I must not wander too far from what is immediately my point,

THE COMMUNE OF LONDON

THE

COMMUNE OF LONDON

AND OTHER STUDIES

BY J. H. ROUND M.A.

AUTHOR OF ‘GEOFFREY DE MANDEVILLE’,

‘FEUDAL ENGLAND,’ ETC.

With a Prefatory Letter by Sir Walter Besant

WESTMINSTER

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO.

2 WHITEHALL GARDENS

1899

BUTLER & TANNER,

THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,

FROME, AND LONDON.

Prefatory Letter

Dear Mr. Round,

I have to thank you for kindly letting me see the advance proofs

of your new book. It is difficult for me to explain the very great

advantage which the study of your books has been to me in my endeavour

to get at the facts, especially those of the 12th century, connected

with the history of London. For instance, I have found in your pages

for the first time a working theory of the very difficult questions

connected with the creation of the municipality. I have adopted your

conclusions to the best of my ability with, I hope, an adequate

expression of thanks to the source from which they are derived.

I would also point out the great service which you have rendered to

the history of the City by giving, for the first time, the exact truth

regarding the conveyance of the Portsoken to the Priory of the Holy

Trinity, an event which has been hitherto totally misunderstood.

Thirdly, I must acknowledge that it is only from your pages, especially

a certain appendix to ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville,’ that one can understand

the ordinary position of the clergy of the City of London in the 12th

century.

It is unnecessary for me to enumerate many other obligations which I

owe to your pages.

I remain, dear Mr. Round,

Very faithfully yours,

WALTER BESANT.

OFFICE OF THE SURVEY OF LONDON,

_July 6th, 1899_.

Contents

I

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SOUTH-SAXONS AND EAST-SAXONS 1

II

INGELRIC THE PRIEST AND ALBERT OF LOTHARINGIA 28

III

ANGLO-NORMAN WARFARE 39

IV

THE ORIGIN OF THE EXCHEQUER 62

V

LONDON UNDER STEPHEN 97

VI

THE INQUEST OF SHERIFFS (1170) 125

VII

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 137

VIII

THE POPE AND THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 171

IX

THE CORONATION OF RICHARD I 201

X

THE STRUGGLE OF JOHN AND LONGCHAMP (1191) 207

XI

THE COMMUNE OF LONDON 219

XII

THE GREAT INQUEST OF SERVICE (1212) 261

XIII

CASTLE-WARD AND CORNAGE 278

XIV

BANNOCKBURN 289

XV

THE MARSHALSHIP OF ENGLAND 302

Preface

The paper which gives its title to this volume of unpublished studies

deals with a subject of great interest, the origin of the City

Corporation. In my previous work, ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ (1892), and

especially in the Appendix it contains on ‘The early administration

of London,’ I endeavoured to advance our knowledge of the government

and the liberties of the City in the 12th century. In the present

volume the paper entitled “London under Stephen” pursues the enquiry

further. I have there argued that the “English Cnihtengild” was not the

governing body, and have shown that it did not, as is alleged, embrace

a religious life by entering Holy Trinity Priory _en masse_. The

great office of “Justiciar of London,” created, as I previously held,

by the charter of Henry I., is now proved, in this paper, to have been

held by successive citizens in the days of Stephen.

The communal movement, which, even under Stephen, seems to have

influenced the City, attained its triumph under Richard I.; and

the most important discovery, perhaps, in these pages is that of

the oath sworn to the Commune of London. From it we learn that the

governing body consisted at the time of a Mayor and “Échevins,” as in

a continental city, and that the older officers, the Aldermen of the

Wards, had not been amalgamated, as has been supposed, with the new and

foreign system. The latter, I have urged, is now represented by the

Mayor and Common Council. That this communal organization was almost

certainly derived from Normandy, and probably from Rouen, will, I

think, be generally admitted in the light of the evidence here adduced.

This conclusion has led me to discuss the date of the “Établissements

de Rouen,” a problem that has received much attention from that eminent

scholar, M. Giry. I have also dwelt on the financial side of London’s

communal revolution, and shown that it involved the sharp reduction of

the ‘firma’ paid by the City to the Crown, the amount of which was a

grievance with the citizens and a standing subject of dispute.

The strand connecting the other studies contained in this volume is

the critical treatment of historical evidence, especially of records

and kindred documents. It is possible that some of the discoveries

resulting from this treatment may not only illustrate the importance

of absolute exactitude in statement, but may also encourage that

searching and independent study of ‘sources’ which affords so valuable

an historical training, and is at times the means of obtaining light on

hitherto perplexing problems.

The opening paper (originally read before the Society of Antiquaries)

is a plea for the more scientific study of the great field for

exploration presented by our English place-names. Certain current

beliefs on the settlement of the English invaders are based, it is

here urged, on nothing but the rash conclusions of Kemble, writing,

as he did, under the influence of a now abandoned theory. In the

paper which follows, the value of charters, for the Norman period, is

illustrated, some points of ‘diplomatic’ investigated, and the danger

of inexactitude revealed.

