Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race/Chapter 19

by Thomas William Shore

CHAPTER XIX.

SETTLERS IN NORTHUMBRIA.

THE early settlers in the kingdom of Bernicia, which included the country from the Firth of Forth to the Tees, were known as Beornicas, and those who occupied Yorkshire were called Deiri or Deras. These latter, like the Jutes of Kent, adopted the name of the Celtic tribe they displaced. There is strong evidence that Frisians settled numerously in Northumbria under the Anglian name, and evidence also that among the Anglian and Frisian settlers in Yorkshire there were Goths and others known by various tribal names. That some of the Angles were of Gothic or Scandinavian extraction is proved by the early runic inscriptions on fixed stone monuments still existing in ancient Northumbria. That some of the settlers on the north-east coasts were also known as Jutes is probable from early references to them.

The descendants of these early colonists in the North of England and the South-East of Scotland were, in the seventh century, brought within the kingdom of Northumbria, which in subsequent centuries was conquered and recolonised by the Danes, Northmen, and their allies. The descendants of the earlier stock who survived these wars were absorbed among the later colonists of a kindred race, and the Anglian kingdom became merged into an Anglo-Danish kingdom. It is, consequently, hard to find survivals distinctive of the earlier tribal settlers in the northern counties apart from those of the later Scandinavian colonists who had so much in common with them in ethnological characteristics, customs, and even in language. The Old English people of the northern counties had, at the close of the Saxon period, well-marked characters, closely approaching to the Scandinavian, owing to the large immigration from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and probably also from the other Baltic coasts, which differentiated them from the people of the southern and midland counties. There is little historical evidence concerning these counties to assist us in an inquiry into the successive immigrations, except the facts that Anglians and their allies came first, and that they were followed by a larger immigration of Scandinavians and their allies.

In the evidence which the survival of old customs of inheritance or traces of them may supply, the existence of an early system of primogeniture is perhaps the most important. The custom of the eldest son having some preference or birthright existed in the North of England in the time of Bede, and is mentioned by him.^[1] As already stated, it exists still in Norway, where it has come down in its essential features from a remote antiquity. Two ancient laws relating to the succession of land exist in that country, so old that their origin is lost. These are the asædesret, or homestead right, and the odalsret, or allodial right. The asædesret is the right of the eldest son to inherit the farm after his father, he, however, being obliged to pay the other heirs their share of the estate, the value of which is given by the father, or else it is estimated below its valuation. If the father has left no son, his eldest daughter inherits.^[2] Odalsret, as previously mentioned, is the right when a farm has to be sold of any member of the family to buy it, or if sold to a stranger, to redeem it within ten years at the price paid, with the additional cost of any improvements that may have been made. We are only concerned at present in the consideration of the first of these laws—the right of the eldest son to inherit the farm. This early custom of primogeniture could not have been first introduced into the North of England by Norwegian settlers of the ninth century, for as it is mentioned by Bede, who died in 735, it is clear that it existed there before they came. That the north-eastern counties of England and the Lowlands of Scotland were chiefly occupied by Anglian tribes is generally admitted. The Regiam Majestatem, or ancient laws of Scotland, tell us that succession by the eldest son was the custom in the case of knights, but among socmen the custom was to divide the heritage among all the sons, if from ancient time it had been divided. These considerations point to the probability that some of the Anglian tribes must have introduced both customs into ancient Bernicia. Northern tribes, who were afterwards called Norwegians, but perhaps earlier by some tribal name, may have brought in primogeniture. In considering this we should remember that King Alfred tells us the Angles came from the lands on both sides of the passage into the Baltic. It is necessary to remember that there was a custom of rural primogeniture existing in England centuries before the feudal system prevailed. Our early chroniclers who tell us of Angles and Saxons say little of their customs, but the information they give can be supplemented by the traces of the customs which still exist, or which are known to have existed, in parts of England and parts of Northern Europe from which the settlers came. The rural primogeniture such as survives now in Norway so clearly resembles the old rural primogeniture of which traces remain in the North of England, especially in that it secures the succession to the eldest daughter in default of sons, that it cannot reasonably be doubted they had a common origin among the early tribes of Norway or adjacent parts of Scandinavia. It is unreasonable to suppose that a body of colonists, whether in ancient or modern time, would settle in any particular locality and afterwards proceed to invent their customs. We know how in the case of modern colonies the settlers take their laws and customs with them. So it must have been in regard to the customary law of rural primogeniture, with a reversion to the eldest daughter, among some of the early Anglian or Scandian colonists in the North of England. What the tribal names of these people were it is perhaps now impossible to discover.

