10 AUGUST 1867, Page 12

THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. XXXVII. — BERKSHIRE, OIXORDSHIRE, AND

BUCKING-MA/11'4. SHIRE :—SAXON PERIOD.

WE have no account of the conquest of this Province by the tribes included under the general title of Anglo-Saxons. Our earliest date inconnection with their occupation of the district is that assigned to the foundation of the monastery at Abingdon. AIIING non, now a decayed borough, which has just narro wly escape GT depri- Ivation of its single representative in the House of Commons,, is in an early record described as a large and wealthy city, where was the Royal residence, whither the people resorted to assist in the great councils of the nation, and where, before the establishment of Christianity, the Britons had a place of religious worship. Whether the last statement may be relied on or not, the place seems to have been fixed upon by the West Saxons as the seat of a reli- gious establishment very soon after the conversion to Christianity of their King Cynegils (to which the date 635 is assigned). Independently of any earlier religious associations connected with the place, the situation of Abingdon, on the road from Cirencester (Corinium) to London, and at the confluence of the Thames and the Ock, would naturally recommend it as one of the centres of the new Teutonic community. The site is said to have been called by the Saxons originally Seovecheshanz or Seasham. The story is that in the reign of Centwin, King of the West Saxons, who is said to have died in 686, Cissa or Cysaa, one of his tributary kings (who held also part of Wiltshire), or his nephew Heane, founded a monastery in honour of the Virgin Mary, for twelve monks of the Benedictine Order, of whom Heane was made abbot. At his request, Ceadwalla, son and successor of Centwin, not only confirmed to him and his monks the site of this monastery, but gave them also thetown of Seovechesham, with all its appanages, commanding that it, should be thencefor- ward called Abbendon, which, according to the account of a monk- ish writer of the thirteenth century, was the name of a hill near Bayworth, in the neighbouring parish of Suuningwell, where the abbey was first built.

Berkshire was on the debatable land between the kingdoms of the West Saxons and the Mercians. Originally the Prince of the district seems (as we have seen) to have owned the headship of the paramount Prince of the Gewissas ; but the chronicle of Abingdon tells us that in the reign of Offa, of the Mercians, which commenced in 758, that great prince, conquering Cynwulf, King of the West Saxons, seized on all the country from the town of Wallingford to Ashbury, which lay between the Ickenild Street and the Thames. However, there seems to be no doubt that in the succeeding period the West Saxons regained and finally retained all the coun- try to the south of the Thames, including, of course, Berkshire. Recurring to the names of the original Saxon Marks, we find among the charters, &c., of that period, within Berkshire, the names mentioned of the Lamburningas (at Lambourne), the Readingas (at Reading), the Scearingas, the Stameringas, and the Wanetingas. Mr. Kemble also infers from names of existing places the following additional Marks within this county :—The Ardingas (at Ardington, also found in Sussex) ; the Aefingas (at Avington, and also in Hampshire) ; the Beorringas (at Barrington, also found in Cambridgeshire, Somerset, and Gloucestershire) ; the Canningas (at Kennington, and also in Norfolk, Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Kent, and Surrey) ; the Ceandlingas (at Chandling,$) ; the Cypingas (at Chipping, and also in Lancashire, Northamp- tonshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxford. shire) ; the Donningas (at Donniugton, also in Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Sussex) ; the Fearingas (at Farringdon, and also in Devon, Dorset, Hants, Somerset, and Lancashire) ; the Gaegingas (at. Ginge, and also in Oxfordshire) ; the Haestingas (at Hastings, and in Sussex, Kent, Essex, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire) ; the Locingas (at Lockinge, and also in Somerset, Leicestershire, and Yorkshire) ; the Nottingas (at Nottingham, and also in Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Dorset) ; the Sumningas (at Sonning, Sunning- hill, and Sunuingwell, and also in Oxfordshire) ; the Uffingas (at Uffington, and also in Lincolnshire and Shropshire) ; the Weal- ingaa (at Wallingford, and in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Notts, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, and Surrey); and the Waesingas (at Wasing, and in Leicestershire, Huntingdon- shire, Durham, Derbyshire, and Sussex). To these we may safely add the Aebingas, at Abingdon and Abington, and found also in Surrey, Cambridge, and Gloucestershire.