Finance, the key to much of our early institutional history, is dealt

with in a paper on “The origin of the Exchequer,” a problem of long

standing. On the one hand, allowance is here made for the personal

equation of the author of the famous ‘Dialogus de Scaccario,’ and some

of his statements critically examined, with the result of showing that

he exaggerates the changes introduced under Henry I., by the founder

of his own house, and that certain alleged innovations were, in truth,

older than the Conquest. On the other, it is shown that his treatise

does, when carefully studied, reveal the existence of a Treasury audit,

which has hitherto escaped notice. Further, the office of Chamberlain

of the Exchequer is traced back as a feudal serjeanty to the days of

the Conqueror himself, and its connection with the tenure of Porchester

Castle established, probably, for the first time. The geographical

position of Porchester should, in this connection, be observed.

In two papers I deal with Ireland and its Anglo-Norman conquest. The

principal object in the first of these is to show the true character of

that alleged golden age which the coming of the invaders destroyed. It

is possible, however, of course, that a “vast human shambles” may be,

in the eyes of some, an ideal condition for a country. Mr. Dillon, at

least, has consistently described the Soudan, before our conquest, as

“a comparatively peaceful country.”[1] In the second of these papers I

advance a new solution of the problem raised by the alleged grant of

Ireland, by the Pope, to Henry II. As to this fiercely contested point,

I suggest that, on the English side, there was a conspiracy to base the

title of our kings to Ireland on a Papal donation of the sovereignty

of the island, itself avowedly based on the (forged) “donation of

Constantine.” No such act of the Popes can, in my opinion, be proved.

Even the “Bull Laudabiliter,” which, in the form we have it, is of

no authority, does not go so far as this, while its confirmation by

Alexander III. is nothing but a clumsy forgery. The only document sent

to Ireland, to support his rights, by Henry II. was, I here contend,

the letter of Alexander III. (20th September, 1172), approving of what

had been done. That he sent there the alleged bull of Adrian, and that

he did so in 1175, are both, I urge, although accepted, facts without

foundation.[2]

The method adopted in this paper of testing the date hitherto adopted,

and disproving it by the sequence of events, is one which I have also

employed in “The Struggle of John and Longchamp (1191).” The interest

of this latter paper consists in its bearing on the whole question

of historic probability, and on the problem of harmonising narratives

by four different witnesses, as discussed by Dr. Abbott in his work

on St. Thomas of Canterbury. This is, perhaps, the only instance in

which I have found the historic judgment and the marvellous insight

of the Bishop of Oxford, if I may venture to say so, at fault; and it

illustrates the importance of minute attention to the actual dates of

events.

Another point that I have tried to illustrate is the tendency to erect

a theory on a single initial error. In “The Marshalship of England” I

have shown that the belief in the existence of two distinct Marshalseas

converging on a single house rests only on a careless slip in a

coronation claim (1377). A marginal note scribbled by Carew, under a

misapprehension, in the days of Elizabeth, is shown (p. 149) to be the

source of Professor Brewer’s theory on certain Irish MSS. Again, the

accepted story of the Cnihtengild rests only on a misunderstanding of

a mediæval phrase (p. 104). Stranger still, the careless reading of a

marginal note found in the works of Matthew Paris has led astray the

learned editors of several volumes in the Rolls Series, and has even

been made, as I have shown in “the Coronation of Richard I.,” the basis

of a theory that a record of that event formerly existed, though now

wanting, in the Red Book of the Exchequer.

* * * * *

The increasing interest in our public records--due in part to the

greater use of record evidence in historical research, and in part,

also, to the energy with which, under the present Deputy-Keeper of the

Records, their contents are being made available--leads me to speak of

the contributions, in these pages, to their study.

A suggestion will be found (p. 88) as to the origin of the valuable

“Cartæ Antiquæ,” of which the text too often is corrupt, but which, it

may be hoped, will soon be published, as they are at present difficult

to consult. In the paper on “The Inquest of Sheriffs” I have proved

beyond question the identity of the lost returns discovered at the

Public Record Office, and so lamentably misunderstood by their official

editor. But the most important, and indeed revolutionary, theory I have

here ventured to advance deals with what are known as the Red Book

Inquisitions of 12 and 13 John. It is my contention that this Inquest,

the existence of which has not been doubted,[3] though it rests only on

the heading in the Red Book of the Exchequer, never took place at all,

and that these ‘Inquisitions’ are merely abstracts, made for a special

purpose, from the original returns to that great Inquest of service

(as I here term it) which took place in June, 1212 (14 John). It is

singular that this conclusion is precisely parallel with that which

experts have now adopted on another great Inquest. “Kirkby’s Quest,”

it is now admitted, having been similarly misdated in an official

transcript, and again, in our own time, by an officer of the Public

Record Office, was similarly shown by a private individual to consist,

as a rule, “of abridgments only of original inquisitions” ... “extracts

from the original inquisitions made for a special purpose.”[4]

Thus, under John, as under Edward I., “the enquiry itself was a much

wider one” than would be inferred from the Red Book Inquisitions

and “Kirkby’s Quest” respectively. And, in both cases, its date was

different from that which has been hitherto assigned.

