The Domesday Book records that "in villa ubi sedet 
 "Ecclesia Sci. Petri (the Abbey) the abbot of the same place 
 holdeth 13-^ hides. There is land for 11 plough teams. 
 To the demesne belong 9 hides and i virgate, and there are 
 4 plough teams. The villeins have 9 plough teams, and one 
 more might ba made. There are : 
 
 9 villani with a virgate each; 
 
 I villanus with a hide ; 
 
 9 villani with a half-virgate each ;
 
 204 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 I cottier with five acres ; 
 
 41 cottiers rendering a shilling each yearly for their 
 gardens ; 
 
 There is meadow for 1 1 plough teams ; 
 
 Pasture for the cattle of the village ; 
 
 Wood for 100 pigs. 
 There are 25 houses of the abbot's soldiers and of other 
 men, who render 8^. per annum or ^10 in all. In the 
 same villa Rainardus holds 3 hides of the abbot. There is 
 land for two plough teams, and they are there in demesne, 
 and one cottier. Wood for 100 pigs. Pasture for cattle. 
 Four arpents of vineyard newly planted. All these are 
 worth '6oi-. This land belonged and belongs to the Church 
 of S. Peter." 
 
 It is clear from this description, says Mr. Seebohm, that 
 the village which nestled around the new minster just com- 
 pleted by Edward the Confessor was on a manor of the 
 abbot. It consisted of twenty-five houses of the abbot's 
 immediate followers, nineteen homesteads of villani, forty- 
 two cottages with their little gardens, and one of them with 
 five acres of land. There was also the larger homestead of 
 the sub-manor of the abbot's under-tenant, with a single 
 cottage and a vineyard of four half-acres, recently planted. 
 There was meadow enough by the river-side to make hay 
 for the herd of oxen belonging to the dozen plough-teams 
 of the village, and pasture for them and other cattle. 
 ■ Further round the village, in open fields, were about one 
 thousand acres of arable land, mostly in the acre strips, 
 lying, no doubt, in their shots or furlongs, and divided by 
 green turf balks and field-ways. Lastly, surrounding the 
 whole on the land side were the woods where the swine- 
 herds found mast for the two hundred pigs of the place. 
 
 The open-field system of culture existed for many years 
 until it was abolished by a series of Enclosure x\cts, many 
 of which were passed during the end of the last and begin-
 
 TRIBAL AND VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 205 
 
 ning of the present century. The Commissioners appointed 
 for this purpose caused the fields to be re-divided, hedges 
 and roads to be made, and re-distributed the land to those 
 amongst whom it had previously been held. When it is 
 known that nearly four thousand Enclosure Acts were passed 
 between the years 1760 and 1844, it will be understood how 
 widely prevalent the open-field system of culture must once 
 have been. In the report of the Crofter Commission of 
 1884 there is, as Mr. (jomme has pointed out, an interest- 
 ing account of the survival of this system, not, indeed, on 
 what is technically a manor, but in connection with the 
 village community living on the island of Heisgeier, one of 
 the Outer Hebrides. This community consisted of ten 
 tenants, or more properly of twelve, since two of the ten 
 have two shares each instead of one ; these may be called 
 the villagers. There are as officers of the community the 
 maor, the constable and the herdsman. The maor is 
 appointed by the lord's factor, and acts as a kind of sub- 
 factor. The constable is elected by the villagers in a most 
 primitive and interesting fashion. The people meet together 
 at a gathering which is called " Nabac " or neighbourliness, 
 or, if presided over by the maor, it is called mod or moot. 
 The place of meeting is called Cnoc na Comhairlc, the 
 Council Hill, or Clac na Comhairle, the Council Stone. 
 The constable, having been elected, takes off his shoes and 
 stockings, uncovers his head, and, bowing reverently low, 
 promises in presence of heaven and earth, of God and men, 
 that he will be faithful to his trust. At Hallowtide the 
 villagers meet and decide upon the piece of ground within 
 their jnark which is to be broken up for arable cultivation, a 
 different piece being selected every three years, and the old 
 ground put under grazing as before. The allotment of the 
 land is the next process. The constable takes a rod, and 
 divides the land into equal divisions. At the boundary of 
 each division he cuts a mark in the ground, which is called
 
 2o6 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 the Tore, and resembles the Government broad-arrow. A 
 man, probably the herdsman, is then sent out from the 
 meeting, and each of six men then put a lot into a bonnet ; 
 the man sent out is then recalled, and the bonnet is handed 
 to him. From this the man takes the lots and places them 
 one after one on a line on the ground, the order in which 
 they thus stand being the order in which the owners of the 
 lots stand to one another, each man knowing his own mark. 
 The two tenants who have double shares retain their two 
 shares each ; the four other tenants sub-divide their divi- 
 sions with four other men, whom they thus represent at the 
 division. These sub-divisions are called Imirean or lomai- 
 rean, rigs or ridges, and each two tenants cast lots again for 
 the sub-divided rigs. A piece of ground is then set apart 
 for the herdsman, which is the outside rig bordering on the 
 grazings, and furtlier pieces of ground are set out for the 
 poor. Thus we find that the system of village-community 
 which existed at least through the Saxon period has made 
 its influence deeply and' directly felt through the whole of 
 the succeeding history of the country. The open-field 
 system of culture has, it is true, departed, but the garden 
 allotments and the Acts which provide for them are an 
 attempt to keep upon the land a class of cottars very similar 
 to those of the older manor; And it has already been re- 
 marked that the recently originated parish councils are the 
 lineal descendants and legitimate successors of the folkmoots 
 of former days. In the present chapter it has been desired 
 to give some insight into the life of the village, rather than 
 to discuss any of the interesting problems related to it. For 
 this and other information on the subject the reader is 
 advised to consult the exhaustive works of Mr. Seebohmand 
 Mr. Gomme, from which, indeed, all the facts mentioned in 
 this brief account have been gathered.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 SOME TRACES OF THE PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 
 
 Traces in Language — Physical characteristics — Names of 
 
 Places. 
 
 In considering what effects the various races with which this 
 book is concerned have had on the present population of 
 these islands, it may be well briefly to recapitulate the 
 peoples whom we have to take into account. Omitting 
 all the innumerable admixtures which have taken place 
 within historic times, and turning only to the earlier races, 
 we have at least one non- Aryan people to deal with — namely^ 
 those of the Neolithic period. It may be that there are 
 traces and remnants amongst us of the blood of the ancient 
 cave-dweller of the rough Stone age ; but if so it may be 
 said quite safely that they are unrecognisable, and there- 
 fore to be neglected. Then we have Goidels, Brythons, 
 Saxons, Danes and Normans all belonging to Aryan races. 
 The Romans must be omitted from our calculations, for 
 though it would be unsafe to say that they have left no 
 ethnological legacy behind them, from the nature of their 
 occupation of the country it cannot have been equal in 
 share to that of the other races, and is apparently un- 
 traceable. To attempt a linguistic incjuiry as to the share 
 of the different races in the production of the present 
 population is no part of the intention of this book, nor 
 would such an attempt be very profitable. In his essay 
 on " Fixed Points in English Ethnology," the late Professor
 
 2o8 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Huxley shows how false any estimate based upon the 
 present speech must be. "In Gaul," he writes, "the im- 
 ported Teutonic dialect has been completely overpowered 
 by the more or less modified Latin, which it found already 
 in possession ; and what Teutonic blood there may be in 
 modern Frenchmen is not adequately represented in their 
 language. In Britain, on the contrary, the Teutonic dialects 
 have overpowered the pre-existing forms of speech, and 
 the people are vastly less Teutonic than their language. 
 Whatever may have been the extent to which the Celtic- 
 speaking population of the eastern half of Britain was 
 trodden out and supplanted by the Teutonic-speaking 
 Saxons and Danes, it is quite certain that no considerable 
 displacement of the Celtic-speaking people occurred in 
 Cornwall, Wales or the Highlands of Scotland; and that 
 nothing approaching to the extinction of that people took 
 place in Devonshire, Somerset or the western moiety of 
 Britain generally. Nevertheless, the fundamentally Teu- 
 tonic English language is now spoken throughout Britain, 
 except by an insignificnnt fraction of the population in 
 Wales and the Western Highlands. But it is obvious that 
 this fact affords not the slightest justification for the com- 
 mon practice of speaking of the j^resent inhabitants of 
 Britain as an Anglo-Saxon people. It is, in fact, just as 
 absurd as the habit of talking of the French people as a 
 Latin race because they speak a language which is, in 
 the main derived from Latin. And the absurdity becomes 
 the more patent when those who have no hesitation in 
 calling a Devonshire man or a Cornish man an Anglo- 
 Saxon would think it ridiculous to call a Tipperary man 
 by the same title, though he and his forefathers may have 
 spoken English for as long a time as the Cornish man." In 
 attributing small value to linguistic evidence as a means of 
 help in unravelling the tangled skein of English ethnology, 
 it must not be supposed that sufficient importance has not
 
 TRACES OF PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 209 
 
 been attached to the efforts in this direction of the Dialect 
 Society, which promise some day to throw Hght upon the 
 subject ; but it is perhaps not unfair to say that the time is 
 not yet come when a linguistic classification can be fully 
 realised. 
 
 Two curious linguistic relics there are, which may be men- 
 tioned, of the influence of the Celt on his Saxon neighbour. 
 The first is that of the rhyming score, which is met with in 
 Scotland,Yorkshire, Northumberland, and in several western 
 and central counties. It is a method adopted by shepherds 
 of counting up to twenty in words which to them are only a 
 meaningless jingle, but which, when examined, turn out to be 
 nothing else than the Welsh numerals up to that amount. The 
 explanation of this curious custom probably is that in earlier 
 times the British slaves of Saxon lords were in the habit of 
 thus reckoning up their flocks and that their numerals 
 became converted into a kind of jingle by their fellows of 
 English birth, being handed down by them to their 
 descendants, who have lost all idea of the real meaning of 
 the words which they use. The other instance is that of 
 the local word ceffyl, a horse, used in Worcestershire, 
 Herefordshire and some other counties. This is a pure 
 Welsh word, nor need one feel much surprise at finding it 
 in use, in counties where the Saxon and the Brython must 
 have had many dealings in horseflesh. But what is signifi- 
 cant is the manner in which it is used, for it is employed 
 only for horses of the poorest type, or as a word of abuse 
 from one person to another, as when one says " you great 
 kcffil," meaning you clumsy idiot.' This mode of employ- 
 ment shows very well the feeling which the Saxon entertained 
 for the Celt, a feeling of contempt, which led him, whilst 
 calling his own steed a horse, to name that of his British 
 neighbour a keffil, and imagine that by so doing he 
 disparaged it. That this feeling was returned with interest 
 there can be no doubt, and in proof of it tlie following 
 
 o
 
 2IO LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 quatrain may be quoted, which, though Irish in origin and 
 
 therefore giving the view of the Goidel, no doubt represented 
 
 that of his brother the Brython with equal accuracy. 
 
 Describing the characteristics of different races the bard 
 
 exclaims : 
 
 For acuteness and valour, the Greeks, 
 
 For excessive pride, the Romans, 
 
 For dulness, the creeping Saxons, 
 
 For beauty and amourousness, the Gaedhils. 
 
 The most valuable data to hand for solving the ethno- 
 logical problem are those afforded by the laborious observa- 
 tions of Dr. Beddoes, of which large use has been made in the 
 following sketch. In the first place, it is clear, as Mr. Elton 
 points out, that in many parts of Ireland there are remnants 
 of a short, black-haired stock, probably of pre-Celtic origin. 
 The tribal names of these peoples are in many cases taken 
 from words for the Darkness and the Mist, and their 
 physical appearance is quite different from that of the tall, 
 light Celts. The same thing has been observed in the 
 Scottish Highlands, and in the Western Isles, where the 
 people have a " strange foreign look," and are dark-skinned, 
 dark-haired, dark-eyed and small in stature. Campbell, in 
 his "West Highland Tales," speaking of the short, dark 
 natives of Barra, says : " Behind the fire sat a girl with one 
 of those strange foreign faces which are occasionally to be 
 seen in the Western Isles, a face which reminded me of the 
 Nineveh sculptures and of faces seen in St. Sebastian. 
 Her hair was as black as night, her clear eyes ghttered 
 through the peat-smoke. Her complexion was dark and 
 her features so unlike those who sat about her that I asked 
 if she were a native of the island and learned that she was 
 a Highland girl." Again, in many parts of England and 
 Wales the people are short and swarthy, with black hair 
 and eyes, and with long, narrow heads. This is found to 
 be the case not only in the ancient Siluria (comprising the
 
 TRACES OF PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 211 
 
 modern counties of Glamorgan, Brecknock, MiMunoiith, 
 Radnor and Hereford), but in several districts in the fen- 
 country, and in the south-western counties of Cornwall and 
 Devon, with parts of Gloucester, Wilts and Somerset. The 
 same fact has been noticed in the Midland counties, in 
 districts round Derby, Stamford, Leicester and Lough- 
 borough ; where we might have expected to find nothing 
 but a population with light hair and eyes, and where " the 
 names of the towns and villages show that the Saxon and 
 Danish conquerors occupied the district in overwhelming 
 numbers." That such people may be the representatives of 
 the Neolithic inhabitants of these islands is at least possible, 
 if not highly probable. 
 
