¹ ‘The Teutonic settlement of Northern England,’ History, XX (1935–1936), pp. 250–62.Google Scholar

² Bede, , H[istoria] E[cclesiastica], I, p. 15, ed. Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1896), I, p. 31.Google Scholar

³ Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1943), p. 7.Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid. pp. 312–14.

⁵ Lindum Colonia, Viriconium.

⁶ F. M. Stenton, op. cit. p. 207 n.: ‘In 1011 the Chronicle explicitly distinguishes Suthseaxe from Haestingas.’

⁷ Bede, H.E. III, p. 7 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 139).

⁸ See Myres, J. N. L., ‘Two Saxon Urns…and the Saxon penetration of the Eastern Midlands’ (Antiquaries' Journal, XXXIV (1954), pp. 201 ff).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Of the few equal-armed brooches found in England most derive from this area.

⁹ See the photographic reproduction in Hodgkin, R. H., History of the Anglo-Saxons (3rd. edn., Oxford, 1952, plate 53).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Mr E. T. Leeds, attempting a synthesis with archaeology, has recently produced a map which locates these peoples (Antiquaries' Journal, XXXIV (1954), pp. 195ff.Google Scholar ‘The end of Mid-Anglian paganism and the Tribal Hidage.’) On Middel Englü (p. 198) Mr Leeds comments ‘It is strange that so little notice is taken of this name’.

¹¹ In the tenth-century MS. in the British Museum it appears to be written in the same hand though with a lighter ink. It is therefore likely to have been in the earlier MS. which the writer was copying.

¹² Cf. Wheeler, R. E. M., London and the Saxons (London Museum Catalogues, no. 6, 1935) p. 70Google Scholar: ‘If one thing is more certain than another in the formation of Saxon England, it is the insignificance of Middlesex.’ It was the artificiality of ‘Middle Saxon’ that first drew my attention to the problem of these names. There is no history of the Middle Saxons, only a history of London. And London in the seventh century was important and independent enough to take its own line about Christianity (Bede, H.E. II, p. 6 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 93): ‘Mellitum vero Lundonienses episcopum recipere noluerunt’), to issue a silver coinage under its own name, and to act as a magnet to powerful and ambitious kings, whether Kentish, Mercian, or West Saxon. To Bede, London, though the mart of many nations, is essentially East Saxon; but archaeology shows the connexion to have no firm or early basis; and the East Saxon kings were far too weak to maintain their hold of it. Wulfhere (659–75) brought Mercian power into the area and seems to have treated London as Mercian (he sold its bishopric to Wini). If it was Wulfhere who first detached the London area from Essex, to make of it a Mercian provincia, the name ‘Middle Saxon’ may owe its origin to him.

¹³ Suthri-ge—the south province. The name occurs in an early and probably authentic charter to Chertsey Abbey (c. 674) which mentions Wulfhere ([Birch, W. de G.], [Cartularium Saxonicum, I (London, 1885),] no. 34).Google Scholar Bede (H.E. IV, p. 6, ed. Plummer, I, pp. 218–19) locates Chertsey ‘in regione Sudergeona’.

¹⁴ See Myres's map of the distribution of Saxon buckelurnen, art. cit. p. 202.

¹⁵ Bede, H.E. II, 5 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 89).

¹⁶ Cit Chambers, R W, England before the Norman Conquest (London, 1926), pp 278–9.Google Scholar Thralls who run away from their masters, turn heathen, and join the Vikings, says Wulfstan, often return with them and kill or enslave their old masters

¹⁷ Penda never fought against the Welsh but always with them He was not a Welshman himself, in Welsh chronicles he is always ‘Panta the Saxon’ But Mercia as he found it was a tiny enclave projecting deeply into Welsh territory, with much wild country on all sides of it to shelter outlaws, runaways, and wild men of all sorts, an ideal recruiting-centre for the warband that was to create greater Mercia It would be strange indeed if many of his recruits were not Welshmen