I cannot doubt that the theory I advance will be accepted, in course of

time, by the authorities of the Public Record Office. In the meanwhile,

I have endeavoured to identify all the material in the ‘Testa de

Nevill’ derived from the returns to this Inquest, and thus to make it

available for students of local and family history.

It is needful that I should say something on the Red Book of the

Exchequer. One of the most famous volumes among our public records, it

has lately been edited for the Rolls Series by Mr. Hubert Hall, F.S.A.,

of the Public Record Office.[5] The inclusion of a work in the Rolls

Series thrusts it, of necessity, upon every student of English mediæval

history. It also involves an official _cachet_, which gives it

an authority, as a work of reference, that the public, naturally,

does not assign to the book of a private individual. That a certain

percentage of mistakes must occur in works of this kind is, perhaps, to

be expected; but when they are made the vehicle of confused and wild

guesswork, and become the means of imparting wanton heresy and error,

it is the duty of a scholar who can prove the fact to warn the student

against their contents.[6] It is only, the reader must remember, a

stern sense of duty that is likely to compel one to turn aside from

one’s own historical researches and devote one’s time and toil to

exposing the misleading theories set forth in an official publication

issued at the national expense. A weary and a thankless task it is; but

in Mr. Eyton’s admirable words: “the dispersion of error is the first

step in the discovery of truth.”

In my ‘Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer,’ issued last year

for private circulation only, and in two special articles,[7] I have

partially criticised Mr. Hall’s work and the misleading theories it

contains. Of these criticisms it need only be said that the ‘English

Historical Review,’ in a weighty editorial notice, observes that “The

charges are very sweeping, but in my opinion they are made out.... I am

bound to say that, in my opinion, Mr. Round has proved his case.”[8]

The further exposures of this official work, contained in these

pages[9]--especially in the paper on “the Inquest of Sheriffs,” which

illustrates its wanton heresies--justify my demand that the authorities

should withdraw it, till revised, from circulation.

The paper on “Castle-ward and Cornage” not only proves that the two

were distinct, and gives the real explanation of their juxtaposition in

the ‘Red Book,’ but contains novel information, to which I would invite

attention, on the constableship of Dover Castle. The early history of

this important office has been altogether erroneous.

Lastly, I must speak, very briefly, of the criticism to which my

work has been exposed, although I do so with much reluctance. Honest

criticism one welcomes: difference of opinion one respects. But for

that uncandid criticism which endeavours to escape from facts, and

which is animated only by the wish to obscure the light, no excuse

is possible. The paper on “Anglo-Norman Warfare” will illustrate the

tactics to which I refer; and the weight to be attached to Mr. Oman’s

views may be gathered from that on “Bannockburn.” But, apart from the

necessity of these exposures in the cause of historical truth, the

papers which contain them will, I trust, be found of some service in

their bearing on the tactics and poliorcetics of mediæval England,

and on the introduction, in this country, of tenure by knight service.

It is the object also of the “Bannockburn” paper to illustrate the

grossly-exaggerated figures of mediæval chroniclers, a point which,

even now, is insufficiently realized. Here, and elsewhere, it has been

my aim to insist upon the value of records as testing and checking our

chronicles, placing, as they do, the facts of history on a relatively

sure foundation.

I

The Settlement of the South-and East-Saxons

I would venture, at the outset, to describe this as a “pioneer” paper.

It neither professes to determine questions nor attempts to exhaust a

subject of singular complexity and obscurity. It is only an attempt to

approach the problem on independent lines, and to indicate the path

by which it may be possible to extend our knowledge in a department

of research of which the importance and the interest are universally

recognised.

It is the fine saying of a brilliant scholar, I mean Professor

Maitland, that “the most wonderful of all palimpsests is the map of

England, could we but decipher it.”[10] But the study of place-names

has this in common with the study of Domesday Book. The local worker,

the man who writes the history of his own parish, is as ready

to explain the name it bears as he is to interpret the Domesday

_formulæ_ relating to it in the Great Survey, without possessing

in either case that knowledge of the subject as a whole which is

required for its treatment in detail. On the other hand, the general

student, from the very wideness of his field, is deprived of the

advantage conferred by the knowledge of a district in its details. In

the hope of steering a middle course between these two dangers, I have

specially selected two counties, both of them settled by the Saxon

folk--Sussex, with which I am connected by birth; and Essex, with which

are my chief associations. And further, within these two counties I

restrict myself to certain classes of names, in order to confine the

field of enquiry to well-defined limits.