 When we come to try and decide the exact nature of the 
 population of any given district we approach a most difficult 
 and unsatisfactory problem. That there are dififerences in 
 physiognomy and in bodily characteristics must have been 
 noticed by any traveller through the country who has taken 
 the trouble to keep his eyes open. Such an observant 
 traveller may find himself remarking with Mr. Hardy that 
 some flexible mouth which he has seen never "came over 
 from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates, whose lips met 
 like the two halves of a muffin," but if he tries to push his 
 investigations further and say where it did come from he is at 
 once encompassed round about with innumerable difficulties. 
 
 It will, therefore, only be attempted to point out in a very 
 general way some indications, which Dr. Beddoes thinks he 
 has been able to perceive, as to the nature of the population 
 of some of the districts of England. In the Shetlands, for 
 example, the population is unquestionably largely Norse in 
 its origin, though there are other elements mixed with it. 
 In the Lewis there are three types : the large, fair, comely 
 Norse type, said to exist almost pure at Ness in the north part 
 of the island ; the short, thick-set, snub-nosed, dark-haired, 
 often even dark-eyed race, which Dr. Beddoes thinks may
 
 212 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 be possibly Finnish, whose centre is at Barvas ; and the 
 West Highland type, which has gradually filtered in, and is 
 usually characterised by an athletic figure of medium 
 height, a bony face, long sinuous pointed nose, grey eyes 
 and dark hair. The Norsemen have also had their influence 
 on the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, in which there are 
 many Norse names, especially that of Sneefell, the highest 
 mountain, which is purely Norse. Indeed there is another 
 instance of the fact constantly under our eyes, though 
 recognised by few, and that is the title of the Bishop of 
 Sodor and Man. The Hebrides were called the Sudreyjar, 
 or southern islands, by the Norsemen, and the See which 
 they founded was united with that of Man in the eleventh 
 century, and made dependent on the Archbishop of 
 Drontheim in Norway, by whom, till 1334, the Episcopi 
 Sudorenses were always consecrated. The Bishop of Sodor 
 and Man still retains his titular supremacy over those 
 southern islands which have long ceased to have any 
 other connection with him. Beyond this influence Man is 
 strongly Goidelic, as is shown by the tongue, the people's 
 names and their ideas. These instances of comparatively 
 isolated spots have been cited, in order to show how much 
 admixture there is of races even in those districts where we 
 should expect to find the strain most pure. Even in 
 Aranmore, an extremely isolated island on the west coast of 
 Ireland, Professor Haddon found a mixed race, some of the 
 islanders even having French blood in their veins. It will 
 not be difficult from this to understand how great the 
 admixture of races must be in places where for centuries 
 there have been so many and so various currerits of popula- 
 tion constantly ebbing and flowing. Speaking generally we 
 may say that we find the largest amount of Celtic blood on 
 the western side of the island and notably in Wales and 
 Cornwall, and that of the rest we find the Danish influence 
 most marked in those parts of the country which are to the
 
 TRACES OF PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 213 
 
 north of the Watling Street and towards the east coast. 
 But even here great limitations must be placed. Some 
 counties were much more completely colonised by the 
 Danes than others, and of these Leicester may serve as an 
 example. Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire are Anglo- 
 Danish, the latter element being particularly strong in 
 Lincolnshire as far as to the border of the Fens. The 
 northern part of Cambridgeshire, known as the Isle of Ely, 
 is said to contain a considerable streak of British blood, a 
 fact which may be explained by what we know of the 
 inaccessibility of its isles and deep marshes and waters at a 
 much later period. 
 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, on the other hand, are more Anglian 
 than Danish or British. On the other side of Watling 
 Street the amount of Celtic blood mixed with the Saxon 
 varies very much in different parts. In Warwickshire, for 
 example, there is apparently a very strong admixture of 
 Celtic blood, a fact which has been dwelt upon by those 
 who attribute a strong Celtic strain as no inconsiderable 
 factor in the genius of Shakespeare. Nor is it difficult to 
 understand the fact of this admixture, in that district, for we 
 know that the great Forest of Arden, which covered by far 
 the greater part of the county, was one of the fastnesses 
 occupied by the fugitive Britons, long after they had been 
 dislodged by their Saxon adversaries from more accessible 
 spots. In fact, Dr. Beddoes thinks that it was a band of 
 the Britons of this district which united with Ccolric, the 
 Saxon king, at the battle of Wanborough, in 591. If this 
 be so it would show that they were living on terms of 
 neutrality, if not of friendship, with the Saxon invaders, and 
 under these circumstances, they may well have increased 
 their numbers and by intermarriage with their alien neigh- 
 bours have introduced a strong infusion of their blood into 
 the dwellers in the Arden district. East Worcestershire was 
 one of Ccawlin's colonies, so that there is a large amount of
 
 214 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Saxon blood there. Derbyshire and East Staffordshire are 
 Anglian, and so are large parts of Cheshire and Shropshire. 
 But on the Dee and along the west of Shropshire the 
 British population must have formed a considerable ele'ment, 
 especially in isolated districts like that of Clun, where many 
 of the names are still Welsh. The same remark appHes to 
 the whole of Herefordshire, of which, indeed, Archeafield, 
 the trans -Wye country, and some portions of the west 
 border, beyond Offa's Dyke, were never colonised by the 
 Saxons. Dr. Beddoes particularly insists on the long con- 
 tinued reflux of the Welsh over the whole of the Marches, 
 which has rendered the preponderance of their type, 
 especially amongst the lower classes, very conspicuous. The 
 influence of this double race in the double town of Shrews- 
 bury has been alluded to in another chapter. Dr. Beddoes 
 considers that in the central part of Oxfordshire the West- 
 Saxon type is very strong, and hence, extending up the 
 valley of the Thames, it affects a great part of the Cots- 
 wolds, the hill country of Gloucestershire, and even the 
 Severn valley as far as the Severn. The city of Gloucester 
 is supposed to have survived its conquest by Ceawlin, and 
 its markets and streets stand pretty much on their original 
 sites. To the Forest of Dean, the part of the county 
 beyond the river, applies what has been said of Hereford- 
 shire. The peculiar customs of the miners of that district 
 date back to a Roman, or perhaps even to a pre-Roman 
 period, for it was very early an important mining centre, and 
 the physical type of the inhabitants does not seem to have 
 appreciably altered. The hair is generally dark, the head 
 long, the cheek-bones prominent. The Severn, adds the 
 same writer, is a distinct ethnological frontier; the con- 
 trast between the country people in the Eastgate side of 
 Gloucester on a market day, and those who come across 
 the bridge from the Forest side, is extremely striking. In the 
 north and east of Kent Teutonic types preponderate, with
 
 TRACES OF PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 215 
 
 light or brown hair ; one in particular, with very prominent 
 profile, is claimed by some observers as Jutic, and is said to 
 be frequent also in the Isle of Wight and the Meon district, 
 near Southampton. There is more British influence in 
 Romney Marsh and the neighbouring [)art of the Weald. 
 Chichester and Suffolk generally are, as may be supposed, 
 strongly Saxon. The type possesses regular features, 
 elliptical head and face, brows moderately arched, nose 
 straight, often rounded or bulbous at the point, mouth well 
 moulded, complexion fair and transparent, eyes well open, 
 iris seldom large, of a beautiful clear blue, but sometimes 
 brown or hazel, hair flaxen or brown of various shade, seldom 
 bright, curly or abundant. Hampshire also, another centre 
 of Saxon colonisation, bears witness to the fact by the blonde 
 character of the population. 
 
 In Devon, and still more so in Cornwall, we find more and 
 more traces of British influence. Thus, here is a mixture 
 of races in all parts, and, to conclude this sketch, it may be 
 added that the conquests of Ida, the Flame-Bearer, and the 
 Bernicians, filled the Lowland parts of Scotland with Saxons, 
 so much so, that to this day the English tongue is preserved 
 with greater purity in what is called Southern Scotland than 
 in any other part of the kingdom. From what has been 
 said it will be understood that in many parts of the country 
 there have been Celtic influences at work from the beginning, 
 modifying the purity of race of the Saxon colonists, and, in 
 addition to these, in estimating the real nature of the race, 
 the return wave of Celts, which has been so long spreading 
 over the country, must be taken into account. When these 
 two sources of Celtic influence have been properly appraised, 
 it will be seen that the population of England is very far 
 from being as Anglo-Saxon as it is popularly supposed to 
 be. In fact it may with reason be said that the families in 
 England which do not contain more than a streak of Celtic 
 blood must be comparatively very few.
 
 2i6 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 The evidence which is gained from the names of places 
 tells the same tale of the occupation of the country by 
 various races. Of the pre-Aryan inhabitants of the country 
 it cannot be said that there are any certain traces of this 
 kind, but of both branches of the Celts we find them in 
 abundance. Taking first the Goidelic wing, and choosing 
 examples mainly from England, we have the river names 
 derived from the Gaelic word uisge, water, a word which 
 we are most familiar with under its very slightly altered form 
 of whisky. From this word come the Esk, the Usk and 
 the Ouse, also the Exe, for Exeter was the Isca Damno- 
 niorum of the Romans, and the first part of its name was the 
 Latinised form of uisge. As might be supposed the greater 
 number of Celtic names in England are Brythonic, but 
 Canon Taylor has pointed out that there is a thin stream of 
 Goidelic names which extends across the island from the 
 Thames to the Mersey, such as Dunmow, Ouse, Ben 
 Rhydding, which, he thinks, may indicate the route by 
 which the Gael traversed the country as he was driven west- 
 ward by the invading Brython. The last-mentioned name 
 reminds us that Ben is the characteristic Goidelic name for 
 a mountain, and is met with in numerous instances in Scot- 
 land, the land of the Gael. Pen, on the other hand, is the 
 equivalent Brythonic word, and occurs with frequency in 
 Wales. The leading Brythonic word for a river is afon, 
 meaning water. This word forms the name of several rivers 
 in England, such as that which runs through Stratford-on- 
 Avon, and it is quite easy to see how several isolated bands 
 of Brythons might each describe the river of their own 
 district as "The Water." In Wales the word is found in 
 its proper place as the prefix to some specific name, such as 
 Afon Llugwy or Afon Lledr. In England we speak of the 
 River Avon, one of various pleonasms which have arisen 
 by the re-christening of a place by successive occupants 
 ignorant of the meaning of the term which they found in
 
 .TRACES OF PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 217 
 
 use on their arrival. A good instance of this is that of the 
 hill at the head of the Yarrow, which is named Mount Ben- 
 jerlaw. The original Celtic name was Ben-yair, the moun- 
 tain of the Yarrow, to this the Saxons added their word 
 hlaw, also meaning a hill, and finally in Norman times the 
 Latin word inons gave it the prefix of mount. So that the 
 whole name when analysed means, hill (Norman) hill 
 (Celtic) Yarrow hill (Saxon). Another Brythonic word, 
 dun^ a hill fortress, which in Wales is Dinas, enters into the 
 formation of some names and did so in Roman times, as in 
 the case of Dunum, and Camulodunum. Cunn, combe, 
 a valley, another Brythonic word, occurs frequently in 
 Somerset and Devon, where, as we have seen, Celtic in- 
 fluence was always strong, and is met with as The Cwms in 
 Shropshire, in the name of the valley east of Caer Caradoc. 
 Canon Taylor points out that the words for church form 
 a good index of colonisation, when they enter, as they so 
 frequently do, into the names of places. In Goidelic this is 
 kill, a word met with in no less than 1400 Irish places, of 
 which Kilkenny, the Church of St. Canice, will serve for an 
 example. The same word is met with in Scotland with 
 considerable frequency and also in Wales, though, as every 
 one knows, the Brythonic term llan is the more common 
 prefix in that country. The Anglo-Saxon circe becomes 
 softened into church, but as that word is also English it is 
 no test of colonisation. The Danes hardened the same 
 word into kirk, and that prefix is met with in sixty-eight 
 cases in the Danish district, as for example in Kirby, the 
 church village, and Kirk Oswald, though it is scarcely ever 
 met with in parts untouched by the influence of the Danes. 
 Amongst Saxon words that of ton, the palisaded village, and 
 burh or borough, the house of the strong man, occur with 
 great frequency, though both of them are used as suffixes 
 and prefixes to towns which no longer preserve the condi- 
 tions of the places to which they were originally assigned.
 