¹⁸ The name Giwis occurs in the royal West Saxon genealogy three generations before Cerdic, who was the first of the family to settle in England Giwis, if he existed at all, must therefore have lived in the early half of the fifth century, presumably in Germany To Chadwick he is an ‘eponymous’ hero, invented to explain the name ‘Gewissae’ originally borne by the West Saxons The meaning of names is easily forgotten, and eponymous explanations of them are exceedingly common The West Saxon annals abound with probable examples The explanation of ‘Gewissae’ preferred by Chadwick is that it meant ‘confederates’ (Chadwick, H M, Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907), p 147Google Scholar n 2 See also Oman, C, England before the Norman Conquest, 8th edn (London, 1938), p 228)Google Scholar The Smiths suggested that Gewissae means Westerners, and some modern authorities have followed them (cf Vist-Goths) This meaning, if it was remembered at the time, would explain the seventh-century choice of West Saxon, which would then be not so much a new name as the modern form of an old one

¹⁹ Myres, J. N. L., in Roman Britain [and the English Settlements], 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1937), pp. 403–4Google Scholar, and map p. 392; also Copley, G. J., Conquest of Wessex in the Sixth Century (London, 1954), p. 137Google Scholar, where Bede's support of these theories is uncritically accepted from Myres.

²⁰ H.E. IV, p. 13 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 230).

²¹ H.E. II, p. 5 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 92).

²² H.E. III, p. 7 (ed. Plummer, I, pp. 140–1).

²³ H.E. V, p. 19 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 325).

²⁴ H.E. III, p. 28 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 195).

²⁵ H.E. IV, p. 14 [16] (ed. Plummer, I, pp. 236–8).

²⁶ H.E. IV, p. 13 [15] (ed. Plummer, I, p. 236).

²⁷ c. 890. King Alfred himself had apparently little to do with this version, or it would doubtless have been more illuminating.

²⁸ The three earliest manuscripts have ‘essent’ plainly enough. I have seen M. and Tib. A. XIV, and owe to M r Julian Brown of t h e British Museum a transcript of ‘Leningrad’. In view of the early date (eighth century) of these manuscripts it would seem as if the error, if error it was, goes back to Bede or his amanuensis. Can it be that for once Homer nodded? Mr Brooke argues that the logical subject of ‘essent’ is the see, and that a see may be treated as a collective noun. Professor Mynors thinks that a plurally named see (e.g. Gewissorum) might take a plural verb without offence to grammatical propriety. To me the simplest solution appears the likeliest—that ‘essent’ is a case of grammatical attraction. For the whole grammar of the sentence is enough to drive Bede or his amanuensis into the plural. The word is positively embedded in plurals. We have ‘Gewissorum, id est Occidentalium Saxonum’ preceding the ambiguous ‘qui’; and we have ‘subjacerent’ following—itself a pointless change from the singular ‘nequiret’, ‘ipsi’ replacing the collective ‘illa provincia’. But whatever explanation is right, historical commonsense requires that we should credit Bede with locating ‘in Venta civitate’ not the West Saxon people but its bishopric.

²⁹ The Smiths' great edition of 1722 has the punctuation required by Dr Myres. But it is improbable that the Smiths were encumbered with theories about a separate origin for the Gewissae.

³⁰ It is perhaps worth noting that Bede's three definitions of ‘Nordanhymbri’ all mean the same thing (H.E. I, p. 15, II, p. 5, and II, p. 9, ed. Plummer, I, pp. 31, 89, 97).

³¹ H E III, p 7(ed Plummer, I, p 139) (Binnus), V, p 19(I, p 325) (Agilbert), III, p 28 and III, p 7 (I, pp 195, 140–1) (Wini), V, p 18 (I, p 320) (Haedda), IV, p 14 [16] and V, p 23 (I, pp 238, 350) (Danihel) Danihel is also called Bishop of the West Saxons in the preface In giving a list of West Saxon Bishops in H E IV, p 12 (I, p 227), Birinus and Agilbert are included as the first two But that is only to be expected Bede is not developing a theory, it is his usual practice which is of interest Hlothhere, who succeeded Wini, is once referred to as Gewissan, but he belongs to the transitional period and was the nephew of Agilbert who selected him for the diocese, moreover this is the chapter in which Bede has defined Gewissan and has been giving the early history of the Gewissan church (H E III, p 7, I, pp 139 ff)

