Wiltshire and Warwickshire. Quenfell in Westmoreland. Queningburgh in Leicestershire, and Quenhull in Worcestershire, are met with in later records.[1] Ingulf in his chronicle mentions a place called Finset, and similar names, such as Finborough and Finningham, occur in the eastern counties. Still earlier references to Finset and Finbeorh occur in the Saxon charters, the former in Northamptonshire, the latter in Wiltshire.[2]
As regards the more general name Eastmen, there are some very old names which apparently denote settlements of them. The ‘regione Eastregena,’ also called Eosterge—i.e., the present hundred of Eastry in Kent—is mentioned in a Saxon charter. In the same county there are other Domesday names apparently referring to Eastmen.
There is another aspect from which the probability of settlers from the east coast of the Baltic having been among the later colonists of England may be considered. Nestor, the historian of the early Slavs of Russia, tells us that the Swedes (Russ or Varangians), having become the dominant class on the eastern shores of the Baltic, were invited by the Slavonians about A.D. 862 to settle in Russia, in order to put an end to the internal strife in that country, a movement which led to the first foundation of the Russian State.[3] Nestor died about 1115, and wrote, consequently, comparatively near the date he mentions. Many Swedish inscribed runic stones tell of warriors ‘who fell in battles in the East;’ and in the interior of Russia, western coins have been found in barrows over chiefs, among which are Anglo-Saxon coins, part very likely 01 the Danegeld,[4] which the Anglo-Saxons paid, and which fell to the share of Danish allies from the east masts of the Baltic.
It appears from Nithard that there was a considerable infusion of the Slavonic element among the English
