ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS
THE existing Anglo-Saxon remains in Lancashire are few: they consist chiefly of hoards or isolated finds of coins, some interesting ornaments, and sculptured Christian monuments. The coins alone afford any dates, but none of these apparently are earlier than the ninth century. Most of the other remains may be deemed as late or even later, but in the present state of local evidence an appearance of exactitude as to date could only be misleading. Hence archaeology can offer little direct help to history in the study of this period. The evidence of place-names, if this were available, coupled with what is known of the condition and natural features of the county reflected in the account of the Domesday Survey, might enable the historian and archaeologist together to unravel the story of this period almost stage by stage. While the etymological section of this evidence is still to be furnished by special research, some points of interest may nevertheless be elucidated by an examination of the monuments themselves, having due regard both to their nature and to their disposition.
The sites of these remains are indicated on the map which accompanies this section. The county itself requires no further geographical description.[1] At the close of the period that portion which lies between the Ribble and the Mersey contained, as Mr. Farrer has shown from the account of the Domesday Book,[2] 246,480 acres of wood in a total area of about 700,000 acres, of which about 56,865 acres were cultivated. The area of woodland according to this account was thus more than a third of the whole when the survey was made. The greater part of this woodland lay in the hundreds of Newton and Salford, with the forests of Rossendale and Pendle in the hundred of Blackburn, and it embraced also a considerable area in the hundred of Leyland. The lowlands around the coast, with extensive tracts higher up the Mersey, were probably marshy.
To judge from the scanty notes of the survey, the area of forest-land in the tract which lies between the Ribble and the Sands (particularly in the middle and north) must have been even larger in proportion, as it is to-day. The most habitable portions were the fertile plains of the modern Fylde, in which possibly the work of reclamation had been already begun during the Roman occupation. The district around Lancaster also, and thence along the coast, seems to have early attracted settlement.
Beyond the Sands the land of hills and lakes to the north was still closely wooded, but in the promontory of Furness and the vicinity of Cartmel there seem to have been attractive sites for settlement. Here, at any rate, in a naturally defended home the Celtic element certainly survived.
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