The names with which I propose to deal are those which imply human

habitation. And here at once I part company with those, like Kemble

and other writers, who appear to think it a matter of indifference,

so long as a name is formed from what they term a patronymic, whether

it ends in-ham or-ton, or in such suffixes as-hurst,-field,-den,

or-ford. To them all such names connote village communities; to me

they certainly do not. If we glance at the map of Domesday Sussex,[11]

we see the northern half of the county practically still “backwoods”

eight centuries ago.[12] If we then turn to the Domesday map prefixed

to Manning and Bray’s Surrey, we find the southern half of that county

similarly devoid of place-names. In short, the famous Andredswald was

still, at the time of the Conquest, a belt, some twenty miles in

width, of forest, not yet opened up, except in a few scattered spots,

for human settlement. The place-names of this district have, even at

the present day, a quite distinctive character. The _hams_ and _tons_

of the districts lying to the north and the south of it are here

replaced by such suffixes as _-hurst_, _-wood_, _-ley_, and _-field_,

and on the Kentish border by _-den_. We may then, judging from this

example, treat such suffixes as evidence that the districts where

they occur were settled at a much later time than those of the _hams_

and _tons_, and under very different conditions. The suffix _-sted_,

so common in Essex, is comparatively rare in Sussex, and we cannot,

therefore, classify it with the same degree of certainty.

Taking, therefore, for our special sphere, the _hams_, the _tons_, and

the famous _ings_, let us see if they occur in such a way as to suggest

some definite conclusions. The three principles I would keep in view

are: (1) the study, within the limits of a county, of that distribution

of names which, hitherto, has been studied for the country as a whole;

(2) a point to which I attach the very greatest importance, namely,

the collection, so far as possible, of _all_ the names belonging to

this class, instead of considering only those which happen to be

now represented by villages or parishes; (3) the critical treatment

of the evidence, by sifting and correcting it in its present form.

The adoption of these two latter principles will gravely modify the

conclusions at which some have arrived.

There is, as Mr. Seebohm’s work has shown, nothing so effective as

a special map for impressing on the mind the distribution of names.

Such a map is an argument in itself. But although I have constructed

for my own use special maps of Sussex and Essex, they cannot here be

reproduced.

I now proceed to apply the first principle of which I spoke, that of

examining a single county in the same way as others have examined

the maps of England as a whole. I doubt if any county would prove

more instructive for the purpose than that of Sussex, of which the

settlement was developed in isolation and determined by well-defined

geographical conditions. Whatever may be said of other suffixes,

Mr. Seebohm has shown us that, even allowing for a large margin

of unavoidable error, the terminations _-ing_ and _-ham_ are not

distributed at random, but are specially distinctive of that portion

of England which was settled by the earliest immigrants and settled

the most completely. As a broad, general conclusion, this is virtually

established. Now, if we turn to the map of Sussex and ask if this

general principle can also be traced in detail, the first point to

strike us, I think, is the close connection existing between the _hams_

and the rivers. The people, one might say, who settled the _hams_ were

a people who came in boats. Although at first sight the _hams_ may seem

to penetrate far inland, we shall find that where they are not actually

on the coast, they almost invariably follow the rivers, and follow them

as far up as possible; and this is specially the case with the Arun and

its tributary the Western Rother. Careful examination reveals the fact

that, while to the south, round Chichester Harbour and Selsea Bill, we

find several _hams_, and find them again to the north in the valley of

the western Rother, there are none to be found in the space between,

which shows that the men who settled them found their way round by the

Arun and not overland. I need hardly observe that the rivers of those

days were far larger than the modern streams, and their water level

higher.

It is anticipating somewhat to point out that the same examination

shows us a large group of _tons_ covering this district away from the

river, where we find no _hams_. Evidently these suffixes do not occur

at random.

And now let us pass from the extreme west to the extreme east of the

county. Here, instead of a group of _tons_ with a notable absence of

_hams_, we find a most remarkable group of _hams_, absolutely excluding

_tons_. To understand the occurrence of this group on the Rother--the

eastern Rother--and its tributaries, it is essential to remember the

great change that has here taken place in the coast line. Unfortunately

Dr. Guest, who first discussed the settlement of Sussex, entirely

ignored this important change, and his followers have done the same.

The late Mr. Green, for instance, in his map, follows the coast line

given by Dr. Guest. Thus they wholly overlooked that great inlet of

the sea, which formed in later ages the harbours of Winchelsea and

Rye, and which offered a most suitable and tempting haven for the

first Saxon settlers. The result of so doing was that they made the

earliest invaders pass by the whole coast of Sussex before finding, at

Selsea Bill, one of those marshy inlets of the sea, where they could

make themselves at home. Therefore, argued Mr. Grant Allen,[13] “the

original colony occupied the western half of the modern county; but the

eastern portion still remained in the hands of the Welsh.” The orthodox

hypothesis seems to be that the settlers then fought their way step by

step eastwards, that is, towards Kent, reaching and capturing Pevensey

in 491, fourteen years after their first landing.[14] As against this

view, I would suggest that the distribution of Sussex place-names is

in favour of vertical not lateral progress, of separate settlements up

the rivers. And, in any case, I claim for the group of _hams_ at the

extreme east of the county the position of an independent settlement,

to the character of which I shall return.