 2i8 LIFE IN EARLY BRITAIN 
 
 Roman names have almost entirely disappeared, though 
 Spinre seems to linger under the form of Speen and Castra 
 Legionum under that of Caerleon. But the word castra 
 under one or other of its corruptions enables us to recognise 
 many places which were originally Roman cities or settle- 
 ments. 
 
 Canon Taylor has drawn attention to the curious naodifi- 
 cations of the word castra, which has been altered in different 
 ways in consonance with the dialectic peculiarities of different 
 parts of the kingdom. Throughout the regions of Essex, 
 Sussex, Wessex, and other Saxon districts the form Chester 
 is usual, as in Colchester, Godmanchester, Grantchester, 
 Rochester and Winchester. As we pass from the Saxon to 
 the Anglian district we find Chester replaced by caster. 
 In one instance at least the two forms are met with in close 
 proximity. Northamptonshire, which is Danish, is separated 
 from Huntingdonshire, which is Saxon, by the river Nen. 
 On the Saxon side of the river we have the village of 
 Chesterton, confronted on the opposite side by the town of 
 Castor, both names recording the existence of the Roman 
 station of Durobrivse which guarded the bridge over the river. 
 Throughout the Anglian and Danish districts generally we 
 find the term caster, as at Doncaster, Lancaster and Caistor. 
 As we pass from East Anglia to Mercia, which, though 
 mainly Anglian, was subject to a certain amount of Saxon 
 influence, we find the word becoming cester, which is inter- 
 mediate between the Saxon Chester and the Anglian caster. 
 The e is retained, but the h is omitted, and there is a strong 
 tendency to further elision, as in the cases of Alcester, 
 Worcester and Gloucester. Beyond the Tees, where the 
 Danish and Mercian influence ceases, we find the Saxon form 
 Chester again in use, as in Lanchester and Chester-le-Street. 
 Towards the Welsh frontier the c or ch becomes an x, 
 and the tendency to elision becomesvery great, as atWroxeter, 
 and Exeter, really (and in Camden's time actually) Execester.
 
 TRACES OF PAST RACES OF BRITAIN 219 
 
 These names on the Welsh frontiers exhibit a gradual 
 approximation to the form which exists where the Brythonic 
 speech survived. Here the / also disappears and we get 
 the word caer as in Caer Caradoc, Caerleon and Caernarvon. 
 Perhaps the most important Danish contribution to place 
 names is the suffix by. By or byr originally denoted a 
 single dwelling, or a single farm, and we have it still in 
 Scotland as the name of a cow-stall. By degrees, like the 
 suffixes ton and ham, it came to have a larger meaning and 
 denoted a village. Instances of this occur in the words 
 Grimsby, Whitby, Derby and Ashby, and a group of such 
 names testifies to the strong Danish influence which formerly 
 prevailed in the Wirral peninsula. Lastly, a few of the 
 Norman names may be mentioned, which marked the in- 
 fluence of the last conquerors of England. Such are 
 Malpas in Cheshire, Beaudesert in the Forest of Arden, 
 Beaumont in Oxfordshire, and the Abbeys of Beaulieu, 
 Jervaulx, Rievaulx and Gracedieu. 
 
 ■ It is no part of the object of this book to deal with the 
 influences of the various races which have come under con- 
 sideration, on the national literature and character. To 
 attempt any task of this kind would demand an extension 
 of its limits beyond those which have been contemplated. 
 But those who would wish to find a succinct account of this 
 part of the subject can with great advantage consult Mr. 
 Arnold's book on Celtic literature, where they will find the 
 subject dealt with in that critic's most luminous manner.
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 LIST OF PLACES IN ENGLAND ILLUSTRATING 
 OBJECTS DESCRIBED IN THE TEXT 
 
 This very imperfect list is inserted in the hope that it may be 
 of service to those who wish to study practically some of the 
 objects described in the preceding pages. In a few instances, 
 of which mention will be made, archaeological surveys of 
 counties have been made and published by experts in the 
 pages oi Archceologia. When this work has been carried out 
 for the entire country, it will be possible to compile a far more 
 complete and accurate list than the following. The atten- 
 tion of reiiders may also be called to the lists of Roman 
 Remains in England which will be found in the pages of the 
 Archceologicql Review. Local archaeologists are requested to 
 pardon the errors of omission and conunission which they 
 may find, and to communicate the same to the author, to be 
 incorporated in a second edition, should such be called for. 
 
 Bedford.— Earthworks {Drit.), Risinghoe Castle, Cainhoe 
 Castle, Maiden Bower (Dunstable), Titternhoc Castle, 
 Walud's Bank ; Saxon cemotex-y, Sandy. 
 
 Berkshire. — Remains of chambered barrow, Wcyland's 
 Smith's Cave (close to the Icknield Street, and in the 
 neighbourhood of many barrows, and of the well-known 
 "White Horse "and Blowing-Stone); British village, 
 Stanlake; Earthworks (LVi7.), Ufliugtun Castle; {Rum.), 
 Griuisby Castle (Newbury) ; Saxon cemeteries, Abing-
 
 222 APPENDIX 
 
 don, Fulford. Museum (containing specimens from 
 Silcliester) at Reading. 
 
 Buckinghamshire. — Earthworks {Brit.), Kimble Castle 
 (Ellesborough), Cholesbury ; Saxon cemetery, Dinton. 
 
 Cambridgeshire. — Earthworks {Rom.), Chesterton; {Sax.), 
 Orwell, Wilbraham ; Dykes, Devil's, Balsham, Brent 
 Ditch, Haydon Ditch. Museum at Cambridge. 
 
 Cheshire. — Earthworks {Brit.), Bucton (Stalybridge), Kels- 
 borough; {Sax.?), Eddisbury ; General Roman anti- 
 qtiities, and Museum at Chester. 
 
 Cornwall. — Dolmens, numerous, the best are : Trevethy 
 Quoit, Zennor do., Pendarves do., Chun do., Lanyon do. ; 
 Stone circles or avenues, The Hurlers (Liskeard), 
 Boskednan circle. Nine Maidens (Boscawen), Dawns 
 Maen ; the Crick stone (Lanyon) is a holed stone ; 
 Cliff castles with loose stone ramparts, Treryn 
 Dinas (near the Land's End, and containing the Logan 
 stone), Castel-an- Dinas, and Chun Castle ; Earthworks 
 and circular hut-dwellings, numerous. 
 
 Cumberland (For full list see Arclicrologia, vol. 53, pt. ii. 
 p. 489). — Stone circles, Penrith, Castle Rigg (Keswick), 
 Dean Moor, Whitbeck, Burn Moor ; Pit dwellings, 
 Castle Carrock, Denton ; The Roman wall and its 
 forts : Saxon moated mounds in various places, e.g., 
 Bleatarn ; and Earthworks at Egremont Castle. 
 
 Derbyshire. — Caves, Poole's Cavern at Buxton, Robin 
 Hood's, Church Hole, Cresswell Crags ; Stone circles, 
 Arbor Low, Nine Ladies' circle, Stanton Moor, Hob 
 Hurst's Hut, Baslow, Bakewell ; Earthworks {Brit.), 
 Melandra, Mouslow; Saxon cemeteries, Cowlon, 
 Standlow. 
 
 Devonshire.— Caves, Kent's Hole, Torquay, Brixham ; 
 Stone circles. Grey Wethers, Gidleigh (Dartmoor), 
 Merivale, do. (also an avenue and dolmen), Scor Hill 
 Down, do. (avenue), Cas Tor, do.. Spinster's Rock 
 (dolmen), Drewsteignton ; Bridge over East Dart, at 
 Portbridge; Villages {Brit.), Grimspound (Dartmoor) 
 and elsewhere ; Earthworks, Prestonbury Castle (Dart- 
 moor), Sidbury, and Henbury Castles (Sidmouth).
 
 APPENDIX 223 
 
 Dorsetshire. — Earthworks {Brit.), Maiden Castle (Dor- 
 chester), Hod Hill, Badbury Rings, Eggardon, Rawlsbury 
 (on Bulbarrow), and many others; Villages {Brit.), 
 Woodcnts, Tnrnworth, and many others; the Cerne 
 giant, near Cerne Abbas (possibly Celtic work) ; RomaD 
 remains at Dorchester and Wareham (the latter altered 
 by later races) ; Pavement, near Weymouth. Museums 
 at Dorchester and Farnham (General Pitt- Rivers 
 Museum). 
 
 Durham. — Cave, Heathery Burn (where many bronze 
 implements have been found), Lanchester, a Roman 
 station, altars from which are in the Chapter Library at 
 Durham ; Saxon cemetery at Castle Eden. 
 
 Essex. — Deneholes (remarkable pits in the earth) are found 
 in this county ; Colchester, general Roman remains. 
 The Bartlow Hills, Roman tumuli. Museum at Saffron 
 Walden. 
 
 Gloucester. — Long barrows at Uley, Nether Swell, Bellas 
 Knap (Winchcombe) ; Earthworks, Kemerton Camp 
 (Bredon Hill), and many others on Cotswolds ; general 
 Roman remains at Cirencester (Museum) ; Villas at 
 Woodchester, Chedworth (with Museum), and Spoonley; 
 Earthworks at Godwin's Castle (Painswick) ; Saxon 
 cemetery at Fairford; remarkable Anglo-Saxon 
 chapel at Deerhurst. 
 
 Hami'shike. — Earthworks (Brit.), St. Catherine's Hill 
 (Winchester), Beacon, and Ladle Hills (Kingsclere), 
 Quarley Hill (Grateley), Buckland Rings (Lymington) 
 and elsewhere ; general Roman remains at Por- 
 chcster, Silchcster (small Museum) ; Villas at Caris- 
 brooke and Brading (Isle of Wight) ; Earthwork, 
 Egbury Castle ; Saxon earthwork, Hcngistbury 
 (Christchurch ?) ; Cemetery, Chessel Down (Isle of 
 Wight). (Note : Objects from Silchcster at Reading 
 Museum.) 
 
 Herei-okd. — Cave, King Arthur's Cave (near Symond's 
 Yat) ; Dolmen, King Arthur's Seat (Dorstone) ; Earth- 
 works, Cioft Ainbrey, Camp on Herefordshire Beacon 
 (Malvern), Wall Hills, Ledbury; Roman vallum and
 
 224 APPENDIX 
 
 ditch at Leintwardine, Camp at Brandon (near same 
 place), Offa's Dyke. Museum at Hereford. 
 
 Hertfordshire (For full list see Archceologia, vol. 53, p. 245). 
 — Earthworks {Brit.), Anbury Camp (Redbourn), 
 Thesfield ; general Roman remains at St. Albans ; 
 Camps at Royston, Thesfield, Kilsmore Bank, Cheshunt ; 
 Cemetery at Littlington (Royston) ; The Grimsdyke. 
 
 Huntingdonshire.— Roman camps at Alwalton, Earith, 
 and Chesterton. 
 
 Kent (For full list see Archceologia, vol. 51, p. 447). — Dolmen, 
 Kit's Coty House (Aylesford) ; Stone circle at Adding- 
 ton ; other megalithic remains at Aylesford, Addington, 
 and Coldrum ; British camp, Darenth ; general Roman 
 remains at Richborough, Dover (Museum), and Lynuie ; 
 Cemeteries at Canterbury and Chart ; walled do., 
 Loose; Camps, Roman Codde (Kingsdown), Queens- 
 borough ; numerous Saxon cemeteries, of which that 
 at Osengal is the most celebrated. 
 
 Lancashire. — Caves, Grange-over-Sands, Kirkhead (Cart- 
 mel) ; Stone circle, Lowick ; Roman camp, Dalton ; 
 Moated mound, Aldington. For list of objects in 
 northern part of county see Archcsologia, vol. 53, p. 531. 
 
 Leicestershire.— Stone Circle and Barrows, near High 
 • Tor, Charnwood Forest ; Roman wall, at Leicester 
 (Museum in same town) ; Saxon cemeteries at Ingarsby 
 and Bellerden. 
 
 Lincolnshire. — Roman gate and general antiquities at 
 Lincoln (Museum). 
 
 Middlesex. — The reader will scarcely require to be reminded 
 of the collections in the British Museum. Indications as 
 to the position of the Roman remains in London will be 
 found in the guides to that city. 
 