As we stand on one of the higher mountains south of Keswick, a great part of the ancient lordship of Derwentwater is spread out before us. In this region, which still retains so many characteristics of its Norse settlers, traces are found, in the extensive districts of Castlerigg and Derwentwater, of this Norwegian custom of rural primogeniture, under which, in default of sons, the eldest daughter succeeds to the inheritance.^[3] The same rule survives, or did within recent times, in other lordships in Cumberland, Westmoreland, the Isle of Man, at Kirkby Lonsdale, and in Weardale in the county of Durham. The evidence of Norwegian settlements on the north-western coasts of England is so widely spread that the custom no doubt formerly prevailed on many manors of these districts, where its traces are now lost. Something almost identical with it existed in the city of Carlisle under the name of cullery tenure. The cullery tenants of this city were seised of certain customary estates of inheritance, consisting of houses and shops, etc., which they held of the mayor, aldermen, and citizens as the lords of the city. They were admitted to these estates and paid a small annual quit-rent. On the death of a cullery tenant, in the absence of sons, his eldest daughter succeeded him as sole heiress of his customary tenement,^[4] instead of, as in the case of a freehold, all his daughters as coheiresses. The surviving names of places around Carlisle point strongly to their Norwegian origin, and there can be no doubt that this curious tenure which prevailed in the city is a primitive one, which, like others in Cumberland, can be traced to Norway.

In considering its origin and survival, we must remember that customs were the laws of our Teutonic forefathers. To alter a custom which had come down from a remote antiquity was so great an innovation that it may reasonably be concluded such a change would not be made except under the pressing needs of altered conditions of life. Between the custom of rural primogeniture and those of equal division and of succession by the youngest son there is so great a difference that they must have had separate origins among different races of people. In the North of England, as elsewhere, there can be little doubt that in many cases all traces of these early customary laws, which at one time prevailed in certain districts or manors, have now been lost. We can, however, trace the partible custom as having existed among the ancient socmen of South Scotland, and rather extensively in Yorkshire, and in Tynedale and Reedsdale in Northumberland,^[5] while that of junior right prevailed at Leeds, ^[6] and was not, apparently, unknown in ancient Bernicia over the border.^[7]

It is not difficult to imagine that when a place was occupied at an early time by people of more than one race having their own different systems of inheritance, these customs would in the course of time become blended as the population became mixed in descent. This may, perhaps, have been the origin of the ancient system of inheritance which prevailed at Tynemouth. It was an old port to which ships of Angles, Goths, Frisians, and Northmen would all be likely to have come, and not improbably early merchants or others of these nations settled there. Those who were Frisians or Goths, having a custom of partible inheritance in their own lands, would naturally follow the same, and those who were Northmen, having some form of primogeniture and succession by the eldest daughter in their land, would naturally continue to follow this custom. In process of time these customs, which may be supposed to have prevailed at Tynemonth, apparently became blended, and that of the Goths and Frisians, who, perhaps, were the more numerous section of the inhabitants, became the more prominent. The custom of descent in Tynemouth is, or was, partible inheritance among sons only; in default of sons, the eldest daughter came into the inheritance for her life, and afterwards the next heir male who could derive his title through a male.^[8] In considering this curious succession it is necessary also to remember that the custom of inheritance among the Angles was marked by a strong preference for the male line, such as that which has survived at Tynemouth shows.