I must not wander too far from what is immediately my point, namely,

the grouping of the _hams_ and _tons_ not haphazard but with cause.

Even those students who discriminate suffixes, instead of lumping them

together, like Kemble and his followers, make no distinction, I gather,

between _hams_ and _tons_. Mr. Seebohm, for instance, classes together

“the Saxon ‘hams’ and ‘tuns,’”[15] and so does Professor York Powell,

even though his views on the settlement are exceptionally original

and advanced.[16] There are, however, various reasons which lead me

to advance a different view. In the first place, the wide-spread

existence, on the Continent, of _ham_ in its foreign forms proves this

suffix to be older than the settlement. ‘Ton,’ on the other hand, as

is well known, is virtually absent on the Continent, which implies

that it did not come into use till after the settlement in England.

And as _ham_ was thus used earlier than _ton_, so _ton_, one need

hardly add, was used later than _ham_. The cases in Scotland, and in

what is known as “little England beyond Wales,” will at once occur

to the reader. Canon Taylor states of the latter that the Flemish

names, such as Walterston, “belong to a class of names which we find

nowhere else in the kingdom,” formed from “Walter and others common in

the 12th century.”[17] But in Herefordshire, for instance, we have a

Walterston; and in Dorset a Bardolfston, a Philipston, a Michaelston,

and a Walterston, proving that the same practice prevailed within the

borders of England. Nor need we travel outside the two counties I am

specially concerned with to learn from the ‘Ælfelmston’ of Essex or

the Brihtelmston of Sussex that we find _ton_ compounded with names of

the later Anglo-Saxon period. A third clue is afforded by the later

version, found in the _Liber de Hyda_, of Alfred’s will. For there we

find the _ham_ of the original document rendered by _ton_. It is clear,

therefore, I contend, that _ton_ was a later form than _ham_. Now the

map of England as a whole points to the same conclusion; for _ton_ is

by no means distinctive, like _ham_, of the districts earliest settled.

And if we confine ourselves to a particular county, say this of Sussex,

we discover, I maintain, an appreciable difference between the

distribution of the _hams_ and the _tons_. While the _hams_ follow the

course of the rivers, the scene of the first settlements, the _tons_

are largely found grouped away on the uplands, as if representing a

later stage in the settlement of the country. In connection with this I

would adduce the “remarkable passage,” as Mr. Seebohm rightly terms it,

in one of King Alfred’s treatises, where he contrasts the “permanent

freehold _ham_” with the new and at first temporary _ton_, formed by

‘timbering’ a forest clearing in a part not previously settled.[18] It

is true that Mr. Seebohm, as I have said, recognises no distinction,

and even speaks of this example as “the growth of a new _ham_”; but

it seems to me to confirm the view I am here advancing. It is obvious

that if such a canon of research as that _ham_ (not _ton_) was a mark

of early settlement could be even provisionally accepted, it would

greatly, and at once, advance our knowledge of the settlement of

England. Although this is nothing more than a ‘pioneer’ paper, I may

say that, after at least glancing at the maps of other counties, I can

see nothing to oppose, but everything to confirm, the view that the

settlers in the _hams_ ascended the rivers (much as they seem, on a

larger scale, to have done in Germany); and a study of the coast of

England from the Tweed to the British Channel leads me to believe that,

as a maritime people, their settlements began upon the coast.

I now pass to my second point--the insufficient attention which has

hitherto been paid to our minor place-names. Kemble, for instance,

working, as he did, on a large scale, was dependent, so far as names

still existing are concerned, on the nomenclature of present parishes.

And such a test, we shall find, is most fallacious. Canon Taylor, it

is true, has endeavoured to supplement this deficiency,[19] but the

classification of existing names, whether those of modern parishes or

not, has not yet, so far as I can find, been even attempted. Hitherto

I have mainly spoken of Sussex, because it is in that county that

place-names can be best studied; the Essex evidence is chiefly of

value for the contrast it presents. The principal contrast, and one

to which I invite particular attention, is this: confining ourselves

to the names I am concerned with--the _ings_, _hams_, and _tons_--we

find that in Essex several parishes have only a single place-name

between them, while in Sussex, on the contrary, a single parish may

contain several of these place-names, each of them, surely, at one time

representing a distinct local unit. This contrast comes out strongly in

the maps I have prepared of the two counties, in which the parishes are

disregarded, and each place-name separately entered. I do not pretend

that the survey is exhaustive, especially in the case of Sussex, as I

only attempt to show those which are found on an ordinary county map,

together with those, now obsolete, which can safely be supplied from

Domesday. But, so far as the contrast I am dealing with is concerned,

it is at least not exaggerated.

As the actual names are not shown, I will now adduce a few examples.