Oxfordshire was occupied by the tribes included under the name of Mercians, and Oxford is said by some to have been their first capital, while according to others it was a place of great import- ance under the British and Roman rule, and was reduced by the Saxon invaders to a state of utter insignificance. If any buildings existed at all in Keltic times on its site, there is certainly no evidence of their existence under the Romans, and it must be considered therefore as essentially of Saxon foundation. The first date we get in connection with it is, as in the case of Abingdon, connected with a religious institution. The Mercians long resisted the introduction of Christianity, and their antagonism to that creed formed an additional cause of enmity between them and their neighbours the West Saxons. But it is said that in 727 Frides- wide, daughter of Didam, the tributary prince or governor of Oxford, " embraced a religious life, with twelve maidens, her com- panions. About this time her mother, Saxffrida, died, and her father, seeking consolation from a work of piety, employed himself in the construction of a convent within the precincts of the city, of which he appointed her the abbess. In process of time, by the munificence of the King of Mercia, certain Inns were constructed in the vicinity of this church, adapted as much as possible to the character of a religious establishment. This, it is said, is the earliest notice of Oxford as a place of religious education, and thus the University may be traced to the priory of St. Frideswide." But this is, after all, very much within the realm of the mythical and hypothetical. In 752, Cuthbred, of the West Saxons, is said to have fought and conquered Ethelbald, of the Mercian, at Battle Edge, near Burford, after which Oxfordshire is said to have become part of the kingdom of the West Saxons. Among the Marks lying within its boundaries mentioned by early Saxon charters, we find those of the Banesingas and the Horningas. Mr. Kemble infers no less than thirty-one others from names of existing places, those inferred similarly in Berkshire amounting to twenty-two. But we will not try the patience of our readers by an enumeration of the names ; any good map of Oxfordshire (with the analogy of the inferences already given) will easily supply the reader with most of them. One important point observable with these Marks generally is the dispersion of the patronymics overithe whole area of England, a fact which seems to point to a general kinship or common ancestral traditions among the so-called Anglo-Saxon settlers throughout the island.

The history of the Saxon Conquest of Buckinghamshire is plunged in still deeper obscurity than in the case of its sister counties.' No early monastic establishment is there, to give us even its faint and uncertain glimmer of light in the general d'arkness. All that we know is that it became and remained during the existence of the separate Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms part of the principality of the Mercians. It first appears in history with the mention of the construction by Edward the Elder of a strong fortress on the Ouse at Buckingham. Nothing can be more suggestive than the position of this town, which has given its name to the county. It lies in the extreme north-west corner of the county, and seems to demonstrate that the Mercian conquerors entered the county in that quarter, and gradually fought their way or penetrated through marshes and the tangled forest walks till they reached the sites of Aylesbury, Amersham, and the other more southern and eastern towns. There are seventeen original Marks inferred by Mr. Kemble from the names of existing places in Buckinghamshire, and their history was probably very similar to that of the forest clearings which we have already described in speaking of the great Anderida wood. For some time, no doubt, a deep belt of forest formed an almost insuperable barrier at this point between the principalities of the Mercians and West Saxons, and this may account for the late date at which Buckinghamshire appears in the general history of England.

The history of that portion of the Province we are describing— which lay within the original kingdom of the West Saxons— namely, Berkshire, is naturally much bound up with the adven- tures of the great West Saxon Prince Alfred. His father, Ethelwulf, lived in a palace at Wantage, and there Alfred himself was born. In the reign of Ethelred I., the brother and immediate predecessor of Alfred, the Northmen invaded Berkshire and took Reading. The West Saxons attacked them there, and although at first successful were ultimately defeated. Four days afterwards, however, another great battle was fought at Xvcendune (probably the downs near Ashdown), where the Norse King was slain, and his army defeated and driven back to Reading. It is supposed—but it is a mere conjecture, though a plausible one— that the celebrated White Horse, which used to form so striking a feature in the view from the old coach road from London to Bath, was cut in the downs to commemorate this victory. Fresh in- terest has been given of late years to this memorial of former days by Mr. Thomas Hughes's graphic account, entitled the Scouring of the White Horse. Indeed, Berkshire was one of the great battle-fields between the West Saxons and the Northmen, and suffered accordingly, both Wallingford and Reading being burnt in 1006. Oxfordshire shared the same fate. Alfred resided at Oxford and established a mint there, where he coined money called Ocsenafurdia. In Domesday Book the name of the city is Oxenefurd. When and how the University had its origin is entirely unknown. It certainly existed in the time of Edward the Confessor, and it may have sprung, as we have said, from the conventual institution of St. Frideswide, on the site of the present Christ Church. In 979 and 1002 Oxford was burnt to the ground i by the Northmen, and in 1009 it was set on fire by Sweyn the

Dane. In 1015 a Saxon Witenagemote was held at Oxford by 11rard Ironside, who was murdered here, November 30, 1016. In 1018 an agreement was come to here between the Danes and Saxons. " Canute held his Court here for several years, and in 1022 a Council, in which the laws of England were first trans- lated into Latin, and enjoined on Danes and Englishmen alike." Here also " Harold Harefoot was elected King, crowned, and died."

Woodstock is said to have been an ancient residence for the Saxon Kings, and here Alfred is said to have translated Boahius De Constitatione. The Northmen committed great depredations in Buckinghamihire in 918, between Aylesbury and the forest of Bernwood. Edward the Confessor had a palace at Brill, in this latter forest district, which was then doubtleas pierced by more than one roadway. But the general historical events recorded of both Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire during the Sakon period are meagre in the extreme.