In addition to those places in Yorkshire where the custom of partible inheritance has survived to modern times, as at Pickering, Domesday Book supplies us with information concerning the land in Holderness and other parts of the county which was held in parcenary at the time of the Survey. By the old general law of the country land could only be held in parcenary by females, but by the custom of gavelkind males might hold their lands collectively by descent to all the males equally.^[9] Whether in Kent or elsewhere, the title of parceners accrued only by descent.^[10] To hold land in parcenary was, therefore, an ancient custom, and that land was held by this custom in many parts of the East Riding and elsewhere in Yorkshire at the end of the Saxon period is a circumstance which assists us in endeavouring to discover traces of ancient settlers of different races. In the South of England, as we have seen, a great deal of the land in the Isle of Wight and in the New Forest which was colonised by Jutes was held in parcenary at the time of the Norman Survey, and Jutes are admitted to have been Goths or Frisians, or both. Among the Goths, but interspersed by a diversity of local usages, the custom under which estates were administered by a single heir for all the heirs grew up and spread through parts of Germany and countries where Gothic influence prevailed.^[11]

The survival of the custom in England points, therefore, to people of Gothic or Frisian descent, or to German people of some other tribe or nation. It may, however, have been Danish, for among Saxons and Danes the ordinary course of descent was to all the sons.^[12] As, therefore, we can trace Norwegian settlements in parts of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, and Hertfordshire in the custom of succession by the eldest daughter in default of sons, so by this parcenary system in Yorkshire we can trace people of Gothic extraction and others who were Frisians or of some German race. In addition to the cases recorded in Domesday Book where holdings in parcenary were found in Yorkshire, the custom of partible inheritance, more or less resembling gavelkind in Kent, prevailed on at least some of the lands which formed the fees of Richmond, Pickering, and the great fee of the Archbishop known as that of St. Peter’s, York.^[13]

Pickering is mentioned in Domesday Book by the ancient clan-name of the people living in the district round it, Picheringa. On this great manor the evidence of Gothic settlement is supported by another custom which also existed there, that of freedom from distraint.^[14] It has been mentioned that this was incidental to gavelkind in Kent. The custom in that county, as already stated, was not merely partition among all the sons equally, but comprised several subsidiary privileges of great interest. Freedom from distress for debts was one, and this can be traced to the laws of the ancient Goths.^[15] By the records of the Court of King’s Bench, Hiliary Term 20 Edward III., it is shown that the lands within the Fee of Pickering were partible among the males,^[16] and Pickering also had freedom from distraint. The old name of Goathland, anciently written Gothland, still survives on the north of Pickering Moor, and was perhaps a boundary name. It is marked Gothland on an old map of Pickering of the seventeenth century, published in the first volume of the North Riding Record Society. In the case of Pickering we thus have three circumstances pointing to a settlement of Goths—viz., the custom of partible inheritance, freedom from the general law of distress, and the survival of the name Gothland. Early records, both English and those of kindred nations, point to a time when distress was almost the universal form of civil remedy. The laws of the Visigoths, however, prohibited this remedy, and in Kent, in London, and in Pickering the people enjoyed by custom freedom from it in the recovery of debts or rents. They were probably all of Gothic descent; and here reference may be made to what has been said of the -by places which abound in the East Riding. These are Gothic as well as Danish, and some of them in Yorkshire may have been derived from settlers who were Goths.