In Sussex, Burpham is composed of three tythings--Burpham, Wepham,

Pippering; Climping comprises Atherington and Ilesham; Offham is

included in South Stoke; Rackham in Amberley; Cootham in Storrington;

Ashton, Wellingham, and Norlington in Ringmer; Buddington in Steyning;

and Bidlington in Bramber.

In Essex, on the other hand, ‘Roothing’ does duty for eight parishes,

Colne for four, Hanningfield, Laver, Bardfield, Tolleshunt, and

Belchamp for three each, and several more for two. There are, of

course, in Sussex also, double parishes to be found, such as North and

South Mundham, but they are much scarcer.

We may learn, I think, a good deal from the contrast thus presented.

In the first place, it teaches us that parochial divisions are

artificial and comparatively modern. The formula that the parish is

the township in its ecclesiastical capacity is (if unconsciously

adopted) not historically true. Antiquaries familiar with the Norman

period, or with the study of local history, must be acquainted with

the ruins or the record of churches or chapels (the same building,

I may observe in passing, is sometimes called both _ecclesia_

and _capella_[20]), which formerly gave townships now merged in

parishes a separate or quasi-separate ecclesiastical existence. In

Sussex the present Angmering comprises what were once three parishes,

each with a church of its own. The parish of Cudlow has long been

absorbed in that of Climping. Balsham-in-Yapton was formerly a

distinct hamlet and chapelry. Conversely, the chapelries of Petworth

have for centuries been distinct parishes.

In Essex we have examples of another kind, examples which remind us

that the combination or the subdivision of parishes are processes as

familiar in comparatively modern as in far distant times. The roofless

and deserted church to be seen at Little Birch testifies to the fact

that, though now one, Great and Little Birch, till recently, were

ecclesiastically distinct. In the adjoining parish of Stanway, the

church, similarly roofless and deserted, was still in use in the last

century.

Again, the civil unit as well as the ecclesiastical, the village, like

the parish, may often prove misleading. It is, indeed, very doubtful

whether we have ever sufficiently distinguished the manor and the

village. If we construct for ourselves a county map from Domesday, we

shall miss the names of several villages, although often of antiquity;

but, on the other hand, shall meet with the names of important manors,

often extending into several parishes, often suggesting by their forms

a name as old as the migration, yet now represented at most by some

obscure manor, and perhaps only by a solitary farm, or even, it may be,

a field. In Sussex, for instance, the ‘Basingham’ of Domesday cannot

now be identified; its ‘Belingeham’ is doubtful; its ‘Clotinga’ is now

but a farm, as is ‘Estockingeham.’ ‘Sessingham’ and ‘Wiltingham’ are

manors. In Essex ‘Hoosenga’ and ‘Hasingha’ occur together in Domesday,

and are unidentified. Nor have I yet succeeded in identifying

‘Plesingho,’ a manor not only mentioned in Domesday, but duly found

under Henry III. Morant, followed by Chisenhale-Marsh, identified it

wrongly with Pleshy. Such names as these, eclipsed by those of modern

villages, require to be disinterred by archæological research.

Another point on which light is thrown by the contrast of Essex and

Sussex is the theory tentatively advanced by Mr. Maitland in the

‘Archæological Review,’ that the Hundred and the township may, in

the beginning, have been represented by the same unit.[21] Broadly

speaking, he adduced in support of this hypothesis the originally

large township of Essex, proved by the existence of a group of

villages bearing the same name, comparing it with the small Hundreds

characteristic of Sussex. But in Sussex, I think, the small Hundreds

were coincident with those many small townships; while in Essex the

scattered townships are coincident with larger Hundreds. And this leads

me to suggest that the Saxon settlements in Sussex lay far thicker

on the ground than those found in Essex, and that we possibly find

here some explanation of the admitted silence as to the East-Saxon

settlement contrasting with the well-known mention of that in Sussex.

It seems to me highly probable that Essex, in those remote times,

was not only bordered and penetrated by marshes, but largely covered

with forest. It is, perhaps, significant that in the district between

Westham and Boreham, some twenty-five miles across as the crow flies,

there is not a _ham_ to be found.

From this I turn to the opposite extreme, that group of _hams_ on the

‘Rother’ and its tributaries, thirty-seven in number. Isolated alike

from _ings_ and _tons_, and hemmed in by the spurs of the Andredswald,

it is, perhaps, unique in character. Nowhere have I lighted on a group

of _hams_ so illustrative of the character of these settlements, or

affording a test so admirable of the alleged connection between this

suffix and the _villa_ of the Roman Empire.

One of the sections of Mr. Seebohm’s work is devoted to what he terms

“the connection between the Saxon ‘ham,’ the German ‘heim,’ and the

Frankish ‘villa.’” This, indeed, it may fairly be said, is one of the

important points in his case, and one to which he has devoted special

research and attention. Now, I am not here dealing with the equation

of ‘ham’ and ‘villa.’ If I were, I should urge, perhaps, that, as with

the ‘Witan’ of the English and the ‘Great Council’ of the Normans,

it does not follow that an equation of words involves their absolute

identity of meaning. I confine myself to the suffix ‘-ham.’ “Its early

geographical distribution,” Mr. Seebohm has suggested, “may have an

important significance.” With this, it will be seen, I entirely agree.