 Monmouthshire. — General Roman remains and amphi- 
 theatre, at Caerleon-on-Usk (Museum). 
 
 Norfolk. — Pit dwellings, between Sherringham and Wey- 
 bourne ; Lake dwellings, Wretham, near Thetford ; 
 Roman earthworks. Castle Acre (Caistor), Burgh 
 Castle, and others. Museum at Norwich. 
 
 Northamptonshire.— Earthworks {Brit.), Castle Dykes
 
 APPENDIX 225 
 
 (Farthington), Huasborough, Dane's Camp (Harding- 
 stone) ; Roman, Borough Hill, Irchester, Burg Hill 
 (Towcester), afterwards used by the Saxons, Castor. 
 Museum at Northampton. 
 
 Northumberland.— Cromlech at Lordingshaws ; Earth- 
 works {Brit.), Old Rothbury camp, Bywell, do., Chester 
 Hill, do. (Belford), Easington, and Spindleston (the last 
 three all afterwards modified by Romans) ; the Roman 
 wall, forts, and earthworks; Roman remains at 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne (Museum) ; remains at Hexham 
 Church; Piers of Roman bridge over Tyne, near 
 Belfield. Museum at Alnwick Castle. 
 
 Nottinghamshire. — Camp in Sherwood Forest. 
 
 O.XFORDSHiRE. — Stone circle, RoUright; also dolmen, and 
 at Enstone (Hoarstone) ; the Devil's Quoits at Stanton 
 Harcourt ; remains of a Roman villa at Northlegh. 
 
 Rutland. — Roman camp at Great Chesterton. 
 
 Shropshire. — Stone circles, Marshpool, Mitchell's Fold ; 
 and a third, near Stapeley Hill ; Menhir, near Clun, and 
 on Clee Hill ; Earthworks (Brit.), Caer Caradoc, 
 Stretton, and do. Knighton, Bodbury, Bury Ditches, &c. 
 {Rom. ?), Norton Camp, Craven Arms, Nordy Bank 
 (Clee) ; remains of Roman city of Uriconium ; 
 Mines at Llanymyncch and Snead. Museum at Shrews- 
 bury. 
 
 Somersetshire. — Caves at Wookey, Burrington and Cheddar 
 (at Cough's Cave, Cheddar, is an interesting collection of 
 objects, of Stone, Bronze, and Romano- British periods, 
 which have been found during excavations) ; Stone 
 circle, Stanton Drew; Chambered barrow, WcUow 
 (Stoney Littleton) ; Hut circles, Brent Knoll, Worle 
 Hill, Dolebury ; Lake village, Meare, near Glastonbury ; 
 Camps, Dunster, Cadbury (Clevcdon), Maesbury, Hain- 
 don, Castle Neroche, Dolebury, Worlebury, and others; 
 Bridge over Barle, Tarr Steps, near Winsford ; general 
 Roman remains at Bath, including Roman bath, 
 Museum ; Roman camp, near Dunster, Masbury and 
 Haindon camps were altered by the Romans; Villa at 
 Wellow; Roman amphitheatre, Charterhouse-on- 
 
 P
 
 226 APPENDIX 
 
 Mendip. Museums at Taunton and Glastonbury (the 
 latter containing an interesting collection of objects 
 from the lake village at Meare). 
 
 Staffordshire. — Thor's cave, near Ashbourne; Pit 
 dwellings, Wetton, Cauldron, Alstonefield, Stourton, 
 Ham ; Earthworks at Knave's Castle, near Lichfield, 
 and elsewhere ; Saxon low, near Tittensor. 
 
 Suffolk. — Flint quarries. Grimes Graves, Brandon ; Lake 
 dwellings, Barton Mere (Bury St. Edmunds) ; Roman 
 tumuli, Eastlow Hills (Rougham). 
 
 Surrey. — Earthworks (Brit.), Cardinal's Cap (White Hill, 
 near Caterham) ; Caesar's Camp, Wimbledon. 
 
 Sussex.— Earthworks and flint mines, Cissbury (near 
 Worthing) ; Roman villa, Bignor ; Saxon cemetery, 
 High Down. 
 
 Warwickshire.— Kingstone, Menhir, at Rollright ; Camp, 
 The Mount, near Shirley; Earthworks (Rom.?), Har- 
 borough Banks, Oldbury, near Mancetter (Manduessedum, 
 where Roman relies and a pottery station have been 
 found). 
 
 Westmoreland (For full list see Archceologia, vol. 53, 
 p. 521). — Stone circles, Shap, Crosby Ravenhurst, 
 Ravenstonedale ; Earthworks, Ashby Scar; camp, 
 tumulus, and village, Harbynrigg ; (i^om.), Ambleside, 
 Maiden Castle, on Stainmore ; {Sax.), Kendal Castle. 
 
 Wiltshire.— Long barrows, Lugbury (and dolmen), West 
 Kennett, the King Barrow, near Boreham ; Dolmen, the 
 Devil's Den, Clatford Bottom, near Marlborough ; Hut 
 circles, Fisherton, and elsewhere ; megalithic re- 
 mains, Stonehenge (near which are very many barrows 
 and earthworks), Avebury (Silbury Hill and barrows 
 in neighbourhood) ; Earthworks, very numerous, e.g. 
 {Brit.), Barbury, Chisenbury, Yarnbury, Scratchbury, and 
 Battlebury camps ; {Rom.), Old Sarum, Knooke, Round- 
 way Castles, Mildenhall (Cunetio) ; The Wansdyke ; 
 remarkable Anglo-Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon. 
 Museums at Devizes and SaUsbury (the latter containing 
 a magnificent collection of pre-historic objects). 
 
 Worcestershire. — Earthworks {Brit.), Cadbury Banks,
 
 APPENDIX 227 
 
 Woodbury (?), Wall Hill (Thornbury) ; {Rom.), Kempsey. 
 Museum, Worcester. 
 
 Yorkshire. — Victoria cave, near Settle, and others in neigh- 
 hood. Craven, Kirkdale; megalithic remains, the 
 Devil's Arrows, near Boroughbridge ; Menhir, the Rud- 
 stone, near Bridlington ; Pit dwellings, Danby Moor, 
 Egton Grange, Killing Pits (near Gothland), Harwood 
 Dale, Ingleborongh ; cix'cular earthworks, numerous, 
 e.g., Blois Hall, Thornborough, Alnionbury, near Huddcrs- 
 field; General Roman remains, including the mul- 
 tangular tower and wall at York ; also Roman 
 remains at Tadcaster and Aldborough. Museums, 
 York, Leeds, Scarborough, Whitby. 
 
 Wales, N. — Caves, Perthi Chwareu (Denbighshire), Cefn, 
 near St, Asaph ; Stone circle, Penmaenmawr ; Dol- 
 mens, twenty-eight in Anglesea, of which the best are, 
 Plas Newydd, Bryn Celliden, and Bodowyr; Cairn or 
 carnedd in district of Llyfni, near Clynnog; many 
 earthworks, e.g., Moel-y-Caer (Flint), Caer Gybi, Port- 
 hamcl, Bwedd Arthur (Anglesey). 
 
 Wales, S. — Caves, Long Hole (Glamorgan), Paviland (do.), 
 . Hoyle (Tenby, Pemb.) ; Dolmens, Pentre Ifan (Pem- 
 broke), Arthur's Quoit (Gower, Glamorgan) ; numerous 
 menhirion and many camps, e.g., Ludbrook (Chep- 
 stow) ; Roman amphitheatre, &c., Caerleon; camp 
 at Penlan, near St. David's. 
 
 Isle of Man. — Long barrow at Ballaglass ; Stone circle 
 near Corra, in Maughold ; Pit dwellings, Cronk Airey ; 
 circular huts of stone, Glen Darragh, Mount Murray.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 LIST OF BOOKS WHICH MAY BE CONSULTED 
 IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUBJECTS 
 DEALT WITH IN THE PRECEDING PAGES 
 
 Dealing chiefly with the Stone Period : — 
 
 1. " Cave Hunting." By Prof. Boyd- Dawkins.. Macniillan 
 
 & Co. 
 
 2. " Early Man in Britain." Same author and publisher. 
 
 3. " Prehistoric Times." By Sir John Lubbock. Williams 
 
 & Norgate. 
 
 4. "Ancient Stone Implements." By Sir John Evans. 
 
 Longmans. 
 
 5. " Man before Metals." By N. Joly. Kegan Paul. 
 
 6. " British Barrows." By Canon Greenwell. 
 
 7. " Flint Chips." By E. T. Steevens. Bell & Daldy. 
 
 8. "Grave-Mounds and their Contents." By H. Jewitt. 
 
 Groombridge & Sous. 
 
 Dealing chiefly with the Bronze Period : — 
 The works of Dawkins and Lubbock as above. 
 
 1. " Ancient Bronze Implements." By Sir John Evans. 
 
 Longmans. 
 
 2. "Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings." By Munro. 
 
 Douglas. 
 
 3. " Lake Dwellings." By Keller. 
 
 4. " Celtic Britain." By Prof. Rhys. S.P.C.K. 
 
 5. "Stonehenge and its Earthworks." E. Barlby. D. 
 
 Nutt.
 
 APPENDIX 229 
 
 Dealing chiefly with the Roman Period : — 
 
 1. '• Roman Britain." By Preb. Scarth. S.P.C.K. 
 
 2. " Roman Remains." Ed. bj' L. Gomme. Gentleman's 
 
 Magazine Library. 
 
 3. " Romano-British Mosaic Pavements." By T. Morgan. 
 
 \Miiting. 
 
 4. " Cirencester." By Buckman and Newmarch. 
 
 5. " Uriconium." By Corbet Anderson. J. Russell Smith. 
 
 6. " Roman, Celt, and Saxon." By T. Wright. A. Hall. 
 
 Dealing chiefly with the Saxon Period: — 
 
 1. Wright. As above. 
 
 2. " The Making of England." By J. R. Green. Mac- 
 
 millan. 
 
 3. " Anglo-Saxon Britain." By G. Allen. S.P.C.K. 
 
 General : — 
 
 1. "Origins of English History." By C.J. Elton. Qnaritch. 
 
 2. " The Village Community." By E. Seebohm. 
 
 3. " The Tribal Community." Same author and publisher. 
 
 4. " The Village Community." By L. Gomme. W. Scott. 
 
 5. " Ethnology in Folklore." By the same author. Kegan 
 
 Paul. 
 
 6. " The Origin of the Aryans." B}^ Canon Taylor. W. 
 
 Scott. 
 
 7. " Names of Places." By the same author. 
 
 8.' "The Races of Britain." By Dr. Beddoes. Arrowsmith. 
 9. "English Archasologists' Handbook. By H. Godwin. 
 Parker. 
 
 10. "Archaeological Index." By J. Y. Akerman. J. R. 
 
 Smith. 
 
 11. "Pagan Ireland." By Wood-Martin. Longmans. 
 