The earliest of all the settlements in the northern counties, if we may trust the account concerning it, was that of people of the same race or races as the people of Kent, who are said to have formed settlements on the north-eastern coast under their Kings Octa and Ebissa^[17] in the fifth century. There certainly were early settlements made by the Angles, and later ones by the Danes and Norwegians. That of the Norse in the north of Cumberland was probably one of the latest, for the northern parts of Cumberland and Westmoreland were still occupied by the Celts, while their southern parts and the districts of Furness and Cartmel had passed to Teutonic settlers of some kind, using the word Teutonic in its widest sense as including Scandinavians. The name Ulpha in the valley of the Duddon, and another Ulpha in Cartmel, near the mouth of the river Kent, appear to be of Gothic origin. Ulph is a Gothic word, and appears in the name of Ulphilas, the Bishop who translated the Gospels into Mœso-Gothic. The customs of Kendal also point to Goths among its early settlers, and as there were Goths in Kent, and they were skilled in navigation, there appears nothing improbable in a Kentish migration, which would account for the ancient name of Kentmere. Kendal is the name of the most extensive parish in Westmoreland, comprising twenty-four townships or constable wicks, among which are Kentmere and Helsington. This name Helsington in a district where there is other evidence of the settlement of Goths may be considered in connection with the Helsings, the name of the people of Helsingja-land in Sweden. The manorial tenants of Kendal held their lands by military obligation and on payment of certain rents, but, like the ancient Visigoths, they were not liable to distraint for the recovery of them.^[18] Partible inheritance cannot be proved to have been the custom at Kendal, but in the will of Henri Fissher of that place, dated November 5, 1578, we appear to have a trace of it. He says: ‘Mye evidences to be safflie kepte under twoo locks and kyes in my studye at Helssington, and at the full aige of my sonnes to be divided accordinge to their rights.’^[19]

The customs relating to the widow’s dower that prevailed in South Westmoreland and North Lancashire are varied. In the Barony of Kendal the widow of a customary tenant was entitled to the whole of her husband’s customary estate during widowhood.^[20] In some other parts of the south of Westmoreland she received half the estate. Similarly, at Much Urswick, Kirkby Irleth, Lowick,^[21] and Nevill Hall in Furness, the widow was entitled to half the estate during widowhood. By the old common law of the country she was entitled to only a third share, and at Clitheroe to a fourth, as was the custom among the ancient Lombards. The Kendal dower custom is the same as existed so largely in Sussex and on manors elsewhere, as in the vale of Taunton, where junior inheritance prevailed. The half dower custom is the same as that of Kent, and points to settlements of Goths or Jutes.

The north of Lancashire and south of Westmoreland were included in the West Riding at the time of the Domesday Survey, and apparently had been considered a part of the kingdom of Deira, or Yorkshire, since the seventh century. In 685 ‘the land called Cartmel and all the Britons there’ was given to Cuthbert by one of the early Kings, from which record it may be considered certain that Celtic people survived there among the early Teutonic settlers. The early church dedications to St. Wilfrid at Standish, Preston, and Ribchester, and to St. Cuthbert at Kirkby Irleth, were received from their Yorkshire connection.^[22] The colonists of North Lancashire and South Westmoreland appear to have come partly from Yorkshire and partly by the sea. Some of them would probably be Northumbrian Anglians, and others of Jutish extraction. The remains of early stone crosses at Whalley and at Burnley, of the same style as those found in other parts of ancient Northumbria, are traces of the early Anglian connection of these parts of Lancashire, and the runic inscription found at Lancaster supplies confirmatory evidence of this connection.

Close to Lancaster there are distinct traces of a later settlement of Norse, for around Heysham and Halton the hills are called fells, the pools are tarns, the streams becks, the farms are thwaits, and the island rocks are skears.^[23]

As regards the early customs of partible inheritance which prevailed over large districts of Yorkshire, Glanville’s remarks in the time of Henry II. must be remembered—viz., that partible inheritance was only recognised by the law-courts of his time on those manors where it could be proved that the land always had been divided. Consequently, as this custom was allowed to continue on many manors of the great lordships of Richmond, Pickering, and St. Peter’s, York, it must have been a custom of immemorial usage, and proved to the satisfaction of the law in the twelfth century. This points to the conclusion that these areas were originally occupied by Goths and Frisians among the Anglian settlers of Yorkshire. The proof lay in an actual inspection of the subdivided lands, which must have borne their testimony, as well as in the sworn evidence of witnesses. The partible lands of the Dalecarlian people of Sweden, who are descendants of the Northern Goths, show at the present day similar evidence of this immemorial usage. The custom could not have been general throughout England, because it was allowed to continue in comparatively few places. If it had generally prevailed, its antiquity could have been proved, and the custom preserved by appealing to the evidence of partition on the surface of the fields themselves.