But, if the distribution is important, let us make sure of our facts;

let us} as I urge throughout this volume, test and try our evidence

before we advance to our conclusion. When Mr. Seebohm informs us

that “the ‘hams’ of England were most numerous in the south-eastern

counties, finding their densest centre in Essex,” the statement must

startle any one who has the least acquaintance with Essex, where the

termination ‘-ham’ is comparatively rare in place-names. On turning

to Mr. Seebohm’s map, one is still further surprised to learn that

its “local names ending in ‘ham’” attain in Domesday the enormous

proportion of 39 per cent. The clue to the mystery is found in a note

that “in Essex the _h_ is often dropped, and the suffix becomes _am_.”

For the whole calculation is based on a freak of my old friend, the

Domesday scribe. The one to whom we are indebted for the text of the

Essex survey displayed his misplaced scholarship in Latinizing the

English names so thoroughly, that not only did Oakley, the first on

the list, become ‘Accleia,’ but even in the accusative, “Acclei_am_

tenet Robertus.” Thus we need travel no further than the first name

on the index to learn how Mr. Seebohm’s error was caused. Elmstead,

Bonhunt, Bentley, Coggeshall, Danbury, Dunmow, Alresford, and many

other such names, have all by this simple process been converted into

‘hams.’ I hasten to add that my object in correcting this error is

not to criticise so brilliant an investigator and so able a scholar

as Mr. Seebohm, but to illustrate the practical impossibility of

accomplishing any scientific work in this department of research until

the place-names of England have been classified and traced to their

origin. I am eager to see this urgent work undertaken county by county,

on much the same lines as those adopted by the Government in France.

It seems to me to be eminently a subject for discussion at the Annual

Congress of Archæological Societies.

If it were the case that the English _ham_ represents the Roman

_villa_, this remarkable group on the borders of Kent and Sussex should

indicate a dense Roman settlement; but of such settlement there is, I

believe, no trace existing. Conversely, we do not find that the sites

of Roman villas are denoted by the suffix _ham_.[22]

From considering this group as a whole, I advance to two settlements

on what is known as the Tillingham River, namely, Billingham and

Tillingham. One would not easily find names more distinctive of what

Kemble insisted on terming the mark system, or what later historians

describe as clan settlement. Parenthetically, I may observe that while

_ham_ is common in Sussex, the compound _ingham_ is not. This is well

seen in the group under consideration. The same may, I think, be

said of Essex, while in North Suffolk _ingham_ begins to assert its

predominance. The frequent occurrence in Norfolk and Lincolnshire

renders it a note of Anglian rather than Saxon settlement.[23] And

now for Billingham and Tillingham. Billing is one of the most common

of the so-called patronymics; and there is a Tillingham in Essex.

Whether we turn to the specialist works of such writers as Stubbs and

Green, or to the latest _compendia_ of English history as a whole, we

shall virtually always read that such names as these denote original

settlement by a clan.[24]

In venturing to question this proposition, I am striking at the root

of Kemble’s theory, that overspreading theory of the Mark, which,

as it were, has shrunk from its once stately splendour, but in the

shadow of which all our historians since his time have written. Even

Professor York Powell, although he rejects the mark theory,[25] writes

of “the first stage” of settlement: “We know that the land was settled

when clans were powerful, for the new villages bear _clan names_,

not _personal names_.”[26] The whole theory rests on the patronymic

_ing_, which Kemble crudely treated as proving the existence of a mark

community, wherever it occurs in place-names.[27]

Now the theory that _ing_ implies a clan, that is, a community united

by blood or by the belief in a common descent,[28] may be tested in

two distinct ways. We may either trace its actual use as applied to

individuals or communities; or we may examine the localities in the

names of which it occurs. I propose to do both. The passage usually

adduced to prove the ‘clan’ meaning is the well-known genealogy in

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: “Cerdic was Elesing, Elesa was Esling,

Esla was Gewising,”[29] etc. Even Mr. Seebohm reluctantly admits, on

this “evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” that _ing_ was used as

alleged. But it always seemed obvious to me that this passage, so far

from proving the ‘clan’ meaning, actually proved the opposite, namely,

that the patronymic changed with every generation. Again, if we turn

from the Chronicle to the Anglo-Saxon charters, we find _inga_ normally

used to denote the dwellers at a certain place, not the descendants of

a certain man. It is singular that Kemble, although he was the first to

make an exhaustive study of these charters, classed such names with the

other _ings_, from which they were quite distinct.[30] His enthusiasm

for the ‘mark’ carried him away. In Sussex, we have, as it seems to

me, a very excellent illustration; the name of Angmering, the present

form, occupies, as it were, a medial position between the “Angemare” of

Domesday and the “Angmeringatun” of Alfred’s will. Here, surely, the

Angmeringas were those who dwelt at Angmer, not a ‘clan’ descended from

a man bearing that name.