 (Gives a good account of corresponding times in the 
 neighbouring island.)
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Abyss, outcry over the, 189 
 
 Adaninan, 64 
 
 Adelphius, Bisliop, 172 
 
 ^^dhan, King of D.iliiada, 17 
 
 ALUnc, Dialogues of, 200 
 
 yElIe, 12 
 
 ^thelfrith. King, 16, 17 
 
 yEtiielthryth, St., 15 
 
 Afon (water), 216 
 
 Alban, St., 171 
 
 Albiona, 64 
 
 Albion, 64 
 
 Alfred, King, 18: 184, 196 
 
 Alltuds (aliens), 189 
 
 Altars, Roman, 150 
 
 Altar-stone at Stonehenge, 100 
 
 Amphitheatres, Roman, 129, 136, 
 
 139. 140 
 Amulets, stone, 44 ; bone, 60 
 
 Angles, 12 
 
 Anglo-Saxon villages, 177 ; inter- 
 ments, 179; swords, 179, 18 r; 
 cemeteries, 180 ; spears, 181 ; 
 shields, 181; mail, 182; orna- 
 ments, 182; glass, 183; manu- 
 scripts, 184; religion, 184; 
 churches, 184 
 
 Antoninus, Itineraries of, 123 
 
 " Any-man's land," 201 
 
 Apodyterium, 148, 150 
 
 " Arabian Nights," the, 116 
 
 " Arch-Druid's Harrow," 108 
 
 Architecture, Anglo-Saxon, 186 
 
 Ard-Ri of Ireland, the 190 
 
 Aries, Synod of, 172 
 
 Arnold, Mr. M., 219 
 
 Art of cave-dwellers, 28 : of Neo- 
 lithic period, 48 ; of I'.ronze 
 period, 90; Anglo-Saxon, 184 
 
 Arrow-heads, stone, 42 ; late use of, 
 80; bronze,- 80 
 
 Arthur or Arlorius, King, 16, 63, 
 170 
 
 Aryan languages, 9 
 
 Aryans, characteristics of undivided 
 race, 68 ; and non-Aryan races, 
 
 "4 
 Ash-sap given to child, 69 
 Auguratorium, the, 127 
 Augustine, St., Blossom Gatherings 
 
 from, 196 
 Aurelius Aiultrosius, 102, 170 
 .^wls, flint, 22; bone, 28 
 Axes, rough stone, construction of, 
 
 23 ; neolithic, 38 ; how polished 
 
 and hand'ed, 40; perforated, 42 ; 
 
 bronze, 80 ; how handled, 83 
 
 Bai^y'.s bottle, Roman, 147 
 
 Badagas, 11 ^ 
 
 Barrows, long or chambered, 49 ; 
 
 " arch-dniid's," 108; round, iii; 
 
 legend about, 113; Saxon, T79 
 Base-court, 175 
 
 Basilica, Roiuan, 131, 134, 143 
 Basc|ues, 9, 64 
 Baths, public Roman, 148 ; private, 
 
 162 
 Bay-window, 194 
 Beads, of fossil shells, 24 ; of glass, 
 
 77 
 
 Bear, 36, 120 
 
 Bearw (birrow), 179 
 
 Beaver, 36, 120 
 
 P.eddoes, Dr., 210, 211, 213, 214 
 
 Bede, the Venerable, 13 
 
 Beer, Biitisi;, 71 
 
 Ben (a mountain), 216 
 
 Beorm, 178 
 
 Beowulf, 179, 180, 181 
 
 Bergyon, 64 
 
 Bishop of Durham, his himting- 
 lodge, 190 
 
 I'lack-haired races in Great Britain, 
 210, 211 
 
 Bilossom tialheringsfromSt. Augus- 
 tine, 196 
 
 Boann ((ioddess of Boyne), 114
 
 232 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Boar, wild, 36, 120; sacred, 182 
 
 Boats of Neolithic period, 36 
 
 Boc-land, 196 
 
 Boldon book, tlie, 190 
 
 Bona dea, 116 
 
 Boniface, St., 56 
 
 Boon-work, 197 
 
 Bordarii, 198 
 
 Borough, 217 
 
 Borough-English, 3 
 
 Boudicca (Boadicea), 117 
 
 Bovate, 202 
 
 Brachycpphaly (round-headedness), 
 116 
 
 Brenhin of Wales, 190 
 
 Breton tongue, 70 
 
 Brezonec, 70 
 
 Bridal veil, 4 
 
 Bridges, Celtic, 95 
 
 Brigbote, 195 
 
 British trackways, 121 
 
 Britons, 10, 70; flight before 
 Saxons, 13 
 
 Brittones, 69 
 
 Broca, Professor, 60 
 
 Brocmael, Prince of Powys, i5 
 
 Bronze, 69, 80; arrow-heads, 80; 
 celts, 80; how handled, 83; im- 
 plements, 84 ; swords, 88 ; spear- 
 heads, 88 ; pins, 86 ; cauldrons, 
 89; methods of casting, 89; 
 articles of Roman period, 145 
 
 Brooches, Anglo-Saxon, 182 
 
 Bruce, Dr. Collingwood, 166 
 
 Brythoneg, 70 
 
 Brythonic, race, 10, 69; meaning of 
 word, 70 ; place-names, 216 
 
 Buckles, Anglo-Saxons, 182 
 
 Buckman, Professor, 158 
 
 Buhr, Anglo-Saxon, 173, 177, 217 
 
 Buhr-bote, 195 
 
 Bulb of percussion, 23 
 
 Bulleid, Mr. A., 76 
 
 Burial-places, Neolithic, 49; position 
 of dead in, 57; other objects 
 foundin,59; Bronze, in; Roman, 
 124, 164; Anglo-Saxon, 180 
 
 By or Byr (a cow-stadl), 219 
 
 CiESAR, Julius, 116 
 
 Camden, 120 
 
 Campbell's " West Highland Tales," 
 210 
 
 Camps of Bronze period, 93; Ro- 
 man, 94, 125, 126 
 
 Camulus, 113 
 
 Canoes in lake village, 177 
 
 Canute, King 125 
 
 Caratacos (Caractacus), 95 
 
 Carausius, 169 
 
 Carpentry of lake-villagers, 78 
 
 Carucate, 201, 202 
 
 Casting of bronze, methods of, 89 
 
 Castra (a camp) exploratoria, &c. 
 126 ; corruptions of word, 218 
 
 Cauldrons, bronze, 89 
 
 Cavahy barracks, Roman, 131 
 
 Cave-dwellers, 7; bodily remains of, 
 31 ; social life, 33 
 
 Ceawlin, King of the West Saxons, 
 16, 18, 173 
 
 Ceffyl (a horse), use of term, 209 
 
 Celtic worship of the oak, 104; 
 funeral customs, 112; religion, 113; 
 suffixes and prefixes, 173; blood 
 predominant in the West of Eng- 
 land, 212 ; generally throughout 
 England, 215 
 
 Celts, the people, 9 
 
 Cemeteries, Roman, 124, 164 ; 
 Anglo-Saxon, 180 
 
 Centwine, King, 172 
 
 Ceolric, 18, 213 
 
 Chambered barrow, 49 
 
 Charon, coin for, 164 
 
 Chatelaines, Anglo-Saxon, 182 
 
 Chieftainship of trite, 189 
 
 Children's games, 3 
 
 Chisels, bone, 47 
 
 Christ, monogram of, in Roman 
 villa, 162 
 
 Christening feasts, ceremonies at, 
 68 
 
 Christian churches in Roman cities, 
 129, 132 
 
 Churches, Christian, Roman, 129, 
 132 ; Anglo-Saxon, 184; Norman, 
 191 
 
 Cinders, trampling the, 63 
 
 Cinque Ports, the Warden of, 12 
 
 Circe (a church), 217 
 
 Circles, stone, 54, 96 
 
 Cities, Roman, 127 
 
 Civilisation, Roman, 168 ; Anglo- 
 Saxon, 186 
 
 Clarke, Mr. G. T., 174 
 
 Claudius, 10 
 
 Climate of England in Neolithic 
 period, 36 ; British, 71 ; Roman, 
 119 
 
 Clothing of Bronze period, 90; suit 
 found in Jutland, 91 
 
 " c;ioutie's croft," 201 
 
 Co-aration of the waste, 202 
 
 Coffins, Roman, 166 
 
 Cold-harbours, 15
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 233 
 
 Columba, St., 17, 62, 64 
 
 Combs, weaving, 48 
 
 Comes Litoris Saxonici, 12 
 
 Commonwealtli, the Secret, 44 
 
 Comus, 114 
 
 Conmael, King, 16 
 
 Coote, Mr., 170 
 
 Copper-mines, Roman, 163 
 
 Cores, flint, 23 
 
 Cormac, King of Cashel, 64 
 
 Cornish tongue, the ancient, ic, 70 
 
 Cotarii, 198 
 
 Crannogs, 71 ; Irish late use of, 72 ; 
 Scotch do., 73; St. Margaret's, 
 73; Wilde, Sir W., on, 73; Mr. 
 Wakeman on, 74 ; Dr. Nlunroon, 
 
 74 
 Cranz on Greenland burials, 58 
 Cremation, iii, 164, 180 
 Crofters, 205 
 Cruithneach, 10 
 Oyptoporticus, 155 
 Cultivation in open fields, 200 
 Curia, the, 143 
 
 Curmi (cnirm, cwrw = beer), 71 
 Customs, funeral, 112 
 Cwm (a coombe or valley), 217 
 
 Danes, the, 18 
 
 Danish infiuence'on English race, 212 
 
 Dawkins, Professor Boyd, 8, 13, 25, 
 "31. 36, 65, 113 
 
 Decumana porta, 127 
 
 Deities, tutelary, of Neolithic race, 
 61 
 
 Deneholes, 223 
 
 Destruction of ancient buildings, 135 
 
 Dinas (a hill-fortress), 217 
 
 Diodorus Siculus on British dwell- 
 ings, 71 
 
 Dion Cassiiis on Boudicca, 117 
 
 Distribution of land by lot, 203, 205 
 
 Disused bits of land, 201 
 
 Dobuni, 65 
 
 Dogs of Neolithic people, 66 
 
 Dolichocephaly (nariow-headed- 
 ness), 65, 116 
 
 Dolmen, 49 
 
 " Druidical altars," 49 
 
 Druidisni, 61, 62, 114 
 
 " Dug-out " boats, 36 
 
 Dun (a hill-fortress), 217 
 
 Durham, tlie Bishop of, his hunting 
 lodge, 190 
 
 Dykes, Anglo-Saxon, 178 
 
 Eagle, Roman legionary, 131 
 Kaldheim, St., 144 
 
 Earrings, 87 
 
 Easter dues, 197 
 
 Eborius, Bishop, 172 
 
 Ecgberht, King, 17 
 
 Elf-shots, 44 
 
 Elton, Mr. C. J., 3, 61, 128, 210 
 
 Enclosure Acts, 204 
 
 Erw (an acre), 202 
 
 Eskimo, relation to palreolithic 
 
 man, 31 
 Euskarians, 9 
 
 Evans, Mr. A., 54, 96, 102, 109 
 Evans, Sir John, 22, 23, 38, 57, 82, 
 
 85, 86, 89 
 
 Fairies, 184; and mounds, 56, 113 
 Fairy darts, 44; know, 113 
 Fannmael, King, 16 
 Fauna of England, pala-olitiiic, 19; 
 
 neolithic, 36; of Roman period, 
 
 120 
 Female rites, British, 115 
 Fibulas or brooches, 182 
 Figures of men and animals found 
 
 in caves, 28, 29 
 Finger-rings, 87 
 Flaking of flints by pressure, 24 
 Flint implements, rough, 20; 
 
 method of construction of, 22; 
 
 use in religious ceremonies, 46 ; 
 
 manufactories of, 46; saws, 66 
 Flue-tiles, 156, 160 
 Folk-lore in general, 5 ; of stone 
 
 weapons, 44 ; of the RoUnght 
 
 stones, loS ; of menhirion, in 
 Folk-moot, 198 
 Forests of Britain, 119 
 Forum, the Roman, 130, 141 
 Fosse, 92 
 
 Fimeral customs, Celtic, iic 
 " Furrow-long," the, 200 
 Fyrd, 195 
 
 Gauheuc race, 10; place-names, 
 
 210 
 Gaelic-speaking people, 10 
 (iafol, 197 
 
 (iames, children's, 3 
 Ganime, the, of the I,apps, 55 
 Gargantua, 114 
 Garson, Dr., 32, 33, 65 
 (jate of Roman city, 140 
 (Javelkind, 3 
 Geography of England, palreolithic,' 
 
 17 ; neolithic, 35 
 (iiants' Dance, the, 102 
 (iildas, 13 
 Giraldus Canibrensis, i02
 
 234 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Glacial period, 5 
 
 Godiva's ride, explanation of story, 
 
 115 ; tlie black Godiva, 116 
 Goemagog, 114 
 Gogmagog, 114 
 Goidels, 10, 69 
 Uomme, Mr. G. L., 3, 45, 63, in, 
 
 114, 139, 168, 191, 203, 205, 206 
 Gomme, Mrs., 4 
 Gould, Baring-, 192 
 Graves, Roman, 164 ; Anglo-Saxon, 
 
 179 
 Gray's Inn flint, 20 
 Green Gravel, song of, 4 
 Green, Mr. J. R., 13, 125, 131, 172, 
 
 173, 178, 192, 199 
 Green well. Canon, 47 
 Grey Wethers, 98 
 Grinding-stones for axes, 39 
 " Guidnian's Field," the, 200 
 Guest, Dr., 16 
 
 Haddon, Prof., 212 
 
 Hair, British method of viearing, 92 
 
 Halimote, 197 
 
 Hall, the, 192 
 
 Hall of Merchants, the, 143 
 
 Ham, the, 196 
 
 Hardy, Mr. Thomas, 217 
 
 Harpoons, bone, 28 
 
 Hearth-penny, 197 
 
 Hecatceus, 102 
 
 Hengist, 12 
 
 Henslow, Prof, 165 
 
 Hercules, the labours of, 64, 141 
 
 Herodotus, on the P<x>onians, 79 
 
 Hickes, Dr., 44 
 
 Hide of land, the, 201 
 
 Hoarstone, the, no 
 
 Hlaw, 179 
 
 Hope, Mr. St. John, 151 
 
 Horsa, 12 
 
 House, the primitive, 190, igi 
 
 Hughes, Prof. M'K., 178 
 
 Human sacrifices, 61 
 
 Hunting lodge of the Bishop of 
 
 Durliam, 190 
 Hut circles, 37 
 Hwiccas, 18 
 Huxley, Pi of., on Ethnology of 
 
 Britain, 208 
 Hyginus, 126 
 Hyperboreans, 102 
 Hypocaust, 134, 156 ; skeletons in, 
 