The old place-names in the northern counties point to people of many tribes as having taken a part in its settlement. If we confine our attention to old Anglo-Saxon names of places, which had their origin in all probability from people bearing tribal names who settled there, we shall be able to make a considerable list. Such a name as Hunmannebi clearly points to a settler and his family or kindred who was a Frisian of the Hunsing tribe—i.e., he was a man of the Hunni race mentioned by Bede. In the same way, other names indicate Frisians, called by their national name; others who were either Frisians of the Brocmen tribe, or of the German tribe of Boructers, who are also mentioned by Bede as among the tribes from which the Old English were descended. Such a name as Boructer might easily be shortened by use into Broc. The Chaucians or Hocings are probably represented by the survival of a number of Choc- or Hoc- names of places. Here and there we meet with the Engle name, and a few which appear to have been derived from people known to their neighbours as Saxons. Among other places bearing names derived from settlers of various ancient races are those in Dan or Dene, which point to Danes; Norman, which points to Norse; Suen, which points to Swedes; Goth, or Goda, which indicate Gothic people; and Wend or Winter names, which indicate Vandal settlers. Among the old place-names in Northumberland are the fifteenth-century names Waringford and Wynt’ingham, denoting a Waring and a Wendish settlement.^[24] Winterset is an old place-name in the parish of Wragby.

Borough-English or junior right is known to have prevailed at Leeds,^[25] the only place in the northern counties where it has been traced. Its prevalence there in the midst of a kingdom such as Yorkshire was, settled at first by people called Anglians, and largely occupied later on by people commonly called Danes or Norse, is a very remarkable circumstance, for, so far as known, none of these had such a custom. Leeds is in Airedale, and was apparently the chief place in the old district known in Saxon time as Elmet. This district is mentioned by Bede as the 'Regio Loidis,' or the region of Leeds, Elmet being mentioned by the same early writer as a silva or woodland.^[26] If from the occurrence of the custom of junior right at Leeds we may consider that it prevailed elsewhere in this region, then, as the custom is an old one, and it could not have been that of Anglians or Danes or Norwegians, it probably was brought by a fair race of people. Seeing that succession by the youngest son to the whole inheritance is not a Welsh custom, it is not probable that the junior right which prevailed at Leeds could have been derived from a survival of the old British stock. Moreover, the racial characters of the Airedale people, as described by Beddoe, point to descent from a fair race. This subject takes us back to the time when Elmet was first brought under subjection by Edwin in the seventh century. Beddoe considers it probable that new settlers of a fair stock were introduced, and it is remarkable that an old name, Wendel Hill, for an earthwork at Berewic, in Elmet, still survives.^[27] There are some old place-names in addition to this one in the northern counties which may have had their origin from Wendish settlers, relatively few in number, but still significant. Wendesbery^[28] and Wandesford^[29] in Yorkshire, Windleton near Darlington, Wensley, Wendeslowe,^[30] Wenslawe, and Wendeslaghe,^[31] are names of this kind. Wensleydale aid Old Wennington, in the north of Lancashire, may also be of the same origin.

There is evidence of the survival in Northumbria of people of Celtic descent, who were subsequently absorbed among the English race of the northern counties. The historical information on this point concerning Cartmel has been mentioned. The probability of a mixture of Celts among the Scandinavian settlers of Cumberland is also great. The Northumbrian Priest-law, which mentions the penalty for the practise of heathen rites by a King’s thane, affords evidence of the survival of people in Yorkshire of British descent, who were known as Wallerwente. Heathenism in some of its rites survived long in the North. A thane who was accused of heathen practices was fined according to the Priest-law ten half-marks, unless he could prove his innocence by thirty oath-helpers, ten of whom must be named by himself, ten by his kindred, and ten others must be Wallerwente.^[32] These Wallerwente, as their oaths were taken in evidence, must have been freemen. They were apparently men of another race, and chosen for this legal process on that account, as native Celtic inhabitants living among others of Teutonic descent, and whose testimony as native Christians would be specially acceptable in such cases. This recognition of descendants of a remnant of the old Celtic people is of interest, seeing that the oldest name for what is now Yorkshire—viz., Deira—is Welsh, and derived from its Celtic inhabitants, the Deiri, or their country.^[33]