³² In quoting this passage of Bede (Roman Britain, p 404) Dr Myres argues that ‘it is evident that the Winchester district in early times was peculiarly associated with the royal family’ But how early? What happened in Winchester between 400 and 660 is anybody's guess In dealing with a city which was later so important, we must be particularly on our guard against writing history backwards, remembering for example Mallory s ‘Camelot, which is Winchester’ The temptation to invent an early history for Winchester must have been strong in the days of its greatness The silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the more impressive It links the early West Saxon heroes, Cerdic and Cynnc, to the Salisbury area, where there is the evidence of the Harnham Hill cemetery and the Bokerly Dyke in support But for early settlement in mid-Hampshire the Chronicle is as negative as archaeology or the evidence of place-names A late Romano-British enclave based on Winchester is not to be ruled out, the survival of so many Celtic place-names in the area may be evidence in favour And behind Bede's story of the Wini-Agilbert dispute and the transference of the West Saxon see (660) there may well have been, under Mercian pressure, not only a royal move southward from Bensington to Winchester, but a conquest of mid-Hampshire, to be continued a generation later by Ceadwalla's conquests in the south.

³⁴ E.g. Ultrahumbrenses, Transhumbrani (Myres, art. cit. p. 250).

³⁵ H.E. IV, pp. 14, [15 and 16] (ed. Plummer, I, pp. 236–8).

³⁶ I had at first thought that Bede's use of ‘West Saxon’ for the Winchester bishops might derive from the style used by Bishop Danihel, his correspondent; which he would, through association, transfer to Wini and Haedda. But there is no evidence that Danihel used such a style; and he is on record as using D. plebis Dei famulus, or simply D. episcopus, which Mr Brooke tells me is normal at that date.

³⁷ There are two charters of Coenwealh (c 670) in which he is called respectively ‘basilleos Westsaxonum’ and ‘Rex Occidentalium Saxonum’ (Birch, nos 25, 27) Neither is well authenticated, whereas the Ine charters are probably genuine

³⁷ Ine, ‘R e x Westsaxonum’ (Birch, no 106, subscription to bull of Sergius I), and two Abingdon Charters (Birch, nos 74, 100)

³⁸ Birch, no 62

³⁹ Birch, no 72, from the Winchester cartulary (British Museum Add MS 15,350) There has been tampering with the witnesses, but two unidentifiable heathen names are evidence of authenticity in general (cf D Whitelock, English Historical Documents I, c 500–1042 (London, 1955) p 445), cf also Birch, no 89 ‘Ceaduualae regis Saxonum’

⁴⁰ Birch, no 103, written by the clerk Wynbercht, later Abbot of Nursling The other three are more dubious (Birch, nos 101, 112, 121)

⁴¹ Cuthwulf, Cuthwme, Cutha, Cwichelm (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under dates 560–93 in the Parker MS )

⁴² Yet in Asser's time the court was so little interested in the name that the translator of Bede could excise it altogether. It had come to be regarded in Wessex as virtually a foreign name.

⁴³ Even Port and Wihtgar have been defended of late; the long arm of coincidence is invoked to plead that a Saxon called Port may have landed at Portsmouth (Portus Magnus) and another called ‘Isle-of-Wight-man’ may have landed in the Isle of Wight (Vectis). Both place-names derive from Roman originals. Adding in Giwis, we get three of these coincidences —which is too many altogether! Chadwick dismissed them all as eponymous heroes. Cerdic is not to be confounded with these three. His name, though not Saxon, is at any rate good Welsh (= Caradoc); and the three places called after him according to the Chronicler have no Latin element in their names.

⁴⁴ The Anglo-Saxon Chronicler has eliminated the Jutes of Hampshire and Wight from his account, and done it very clumsily. This was certainly propaganda; for his contemporary Asser knew all about them and tells us that Alfred's own mother was descended from them.

⁴⁵ Creoda occurs in some versions of the genealogy between Cerdic and Cynric. We do not know why he was cut out; but those versions that omit him insist with unusual emphasis that Cynric was Cerdic's son. So the excision must have been deliberate.

⁴⁶ H.E. III, p. I (ed. Plummer, I, pp. 127–8).

⁴⁷ Op. cit. p. 137, quoting Bede, H.E. IV, p. 14 [15] (ed. Plummer, I, p. 236).

⁴⁸ H.E. II, p. 20 (ed. Plummer, I, p. 124).