 134 
 
 Iarn, or iron language, 64 
 Iberians, 9, 65 
 
 Ida, King, 12, 215 
 Illuminations, Anglo-Saxon, 184 
 Imirean, 206 
 
 Implements of savage races, 7 
 Ine, King, 17, 173 
 Interments, Roman, 164 ; Anglo- 
 Saxon, 179 
 lomirean, 206 
 Irish Elk. the, 36 
 Iron works, Roman, 163 
 Itineraries of Antoninus, 123 
 Ivernians, 9, 64 
 
 Joyce, Mr., 141 
 Julius Cffsar, 10 
 Junior right, 3 
 jutes, 12 
 
 Jutic influence on British races, 
 215 
 
 Keeps, Norman rectangular, 176 ; 
 
 shell, 177 
 Kelly, Mr., 69 
 " Kenilworth," SirW. Scott's novel, 
 
 52 
 Khasis of Bengal, the, 106 
 Kill (a church), 217 
 Kin, the, 187 
 Kin-wrecked man, 188 
 King's men, the, 107 
 King's peace, the, 122 
 Kingstone, the, 108, no 
 Kirk (a church). 217 
 Kirk, the Rev. R., 44 
 Kirk-scot, 197 
 Kiss in the ring, 3 
 Knight's fee, a, 201 
 Kurumbas, the, 114 
 Kyndylan, King, 16, 21 
 Kyniug, 70 
 
 Labours of Hercules, 64 
 
 Labrum, 1^2 
 
 Lachrymatories, 166 
 
 Laen-land, 196 
 
 Lake-dwellings, 71 
 
 Lamps, stone, 47 ; Roman, 166 
 
 Lancet, surgical, 147 
 
 Land, distribution of by lot, 203, 
 
 205 
 Lang, Mr. A., 57 
 Lapp Gamme, the, 55 
 Lapps, the, 114 
 Laver, 152 
 Lead, pigs of, 163 
 Leaden objects in lake villages, 78 
 Legal methods as survivals, 2 
 Legions, Roman, 154
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 235 
 
 Light Toot, Mr., 69 
 Llan (a church i, 217 
 Long barrows, 49 
 Lord of tlie manor, 195 
 Lucan, 61, 117 
 Lynchets, 95 
 
 Mail, Anglo-Saxon coats of, 182 
 
 Manor-house, development of the, 
 192 
 
 Manorial court, 197 
 
 Manor, the lord of the, 195 
 
 Manor of Westminster, its con- 
 stituent parts, 203 
 
 Manors belonging to abbeys, 196 
 
 Mansiones, 124 
 
 Manufacture of flint implements, 
 22, 46 
 
 Manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon, 184 
 
 Mass, the, 151 
 
 Maximius T)rius, 104 
 
 McEnery, the Rev. J., 25 
 
 Mead, 71 
 
 Menhir (PI. Menihirion), no; folk- 
 lore of meni hi rion, III 
 
 Merchants, Hall of, 143 
 
 Merhn, 102 
 
 Metempsychosis, 62 ; relics of 
 beliefs in, 63 
 
 Metheglin, 71 
 
 Middleton, Prof, 160 
 
 Milestones, Roman, 124 
 
 Milliaria (milestones), 124 
 
 Milton's " Comus," 114 
 
 Mines, Roman, 163 
 
 Morgan, Mr., 158 
 
 Morlot, Mons., 40 
 
 " Mota," the, 174 
 
 Mounds, Anglo-Saxon, 174 
 
 Mun'ro, Dr. , 74 
 
 Neanderthai, skull, 31 
 
 Necklaces, 92 
 
 Neck rests, 92 
 
 Needle bone, 28 
 
 Neolithic race, 8 ; definition of 
 
 term, 19 ; bodily characteristics, 
 
 65; social life, 66 
 Newmarch, Mr., 158 
 Niljson, on Swedish interments, 
 
 58 
 Nodens, 113 
 
 " No man's land," 201 
 
 Norman use of I^axon mounds, 176 ; 
 
 keeps, 176, ■l'J^ 
 Norse influence on population, 212 
 NovercTP,- 126 
 Numerals, Welsh, 209 
 
 Oak, Celtic worship of, 104 
 
 Oeulisfs stamps, 147 
 
 Offa, King of Mercia, 17 
 
 Open-field culture, 200 
 
 Ornaments, personal, of cave- 
 dwellers, 34 ; neolithic, 69 ; 
 British, 92 
 
 Orpheus, 158 
 
 Ostorius Scapula, 135 
 
 Outcry over ihe abyss, 189 
 
 Ox, the wild, 36, 120 
 
 Oxenham family, tlie, 63 
 
 Ox-team, the full, 201 
 
 PALiT.OLiTiiiC race, 7,19 ; definition 
 
 of, 19 ; implements, 20 
 Parsonage at Little Henipston, the, 
 
 193 
 Patrick, St., his hymn, 62 
 F^avements, Roman tesselated, 136, 
 
 157, 163 
 Pen (a mountain), 216 
 Pengelly, Mr., 25, 26 
 Pen rant, 68 
 Pepys, Samuel, 44 
 Perforated axe-head5, 42 
 Physical characteristics of cave- 
 dwellers, 31 ; of neolithic race, 
 
 65 ; of Celts, 116 
 Pickaxes, horn, 47 
 Picts, 20 
 Pi lag, 156 
 Pile-dwellings, 78 
 Pins of bronze period, 86 
 Pit-dwellings, 37 
 Place-names, Brythonic, 216 ; 
 
 Goidelic, 216;' Anglo-Saxon, 
 
 217; Danish, 217, 2i8 ; Roman, 
 
 218 ; Norman, 219 
 Platycnemism (^flattening of the 
 
 shin bone), 32, 33 
 Pliny, on the ancient Britons, ii:; 
 Ploughing, Welsh laws as to, 202 
 Ploughman's complaint, the, 200 
 Plough-team, the village, 198 
 I'omujrium, the, 139 
 Pomjjonius Mela, 64 
 Population of districts of England, 
 
 their characteristics, 210-215 
 Posidonitis, 71 
 
 Posting stations, Roman, 124 
 Pottery, neolithic, 48, 67; of bronze 
 
 period, 90; Romnn, 141;; Sainian, 
 
 X46; Anglo-Saxon, 182 
 Pra-furnium, 150, 160 
 Pi.i'toria Porta, 127 
 Prtcari.i-, 197 
 Pre-Cellic races, 210
 
 2^6 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Preglacial implements, supposed, 6 
 
 Primogeniture, 3 
 
 Principalis Porta, 127 
 
 Prittania, 10 
 
 Prognathism (protrusion of the 
 
 jaws), 65 
 Property, tenures of, 2 
 Punimery, the, 139 
 Pytheas, the voyage of, 70 
 
 QUARENTENA, 200 
 
 Quatuor Cliimini, the, 122, 123 
 
 Rabelais, 114 
 
 Ram Feast, the, iii 
 
 Rectitudines, 195 
 
 Rehgion, the Cehic, 113 ; Anglo- 
 Saxon, 184 
 
 Removal of great stones, method of, 
 106 
 
 Restitutns, Bishop, 172 
 
 Rhyming-score, the, 209 
 
 Rhys, Prof., 10, 64, 69, 104 
 
 Rings, finger and ear, 87 
 
 River-drift men, 7 ; bodily remains, 
 
 24 
 Roads, Roman, how made, 122 
 
 Robin Hood, 120 
 
 Rogers, Prof. Thorold, 191 
 
 Roland, 109 
 
 Rollendrice, 109 
 
 Roman occupation, nature of, 11; 
 arrival, 10; departure, 11 ; roads, 
 122 ; stations, 124 ; camps, 125, 
 126 ; cities, 127 ; shops, 130, 134, 
 142, 145 ; eagle, 131 ; tombs, 137 ; 
 amphitheatres, 129, 136, 139, 140 ; 
 bronze articles of, 145 ; pottery, 
 145 ; baths, 148 ; temples, 150 ; 
 theatre, 152; walls, 151, 166; 
 legions, 154 ; sewers, 154 ; villas, 
 155; mines, 163; graves, 164; 
 civilisation, 168 
 
 Runic letters, 181 
 
 Sabrina, 114 
 
 Sacred tree, 178, 179 
 
 Sacrifices, human, 61 
 
 Samian pottery, 146 
 
 Sarsen stones, 98 
 
 Saws, flint, 66 
 
 Saxons, 12 ; buhrs, 173 ; suffixes 
 
 and prefixes, 173 
 Scrapers, flint, 22 
 Seax (short knife), 179, 181 
 "Secret Commonwealth," the, 144 
 Seebohm, Mr., 189, 196, 204, 206 
 Segontian Hercules, 141 
 
 Sepulchral monuments and Stone- 
 
 henge, 103 
 Servns or slave, 198, 199 
 Sewers, Roman, 154 
 Sliakespeare's Celtic blood, 213 
 Shell-keep, Norman, 177 
 Shield, Anglo-Saxon, 179, 181 
 Shops, Roman, 130, 134, 142, 145 
 Silentiary, the, 190 
 Silius Italicus, 117 
 Silures, 65 
 
 Siluria, the ancient region of, 210 
 Skene, Mr., 16 
 Skull, the Neanderthal, 31 
 Smith, Captain John, 24 
 Social life of cave-dwellers, 33', 
 
 neolithic, 66 ; liritish, 117 
 Sodor and Man, the Bishop of, 211 
 Spear, Anglo-Saxon, 181 
 Spear-heads, bronze, 85 
 Spha?risterium, 148 
 Spindle-whorls, 48 
 Stations, Roman, 124 
 Statuettes, terra-cotta, 147 
 Statius, 128 
 Stevens, Mr., no 
 
 Stone-circles, 54, 96; in Arabia, 55 
 Stone-worship, 56 
 Stones, great, method of removal, 
 
 106 
 Stonesfield slates, 156 
 Strabo, 61, 116 
 Stukeley, 106, 107, 113, 133 
 Sul, 148 
 
 Sul-Minerva, 148, 150 
 Suspensura, 156 
 
 Swarthy races in Great Britain, 211 
 Swords, bronze, 85 ; Anglo-Saxon, 
 
 179, 181 
 Syenite stones at Stonehenge, 100 
 Synod of Aries, 172 
 
 Tacitus, 65 
 
 Taranis, 113 
 
 Taylor, Canon, 216, 2x7, 218 
 
 Temples, Roman, 150 
 
 Tesselated pavements, Roman, 136, 
 
 157. 163 
 Teutates, 113 
 Thadioc, Bishop, 172 
 Theatre, Roman, 150 
 Theon, Bishop, 172 
 Theow (a thrall or slave), 197 
 Thor, 184 
 Thor's hammer, 43 
 Thothotpu, statue of, its removal, 
 
 106 
 Throwing-stones, 42
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 ''j7 
 
 Thunder-bolt, 43 
 
 ThurnHm, Dr., 54, 58, 116 
 
 Thurncysen, Dr., 12 
 
 Tingle-stone, no 
 
 Tin-mines, Roman, 164 
 
 Tomb-stones, Roman, 137 
 
 Ton, the, 177, 217 ; as a suffix, 
 
 173 
 Torques, 87 ; Gaulish, 88 ; name of 
 
 Torquati, 88 
 Toys, Roman, 145 
 Trackways, British, 121 
 Trampling the cinders, 68 
 Transmigration of souls, 61 
 Tree, Sacred, 178, 198 
 Trepanned skulls, 59 
 Triads, the Welsh, 189 
 Tribal communities, 187 
 Tribe, the, 187; entrance of strangers 
 
 into, 187 ; relation of strangers to, 
 
 189; chieftainship of, 189 
 Tribunal, the, 127 
 'I'rinoda necessitas, 195 
 Tumuli, Roman , 165 
 Tun, the (or ton), 177 
 Twelve Tables, the laws of the, 164 
 Tylor, Dr., 114 
 
 UiSGE (water), 216 
 Urus (wild ox), 36, 120 
 
 Valerius Maximus, 61 
 
 Vallum, 92 
 
 Veil, the Bridal, 4 
 
 Villa, the Roman, 155 
 
 Village, Anglo-Saxon, 177; forma- 
 
 tion of, 196 ; lands around, 197, 
 200 ; plough-team, 198 ; otVicials, 
 198 ; council, 198 
 