It is well known that two very remote successive immigrations of Celtic people into Britain can be traced—viz., those of the Round Barrow period, who are also known as the men of the Bronze Age; and the later Brythons, from whom in the main the Welsh are descended. From the examination of the bones of the men of the Bronze Age, which are met with but sparingly—for cremation was their common mode of disposing of the dead—they are known to have been a broad-headed and large-limbed race. The later Celts are not characterised by this head form. The survival among living people here and there of representatives of the broad-headed type is an interesting ethnological circumstance. As might be expected, it is chiefly in the most mountainous part of England—viz., in the remote parts of Cumberland—that traces of this race may still be met with. The type is, according to Beddoe and Ripley, marked by being ‘above the average in height, generally dark in complexion, the head broad and short, the face strongly developed at the cheek-bones, frowning or beetle browed, the development of the brow ridges being especially noticeable in contrast with the smooth, almost feminine softness of the Saxon forehead.’^[34] In Cumberland there had been going on a fusion between the descendants of the Norse and those of these more ancient Cumbrians, some of the descendants of whom are now fair in complexion.^[35]

1. Beda, ‘Life of St. Benedict,’ s. xi.
2. du Chaillu, P. B., ‘The Land of the Midnight Sun,’ ii. 289.
3. Elton, C. I., ‘Law of Copyholds,’ p. 134.
4. Nanson, W., Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archæol. Soc. Transactions, vi. 305, 306.
5. Gray, W., ‘Chorographia; A Survey of Newcastle, 1649,’ p. 26.
6. Elton, C. I., ‘Robinson on Gavelkind,’ 243.
7. Regiam Majestatem.
8. Elton, C. I., ‘Law of Copyholds,’ pp. 128, 134.
9. Reeve’s ‘History of English Law,’ edited by Finlason, ii., 587.
10. Ibid., ii. 589.
11. Cecil, Evelyn, ‘Primogeniture,’ p. 114.
12. Ibid., 27, quoting Hale.
13. Elton, C. I., ‘Robinson on Gavelkind,’ p. 157.
14. ‘Honor and Forest of Pickering,’ vol. iii.
15. Maine, Sir H., ‘Early Institutions,’ 269, 270.
16. Elton, C. I., ‘Robinson on Gavelkind,’ p. 33.
17. Nennius, edited by Gunn, W., p. 183, notes.
18. Ferguson, R. S., ‘History of Westmoreland,’ 118-122.
19. ‘Wills and Inventories of the Archdeaconry of Richmond,’ edited by Raine, J., p. 284.
20. Nicholson and Burns, ‘History of Westmoreland and Cumberland,’ 24.
21. Harland and Wilkinson, ‘Lancashire Folk-Lore,’ 281-284.
22. Fishwick, H., ‘History of Lancashire,’ 185, 200, 201.
23. March, H. C., Lancashire and Cheshire Arch. Soc., ix. 50, 51.
24. Placita de quo Warranto, 586, 591.
25. Elton, C. I., ‘Gavelkind,’ Index.
26. Beda, ‘Hist. Eccles.,’ lib. ii., chap. xiv.
27. Whitaker, T. D., ‘History of Leeds,’ 152.
28. Cal. Rot. Pat. (Henry III.), p. 96.
29. Cal. Inq. Post-mortem, ii. 18.
30. Ibid., ii. 125.
31. Ibid., ii. 72.
32. Seebohm, F., ‘Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law,’ 399.
33. Rhys, J., ‘Celtic Britain,’ 112.
34. Ripley, W. Z., ‘Races of Europe,’ 309.
35. Ibid.