I will not, however, dwell on this side of the argument, more

especially as I would rather lay stress on the other line of attack.

For this is my distinctive point: I contend that, in studying

the place-names into which _ing_ enters, attention has hitherto

exclusively, or almost exclusively, been devoted to those now

represented by towns or villages. With these it is easy to associate

the idea of a clan settlement. But what are we to make of such cases

as our Sussex Billingham and Tillingham? We shall search for them in

vain in Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary; and yet they are names of

the same status as fully developed villages. As a Sussex antiquary

has observed (though I cannot accept his explanation): “In the names

of many farms we shall likewise find names which also mark whole

parishes in the county.” Canon Taylor has unconsciously recorded, in

the adjoining county of Kent, evidence to the same effect, observing

that “the lone farmhouses in Kent, called Shottington, Wingleton,

Godington, and Appleton, may be regarded as venerable monuments,

showing us the nature of the Saxon colonization of England.”[31] I say

that this evidence is unconscious, for the Canon applies it only to the

evolution of the _ton_, and seems not to have observed its bearing on

that compound _ing_, which he, like Kemble, fully accepts as proof of

a clan community. From Shottington and Godington, as from Billingham

and Tillingham, Kemble would have confidently deduced the settlement

of a ‘mark’ or clan community; and yet, when we learn what the places

are, we see that they represent a settlement by households, not by

communities.

Here, then, is the value of these cases of what we may term arrested

development: they warn us against the rashness of assuming that a

modern or even a mediæval village has been a village from the first.

The village community may be so far from representing the original

settlement as to have been, on the contrary, developed from what was at

first but a farmstead. The whole argument of such scholars as Professor

Earle here and Dr. Andrews in America is based on the assumption that

the land was settled by communities, each of them sufficiently large to

have a head, whether civil or military. To that supposition such names

as I have mentioned are, I think, fatal.

Yet another point must be touched on as to this alleged patronymic. To

Kemble, as I have said, it was of small moment what suffix his ‘marks’

bore. Indeed, those that denoted forest were to him specially welcome,

because he associated the idea of a ‘mark’ with that of a forest

clearing. But we who have seen that such suffixes as _-field_, _-hurst_

and _-den_ are distinctive of those districts untouched by the early

settlers cannot recognise such names, for instance, as the Itchingfield

or Billingshurst of Sussex as denoting village communities. Again, in

the Anglo-Saxon charters the characteristic _den_ of Kent is frequently

preceded by _ing_; and if these _dens_ were clearly from the context

only forest pastures for swine, we must here also reject the _ing_ as

proof of a clan community. One may also glance in passing at such names

as the “Willingehala” of Essex, now “Willingale,” and ask whether a

clan community is supposed to have settled in a hall?[32]

I trust that I have now sufficiently shown that even where _ing_

genuinely enters into the composition of a place-name it is no proof

of settlement by a clan. Kemble looked on the typical ‘mark’ as “a

hundred heads of houses,” which he deemed “not at all an extravagant

supposition.”[33] I think that even at the present day a visit to the

_hams_ and _tons_ of Sussex, and, in some cases, to the _ings_, would

lead us in practice to the opposite conclusion, and would throw the

gravest doubt on the theory of the village community. I was trained,

like others of my generation, to accept that theory as an axiomatic

truth; but difficult as it is to abandon what one has been so taught,

the solitary manor house, the lonely farm, is a living protest against

it. The village community of the class-room can never have existed

there. On paper it holds its own: _solvitur ambulando_.

But the fact that a place bearing a typical clan name may prove to have

been but a single homestead takes us farther than this. _Ing_, which

Canon Taylor has described as “the most important element which enters

into Anglo-Saxon names,” has been held to denote settlement not merely

by a clan, but by a portion of a tribe bearing, both in England and

abroad, one common name. Kemble insisted strongly upon this,[34] and is

duly followed by Canon Taylor[35] and others. On the same foundation

Mr. Andrew Lang has erected yet another edifice, tracing the occurrence

in scattered counties of the same clan name to the existence of exogamy

among our forefathers. And this ingenious suggestion has been adopted

by Mr. Grant Allen.[36] But the very first instance he gives, that of

the Hemings, will not stand examination.[37]

As yet I have been dealing with those ‘clan names’ in which the

presence of the _ing_ is genuine; and I have been urging that it

is not _proof_, as alleged, of settlement by a clan. I now pass

to those place-names in which the _ing_ is not genuine, but is

merely a corruption. That such names exist has always, of course,

been admitted,[38] but their prevalence has not been sufficiently

recognised. And not only are there large deductions, in consequence,

to be made from the so-called clan names, but even in cases where the

_ing_ is genuine the prefix is often so corrupt that the name of the

clan deduced from it is altogether wrong.