 Village community of Heisgeier, 205 
 
 Villeins, 197 ; duties, 197 ; disabili- 
 ties, 198 
 
 Virgate, 201, 202 
 
 Vitruvius, 117, 143 
 
 Wager of battle, 188 
 
 Wakeman, Mr., 74 
 
 Walhouse, Mr., 114 
 
 Wall, of a Roman city, 129, 132 ; 
 
 the Roman, 154, 166 
 War-board, the, 181 
 W^arden of the Cinque Ports, 12 
 VV'arrior's stone, 42 
 Waste, co-aration of the, 203 
 Water-pipes, Roman, 160 
 Watling Street (the Milky Way), 17 
 Wealhas (strangers), 17 
 Weaving, 48, 67 
 Week-work, 197 
 Weights for weaving, 48 
 Welsh numerals, 209 
 Whispering Knights, the, 107 
 Wilde, Sir William, 73 
 William the Conqueror, 125 
 Window-glass, Roman, T55 
 Woad, staining bodies with, 116 
 Woden, 182, 184 
 Wolves, 36, 120 
 Worship, of oak, Celtic, 104 ; of 
 
 stones, 56 
 
 YARDLANDS, 201
 
 INDEX OF NAMES OF PLACES 
 
 {Obsolete names are printed in italics) 
 
 Abbeville, 20 
 
 Aberffraw, 190 
 
 Abingdon, 221 
 
 Ablington, no 
 
 Abury, 104 
 
 Acling Street, 122 
 
 Addingtoi), 224 
 
 A^.scanduiie [see Ashdown) 
 
 Akeman Street, 135 
 
 Alauna ^see Alcester) 
 
 Alcester, 123, 164, 218 
 
 Aldborough, 227 
 
 Aldington, 224 
 
 Aldus M'Galdus, tomb of, 42 
 
 Alniondbury, 227 
 
 Alnwick Castle, 225 
 
 Alstonefield, 226 
 
 Al Walton, 224 
 
 Ambleside, 226 
 
 Ambrey, Croft, 93 
 
 Amiens, 20 
 
 Anderida, Forest of , 120, 164 
 
 Aiidrcdsiveald, the, 120, 164 
 
 Angeln, 13 
 
 Anglesey, 227 
 
 Aqua Sulis [see Bath) 
 
 Arranmore, 212 
 
 Arbor Low, 222 
 
 Archeafield, 214 
 
 Arden, Forest of, iig, 171, 213 
 
 Arthur's Cave, King, 223 
 
 Hall, King, 164 
 
 Quoit, King, 227 
 
 Round Table, King, 140 
 
 Seat, King, 223 
 Ashbourne, 226 
 Ashby Scar, 219, 226 
 Ashdown [yEscandunc], 121 
 Ashendon, 182 
 Atcham, 15, 132 
 Aubury Camp, 224 
 
 Avebury, 104, 113, 226 
 Avening, 58 
 AvisfonI, 165 
 Avon, River, 216 
 Aylesford, 50, 224 
 
 Badbury Rings [Mons Badonicus), 
 
 15, 223 
 Badonicus, Mons (see Badbury) 
 Bakewell, 223 
 Ballaglass, 227 
 Balsham Ditch, 222 
 Barbury, 226 
 £arle River, 96 
 Bartlow Hills, 165, 223 
 Barra, 210 
 Barton Mere, 226 
 BarvaF, 212 
 
 Baschurch [Bassa's Churches), 16 
 Baslow, 222 
 
 Bassa's Churches (see Baschukch) 
 Bath (Aqure Sulis), 124, 147, 148, 
 
 150. 225 
 Battlebury, 226 
 Beacon Hill, 223 
 Beaudesert, 219 
 Beaulieu, 219 
 Beaumont, 219 
 Beckhampton, 105 
 Belfield, 225 
 Belford, 225 
 Bellas Knap, 223 
 Bellerden, 224 
 Benjerlaw, Mount, 217 
 Ben Rhydding, 216 
 Berkhampstead, 174 
 Bevere, 121 
 Beverley, 121 
 Bignor, 226 
 Birmingham, 119, 178 
 Bishop's Castle, 163
 
 INDEX OF NAMES OF PLACES 
 
 239 
 
 Blois Hall, 227 
 Blowing-stone, 221 
 Bodbury Ring, 225 
 Bodnor, 227 
 
 Borcovicus (see HouSESTEADs) 
 Boreham, 226 
 Boroughbridge, 227 
 Borough Hill, 225 
 Boscawen, 222 
 Boskednan Circle, 222 
 Bowness, 166 
 Boyne, River, 114 
 Bradford-on-Avon, 184, 226 
 Blading, 223 
 Bramber, 175 
 Brandon, 46, 224, 226 
 Bratiodunum {sec Leintvvardine) 
 Bravinhun [see LeiNTWARDINE) 
 Bredon Hill, 223 
 Brent Ditch, 222 
 Brent Knoll, 225 
 Bridgeness, 153 
 Bridlington, 227 
 Bridport, 121 
 Brixhani, 222 
 Br)Ti Celliden, 227 
 yr-Ellyllon, 121 
 Broadway, 121 
 Buckland Rings, 223 
 Buckle Street, 121 
 Buckland Camp, 223 
 Bulbarrow, 223. 
 Burgh Castle, 224 
 
 "^Hill, 225 
 Burn Moor, 222 
 Burrington, 225 
 Bury Ditches, 225 
 Bury St. Edmunds, 226 
 Buxton, 222 
 Bwedd Arthur, 227 
 
 Cadbury Banks, 226 
 
 Camp, 225 
 Caer Caradcc, 95, 219, 225 
 
 Gybi, 227 
 Caerleon-on-Usk [Isca Silmum), 
 
 124, 129, 140, 150, 154, 174, 218, 
 
 219, 224 
 Caernarvon, 219 
 Caisar's Canjp, 226 
 Cainhoe Castle, 221 
 Caistor, 15, 218, 224 
 Cakaria [see Tadcaster) 
 Callcva Allrebatum {see SiL- 
 
 chestek) 
 Camborilum, 15, 129 
 Cambridge, 222 
 Camulodiinum {see Colchester) 
 
 Canterbury, 224 
 Cardiff, 175 
 Cardigan Hay, 35 
 Cardinal's Cap, 226 
 Carisbrooke, 223 
 Carnac. no 
 Cartmel, 224 
 Castel-an-Dinas, 222 
 Castle Acre, 224 
 
 Carrock, 222 
 
 Dykes, 224 
 
 Eden, 223 
 
 Neroche, 225 
 
 Rigg, 222 
 Cas Tor, 222 
 Castor, 146, 218, 225 
 Caterham, 226 
 Cauldron, 226 
 Cefn, 37, 227 
 Cerne Abbas, 223 
 Chalbury Hill, 95 
 Charlton Abbots, 57 
 Charnwood Forest, 120, 224 
 Chart, 224 
 
 Charterhouse-on-Mendip, 225 
 Cheddar, 225 
 Chedworih, 161, 172, 223 
 Cheltenham, 161 
 Chepstow, 227 
 Cheshunt Camp, 224 
 Chessel Down 223 
 Chester {Dez'a}, 16, 120, 129, 150, 
 
 154. 222 
 Chester Hill, 225 
 Chester-le-Street, 218 
 Chesterton, 218, 222, 224 
 Ciiichester {A'e^mtm), 150 
 Chisenbury, 226 
 Cholcsbury, 222 
 Christchurch, 223 
 Chun. 51, 222 
 Church Hole, 222 
 
 Strttton, 95, 121 
 Cinderford, 164 
 Cirencester (Corinium), 124, 135, 
 
 140, 157, 158, 223 
 Cissbury, 226 
 Clatford Bottom, 226 
 Clee Hill, 225 
 Clcvedon, 225 
 Clichy, 25 
 Clun, no, 214, 225 
 Clyde, Firih of, 168 
 , (lynnog, 227 
 Colcliesier {Camulodimum), 121, 
 
 129, 150, 217, 2i3, 223 
 Cold rum, 224 
 Comar, Ike b'ord of, 42
 
 240 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES OF PLACES 
 
 Congresbury, 202 
 
 Corinium [see CIRENCESTER) 
 
 Cornwall, 164 
 
 Corra, 227 
 
 Cotswold Hills, the, 135, 161, 214, 
 
 223 
 Coventry, 115 
 Cowlon, 222 
 Craven, 227 
 
 Arms, 225 
 Cresswell Crags, 222 
 Crick-stone, the, 222 
 Croft Anibrey, 93, 223 
 Cronk Airey, 227 
 Crosby Ravenhurst, 226 
 Cwnis, the, 121, 217 
 
 D^.GSTONE [see Dawstone) 
 
 Dalton, 224 
 
 Dalrlada, 16 
 
 Danby Moor, 227 
 
 Dane's Camp, 225 
 
 Darent, 224 
 
 Dartmoor, 95, in, 195, 222 
 
 Dawns Maen, 222 
 
 Dawstone {Daegstune), 17 
 
 Dean, Forest of, 120, 163, 214 
 
 Moor, 222 
 Dee, River, 120 
 Deerhurst, 223 
 Denton, 222 
 Deorhatn (Dyrham), 16 
 Derby, 219 
 Deva [see Chester) 
 Devil's Arrows, 227 
 
 Den, 226 
 
 Dyke, 222 
 
 Quoits, 225 
 Devizes, 175, 226 
 Dimetia, 190 
 Dinton, 222 
 Dolebm'y, 225 
 Dolemoors, the, 203 
 Doncaster, 218 
 Dorchester (Duritovaria), 94, 121, 
 
 128, 139, 223 
 Dorstone, 223 
 Dover, 224 
 
 Doward's Hill, Great, 164 
 Drewsteignton, 222 
 Duiiium, 94, 217 
 Dunmow, 216 
 Dunstable, 123, 221 
 Dunster, 94, 175, 225 
 Duntesbourne Abbots, no 
 Durham, 175, 223 
 Diirnovaria (see DORCHESTER) 
 DurobrivcB [see Castor) 
 
 Duruthy, Cave of, 29 
 Dyvnaint, 17 
 
 Earith, 224 
 Easington, 225 
 East Kennett, 105 
 Eastlow Hills, 226 
 Eboracum (see YoRic) 
 Eddisbury, 222 
 Edington (Efkaiidiin), 18 
 Egbury Castle, 223 
 Eggardon, 223 
 Egremont Castle, 222 
 Egton Grange, 227 
 Eguisheim, 25 
 EUesborough, 222 
 Elmet, Forest of, 171 
 
 Ely, 175 
 
 Engleland, 13 
 
 Enstone, 225 
 
 Ermine Street, the, 123, 135 
 
 Esk, River, 216 
 
 Ethandun (see Edington) 
 
 Etocefutn (see Wall) 
 
 Exe, River, 216 
 
 Exeter, 173, 218 
 
 Exnioor, 95 
 
 Faddiley (Fethanlcah), 16 
 Fairford, 223 
 Farnham, 223 
 Farthington, 225 
 Fenny Stratford, 123 
 Fcthanleah (see Faddiley) 
 Fisherton, 37, 226 
 Forth, Firth of, 168 
 Fosse Way, the, 123, 135 
 Frankwell, 173 
 Fulford, 222 
 
 Gatacrk Hall, 191 
 
 Gavr Inis, 54 
 
 Gidleigh, 222 
 
 Glastonbury, 77, 225, 226 
 
 Glen Darragh, 227 
 
 Gkvum (see Gloucester) 
 
 Gloucester (Gleviim), 122, 128, 129, 
 
 218 
 Godmanchester, 218 
 Godwin's Castle, 223 
 Gogmagog Hills, the, 114 
 Gothland, 227 
 Gower, 227 
 Gracedieu, 219 
 Graham's Dyke, 168 
 Grange-over-Sand;, 224 
 Grantchester, 218 
 Grateley, 223
 
 INDEX OF NAMES OF PLACES 
 
 241 
 
 Gray's Inn, London, 20 
 Great Chesterton, 2.25 
 Great Doward Hill, 164. 
 Green Road, the, 122 
 Grey Wethers, the, 222 
 Grimes' Graves, 46, 226 
 Grimsby, 219 
 Grimsby Castle, Z2i 
 Grimsdyke, the, 224 
 Grimspound, 222 
 G'cvent, 190 
 
