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It has often appeared to the writer to be a really remarkable circumstance, during the long and sometimes acrimonious controversies of the nineteenth century concerning the various physical, social, and ‘technical’ phenomena (methods, etc.) characterizing the Saxon settlement of Britain and its more immediate antecedents, that among the various protagonists of the first rank, none seems to have thought it worth while to visit those lands where an essentially similar environment still prevailed, and to see for himself what they might yield. To make such a statement concerning archaeological students of today would certainly be to invite questions in return, which are not easily answered. What was the (physical) environment of early Saxon England; and where shall we find its ‘essentially similar’ counterpart? But at the time of which I speak, such doubts may almost be said to have been non-existent. Whatever opinions were held concerning Roman centuriation, or Teutonic three-field systems, the old ‘traditional’ view of England as ‘a land of forests’, ‘one great wood’, etc., seems hardly to have been questioned. Under such conditions, virtually any forest country occupied by settlers of European birth or descent would serve the required purpose.
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References
1 Saxons in England, 1876, 1, 67;Google Scholar cf. ibid. 1, 125.
2 Vinogradoff, , Villainage in England, 1892, pp. 5, 236.Google Scholar
3 Jerrold, W., Middlesex, p. 257. He quotes also (p. 257) the verses on ‘the wobbling calf’.Google Scholar
4 Rice Holmes speaks of ‘the trackway on the line of which the Romans at a later period made the great road called Watling Street’ (Ancient Britain, p. 344). Dr Williams–Freeman considers that ‘the pre-existence of a British track along the direction of a Roman road seems to be the rule, rather than the exception . . . (Field Archaeology of Hampshire, p. 220). The Icknield Way is a British trackway ; so, Mawer, A., ANTIQUITY 1, 152;Google Scholar but apparently never ‘Romanized’ throughout in construction. Watling Street (north of London) and other ‘Roman roads’ not British ‘intertribal tracks’ in Haver-field’s opinion : Eng. Hist. Rev. IX, 725 ; cf. ibid xi, 428–30. Later, to Rice Holmes, ‘I know nothing satisfactory about the line of Watling Street, and nothing to suggest that it existed before A.D. 43 . . . ’ (Holmes, op. cit. p. 705).
5 See ANTIQUITY, 1938, 12, 16–25.Google Scholar
6 Haverfield, , Roman Occupation, p. 274.Google Scholar
7 See Cox, , Green Roads of England, 1922.Google Scholar Oman thinks that ‘in some cases they made shift to employ the old tracks during the whole period of their occupation of Britain’. (Eng. Before the Norm. Conq., pp. 80–1). No doubt the Icknield Way would be an outstanding instance. We may, I think, be sure that the by-road to every Roman villa was no Watling Street. Mr Belloc talks of the puzzling ‘disappearance of Roman roads all over the country’: (Warfare in England, p. 80). I doubt if there were as many ‘Romanized’ roads to disappear as he seems to think. Tacitus mentions British complaints of ‘difficult cross-country roads’ (manifestly in contrast to better main ones : Agricola, cxix ; cf. ibid, cxxxi). It is against all economic and |adminis–trative usage to suppose such distinctions would not persist ; and the disappearance is not puzzling, except to those who substitute their own intuitions and prejudices for research.
8 Roman Occupation of Britain, p. 157;Google Scholar cf. History, 10, 325.Google Scholar
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* Leland’s Itinerary mentions 73. But the annual volumes of the Eng. Place–Name Soc. have already yielded 152, from twelve counties only. I give the earliest date in each. Beds.-Hunts. 6(1165); Bucks. 1 (1250); Devon 17 (1242); Essex 41 (12th cent.) ; Herts. 14 (1324) ; Northants 10 (1221) ; Surrey 20 (1140) ; Sussex 13 (1347) ; Warwick 16 (1225); Worcs. 5 (1229); E.R. Yorks. 7 (1066); N.R. Yorks. 2 (1230).
See editorial remarks in re Brushford (brigeford), Devon, Somerset, in Devon (Eng. P.N. Soc), 11, 361. There is Briggswath (wath=ford), N.R. Yorks, (id.) p. 119 (in Whitby).
12 Parkes, Joan, Travel in Eng. in the Seventeenth Century, 1925 (with some interesting particulars on decay of ancient bridges), pp. 28–34. Leland (Itinerary) gives 117 of timber, 371 of stone, 222 not specified.Google Scholar
13 Jusserand, , Wayfaring Life in Mid. Ages (ed. 1909) pp. 63–70, 417–18.Google Scholar
14 Edgware, Elstree.
15 Gough’s, Camden (ed. 1789), 1, 339–40;Google Scholar cf. Leland, op. cit. v, 151.
16 Harrison, W., Description of England 1577, ed. Furnivall, F.J., 1877, 3, 145.Google Scholar
17 English Place-name Society, Herts., pp. 7, 86–7; Beds. pp. 5–7.Google Scholar
18 Gough’s, Camden, 1, LXXIV;Google Scholar cf. Gough’s remarks in re Camulodunum (ibid. 11, 56–57). He notes Watling Street ‘running E and w’ near Penkridge, Staffs, (ibid. 11, 385)–
19 This was the successful defence of the miller of Aylesbury, 1499, for the death of an unfortunate traveller; cf. Norwich, 1507: Green, A.S., Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (2 vols. 1894), 11, 31–2.Google Scholar
20 ‘The roads (in Eng.) were much like an up-country trail at the present time in Alberta, or in the Great North West, where the traveller “breaks trail” as he goes along, avoiding the worst places by the simple expedient of going around them ’: Bennett, H.S., The Pastons and their England, 1922, p. 129.Google Scholar cf. Duignan (‘Saltway’), Wares. Place–names, 1905, p. 141. On Sept, 27, 1929, along the valley–road, Baslow to Bakewell (Derby), the ancient duplicated paths along the ‘side-hill’ were clearly visible.
21 I learned to swim in 1901, in a small ‘lake’, eight feet deep in the centre ; out of which we hauled the hay, in full loads, in 1898.
22 The ‘brood oak’ or ‘brod ooke’ in Coventry (1410, 1423, etc.) which gave its name to ‘Brodewok’ or Bradock Waste (Coventry Leet Book, 1, 18, 46 ; 11, 439, 440). The well–known tree–valuation in the Laws of Ine, ‘by the number of swine which could stand beneath’, points to wide–branching trees. See further notices, ANTIQUITY, x, 338.
23 In Dugdale ; cited by Holland, C., Warwickshire, 1908, p. 168 Google Scholar; Hutton, W.H., Highw. and Byw. in Shakespeare’s Country, p. 380.Google Scholar
24 It may be urged that such crops, when well grown, could shelter robbers just as easily. Yet there apparently were such, perhaps of fair size : ‘Ich haue an half-acre to eren by the hy-weye . . .’ (Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, C. passus, IX 2). ‘Half-acre’ = a small piece of ground (so, Skeat, ibid. 11,106, note); but it has been noted in contradistinction, that a large number of people are set to work ‘ploughing it’: (N. and Q, 5 S. IX, 347). The diminutive might be used ironically, as often now.