A HISTORY OF ESSEX Saxon population. While there are indications that the East Saxon settlement was comparatively late, actual remains discovered in the graves of their kinsmen to the west show that the upper valley of the Thames was reached and occupied by a Teutonic people before the bar- barian craftsman had quite forgotten the artistic methods and designs of Roman civilization. Continental archaeologists agree in referring a somewhat realistic treatment of the favourite animal forms to the fifth century, and undoubted specimens of the kind have occurred in the Berkshire cemeteries as well as in the more Romanized district of the Cantware. The loose employment by the early historians of the term Saxon to denote any or all of the roving Teutonic bands that for centuries infested the northern seas, does not affect the supposed connection between the peoples east and west of London ; and there still remains a distinction between Saxon and Angle that is certainly not accidental, but amply confirmed by dialect and archaeology. On the imperfect data as yet available is therefore based a belief that Essex was founded by a branch of the Saxon race that passed over from the continent some time after the Gewissae had found a new home in this country, but probably not while the Angles were founding Norfolk and Suffolk. A study of the map, with some consideration of the early condition of the county, must give the impression that Essex as a kingdom was compact and powerful out of all proportion to its size. Its ability to maintain the northern frontier against a population more numerous and probably hostile, may be in part explained by the inclusion of Colchester and London with their Romanized inhabitants under the rule of Uffa's line; and partly perhaps by an understanding with their powerful and progressive neighbours to the south. Whether there is any justification for Dr. Beddoe's identification of the East Saxons with the Jutes l may indeed be open to question, but in any case Essex first appears in his- tory as a sub-kingdom forming part of the Kentish dominions which, however, at that time stretched from the English Channel to the Hum- ber, and included East Anglia. A natural frontier better than the Stour was afforded by the forest of Middlesex that stretched in a continuous belt from the Chilterns through south Hertfordshire into the western half of the present county of Essex. This tract was indeed crossed by the Watling Street that connected St. Albans with the Thames, but the Roman township was beyond the forest and probably retained its independence till in course of time a growing Teutonic population spread north and west, even through woodlands that had prevented the Roman engineers from con- tinuing the Ermine Street to London. Ethnological observations seem to show that the Saxons settled in considerable numbers in the neigh- bourhood of London, at least in Middlesex, but it is open to question whether they ever destroyed the city. 2 The Chronicles are significantly silent on this point, and it may be that no Teutons gained a footing 1 Beddoe, Races of Britain, p. 42. * Ibid. p. 254. 318