 Hamdon Camp, 225 
 Harborough Banks, 226 
 Harbynrigg, 226 
 Hardingstone, 225 
 Harwood Dale, 227 
 Haydon Ditch, 222 
 Headingham, 175 
 Heathery Burn, 223 
 Hebrides, the, 63, 205, 212 
 Heisgeier, 205 
 Hempston, Little, 193 
 Henbury Castle, 222 
 HSn Dinas, 95 
 Hengistbury, 223 
 Hereford, 124, 224 
 Herefordshire Beacon, 95, 223 
 Hexham, 225 
 High Cross, 123, 124 
 High Down, 226 
 High Tor, 224 
 Hoarstone, the. 225 
 Hob Hurst's Hut, 22 
 Hod Hill, 223 
 Holdgate, 139 
 Holgate, 176 
 Holne, III 
 
 Housesteads (Borcovicus), 167 
 Hoyle, 227 
 Huddersfield, 227 
 Huntingdon, 124 
 Hunsborough, 225 
 Hurlers, the, 222 
 
 ICKLINGHAM, 122, 182 
 
 Icknield Street, the, 122 
 11am, 226 
 Ingarsby, 182, 224 
 Ingleborough, 227 
 Irchester, 225 
 
 Jsca Silurum {see Caerleon) 
 Isle of Man, 56, 212, 227 
 Isle of Wight, 223 
 
 JERVAULX, 219 
 
 Jewry Wall, the, 132 
 
 Kelsborough, 222 
 Kemerton Camp, 223 
 Kempsey, 227 
 Kenches'ter (A/a^nn), 124 
 Kendal Castle, 222. 226 
 Kennett, East, 105 
 
 West, 54, 58, 105, 226 
 Kent's Hole Cave, 25, 222 
 Kesserloch, 29 
 Keswick, 222 
 Kilkenny, 217 
 Killing Pits, 227 
 Kilsmore Bank, 224 
 King Barrow, 226 
 Kingsclere, 223 
 Kingsdown, 224 
 King's Scar Cave, 13 
 Kirby, 217 
 Kirkdale, 227 
 Kirkhead, 224 
 Kirk Oswald, 217 
 Kit's Coty Houss, 50, 224 
 Knave's Castle, 226 
 Knighton, 225 
 Knock Maraidhe, 58 
 Knook Castle, 226 
 
 Lactodorwn {see TowCESTER) 
 
 Ladle Hill, 223 
 
 La Madelaine, Cave cf, 28, 33 
 
 Lancaster, 218 
 
 Lanchester, 218, 223 
 
 Laugerie Basse, 29, 33 
 
 Lanyon, 51 ; quoit, 222 
 
 Launceston, 175 
 
 Leamington, 178 
 
 Ledbury, 223 
 
 Leeds, 171, 227 
 
 Leicester {RatceV 124, 132, 224 
 
 Leintwardine {Branodiinum or 
 
 Bravinium), 124, 224 
 Lewes, 175 
 Lewis, 211 
 Lichfield, 226 
 Lilleshall, 132 
 Lincoln (Lindu7n Co/onia), 124, 129, 
 
 140, 175. 224 
 Lindum Coloiiia {sec Lincoln) 
 Liskeard, 222 
 Little Hempston, 193 
 Litthngton, 164, 224 
 Llanymynech, 163, 224 
 Lledr, Afon, 216 
 Llugwy, Afon, 216 
 Llyffni, 227 
 Llyn Ogwen, 121 
 Lochmari.-.quer, 48 
 Logan Stone, 222
 
 242 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES OF PLACES 
 
 Londiniiim (^f^ London) 
 
 London [Londinium), 129 224 
 
 Long Compton, 108 
 
 Long Hole, 227 
 
 Longmynd, the, 123 
 
 Loose, 224 
 
 Lordingshaws, 225 
 
 Lowick, 224 
 
 Ludbrook, 227 
 
 Ludlow, 93, 179 
 
 Lugbury, 226 
 
 Lydney, 121 
 
 Lymington, 222 
 
 Lymne, 224 
 
 Machynlleth, 163 
 
 Maesbury, 225 
 
 Mitchell's Fold, 225 
 
 Magna [see Kenchestek) 
 
 Maiden Bower, 221 
 
 Maiden Castle (Dors.), 94. 223; 
 
 (Westm, ), 226 
 Malpas, 219 
 Malvern, 95, 223 
 Mancetter (Manduesedutn), 226 
 Marlborough, 226 ; Down, 99 
 Martin's Pomeroy, St.,,;, London, 
 
 139 
 Marshpool, 225 
 Masbury, 225 
 Masqat, Cave of La, 29 
 Maughold, 227 
 Maumbury, 139 
 Me are, 225, 226 
 Melandra Castle, 222 
 Mendip Hills, the, 163, 172 
 Merivale, 222 
 Mildenhall, 226 
 Minehead, 35 
 Moel-y-Gaer, 227 
 Mold, 121 
 Montacute, 175 
 Mortimer Fielding, 129 
 Mount, the, 226 
 Mount Murray, 227 
 Mouslow Castle, 222 
 
 Nant Cribba, 175 
 Nant Francon, 121 
 Neanderihal, 31 
 Nes=;, 211 
 Nether Swell, 223 
 Newark, 124 
 Newbury, 221 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne, 225 
 Newgrange, Co. Meath, 53 
 Newton Abbot, 27 
 Nidderdale, 63 
 
 Nine Ladies' circle, 222 
 
 Maidens, 222 
 Nordy Bank, 225 
 Northampton, 225 
 North Legh, 225 
 Norton Camp, 225 
 Norwich, 175, 224 
 
 Offa's dyke, 17, 178, 224 
 Old Oswestry, 95 
 Oldbury, 226 
 Old Rothbury, 225 
 
 Sarum, 94, 125, 176, 226 
 "Old Works," the, 132 
 Orwell, 222 
 Oswestry, 94 ; old, 95 
 Ouse, River, 216 
 Overton, 105 
 Ozingell, 170, 224 
 
 Painswick, 223 
 
 Paviland, 227 
 
 Pendarves Quoit, 222 
 
 Pengwyrn [see Shrewsbury) 
 
 Penlan, 227 
 
 Penmaenmawr, 227 
 
 Pentre Ifan, 227 
 
 Penrith, 222 
 
 Perigord, 33 
 
 Perthi Chwareu, 227 
 
 Pitney, 163 
 
 Plas Newydd, 51, 227 
 
 Ploy Field, the, iii 
 
 Pontefract, 175 
 
 Porchester [Partus Majtgus), 223 
 
 Porthamel, 227 
 
 Portbridge, 222 
 
 Portway, the, 123 
 
 Poundbury, 128 
 
 Prestonbury Castle, 222 
 
 Puxton, 202 
 
 Quarley Hill, 223 
 Queensborough, 224 
 
 " Rat-e" [see Leicester) 
 
 Ravenstonedale, 226 
 
 Rawlsbury, 223 
 
 Rea, River, 120 
 
 Reading, 129, 222, 223 
 
 Reculver [Regulbiwn], 21 
 
 Redbourn, 224 
 
 Regnum [see Chichester) 
 
 Restormel, 175 
 
 Richborough [Rittupia:), 129, 147, 
 
 224 
 Ridgeway, the, 123 
 Rievaulx, 219
 
 INDEX OF NAMES OF PLACES 
 
 243 
 
 Risinghoe Castle, 221 
 Robin Hood's cave, 29, 222 
 Rochester. 218 
 Rollright, 107, 225, 226 
 Roman codde, 224 
 Rougham, 165, 226 
 Roundway Castle, 226 
 Royston, 164, 224 
 Rudstone, the, 227 
 Rush more, 38 
 
 Kutupia [see Richborough) 
 Ryknield Street, the, 120 
 Rylstone, 90 
 
 Saffron Walden, 223 
 
 St. Albans [Verulamium), 123, 152, 
 
 171, 224 
 Catherine's Hill, 223 
 David's, 227 
 Salisbury, 226 
 Sandy, 221 
 Sarum, Old (Sorbiodumim), 94, 125, 
 
 176, 226 
 Scalehouse Barrow, 90 
 Scarborough, 227 
 Scratchbury, 226 
 Scor Hill Down, 222 
 Scrobbeshyrig (see SHREWSBURY) 
 Seaton, 124 
 Senlac, 80 
 Settle, 226 
 Shap, 226 
 Sherborne, 175 
 Sherringham, 224 
 Sherwood Forest, 120, 1^25 
 Shetland, Islands, 2n 
 Shirley, 226 
 Shrewsbury (Celt. Pengwyrn ; Sax. 
 
 Scrobbeshyrig), 17, 134, 173, 225 
 Sidbury Castle, 222 
 Sidmouth, 222 
 Silbury Hill, 105, 107, 226 
 Silchester [Calleva Attrebatum), 
 
 129, 140, 141, 148, 150, 152, 171, 
 
 222, 223 
 Sittingbourne, 182 
 Sleaford, 180 
 Snead, 163, 225 
 Sneefell, 212 
 Snowdonia, 120 
 
 Sorbiodunum (see Old Sarum) • 
 Southam, 115 
 Speen, 218 
 Spey, 32 
 
 Spindleston Camp, 225 
 Spinster's Rock, 222 
 Spoonley, 223 
 Stainmore, 226 
 
 Stalybridge, 222 
 Standlow, 222 
 Stanlake, 221 
 Stanton Drew, 225 
 
 Harcourt, 225 
 
 Moor, 222 
 Stapeley Hill, 225 
 Stonehenge, 96, 112, 226 
 Stony Littleton, 226 
 
 Stratford, 123 
 Stourton, 226 
 Stowe Heath, 182 
 Slow-on-the-Wold, 121 
 Stratford, 124 
 Strathclyde, 16 
 Stretford, 124 
 Stretton, 124 
 Sudreyjar, 212 
 Symond's yat, 223 
 
 TadCASTER (Calcaria), 125, 227 
 
 Tarraby, 150 
 
 Tarr Steps, 95, 225 
 
 Taunton, 17, 226 
 
 Thesfield, 224 
 
 Thetford, 224 
 
 Thornborough, 227 
 
 Thornbury, 227 
 
 Tickhill, 175 
 
 Tittensor, 226 
 
 Titternhoe Castle, 221 
 
 Torquay, 27, 222 
 
 Totnes, 193 
 
 Tovvcester, 123, 225 
 
 Treryn dinas, 222 
 
 Trevetliy quoit, 222 
 
 Tripoli, 103 
 
 Turnworth, 223 
 
 Tutbury, 175 
 
 Uffington Castle, 221 
 Uley Barrow, 52, 58, 223 
 Upchurch, 145 
 Uriconium (see Wroxeter) 
 Usk, River, 216 
 
 Verulamium (see St. Albans) 
 Victoria Cave, 227 
 
 Wales, North, 16, 17 
 
 West, 16, 17 
 Wall (Elocetum), 121, 123 
 Wall hills (Heref.), 223, (Wore.) 
 
 227 
 Wallingford, 17 
 Wall's End, 166 
 W'anborough, 18, 213 
 Wansdyke, the, 184
 
 244 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES OF PLACES 
 
 Wareham, 128, 223 
 
 Watchet, 172 
 
 Watling Street, the, 123 
 
 Weald, the, 164 
 
 Wednesbury, 184 
 
 Week St. Laurence, 203 
 
 WeUington (Som. ), 172 
 
 Wallow, 225 
 
 WestKennett, 54, 5S, 105 
 
 Westminster, 203 
 
 Wetton, 226 
 
 Weyland Smith's forge, 52, 122, 
 
 221 
 Weymouth, 95, 121, 223 
 Whitby, 219 
 Whitbeck, 222 
 White Horse, 52, 221 
 
 Vale of, 18, 121 
 Wilbraham, 222 
 Wimbledon, 226 
 Winchcombe, 223 
 Winchester, 218, 223 
 Windsor, 175 
 
 Winsford, 96, 225 
 Wirral peninsula, the, 219 
 Wixford, 123 
 Woodbury, 227 
 Woodchester, 223 
 Woodcuts Common, 38 
 Wood End, 120 
 Wooton Wawen, 120 
 Worcester, 128, 218, 227 
 Worlebury, 225 
 Worthing, 226 
 Wrekin, 131 
 Wretham, 224 
 Wroxeter ( Uricojiium 
 
 138, 218, 225 
 Wye, River, 163, 164 
 Wyre, Forest of, 120 
 
 Yarnbury, 95, 226 
 
 Yarrow, 217 
 
 York {Ehoracuin\ 125, 129, 154, 227 
 
 Zennor Quoit, 222 
 
 15, 124, 131, 
 
 
 
 f^.(.^^^^ 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &= Co. 
 London &* Edinburgh
 
 
 ; Id 
 
 
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