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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
In the north-west of Wilts is a district which contains some remarkable reminiscences of the two dominant races who have influenced the history of this country. In tracing out the history of this district, as it has come down to us by the traditions and records of early chronicle writers, we arrive at an important epoch when for the first time is brought into strongly marked prominence the outline of the community which had settled there. This community, known to us later under the local name of Malmesbury, is one of the most perfect types of the primitive village which has survived in England, and to the elucidation of its chief characteristics it is proposed to devote some little attention. Keeping before us the outline made known from early records we shall see how this is gradually filled in from facts, which though gleaned from later and modern records, are nevertheless stamped as belonging to the earliest stages of history. And when this local mosaic is completely pieced in we shall be able, I think, to satisfy ourselves that what has so persistently clung to locality in later days originally belonged to a social group, types of which are still to be found in Eastern Europe and India, where society is in a state of arrested progress and has not advanced along the lines which mark its development in Western Europe.
page 422 note a Archaeologia, XXXVII. 257Google Scholar.
page 422 note b Traces of Roman work at Caer Dur are noted in Wilts Arch. Soc. viii. 6Google Scholar.
page 422 note c An account of some Ancient Triangular Bricks Discovered at Malmesbury is given in Gent. Mag. 1831, part ii. pp. 499, 500. These are concluded to be Roman in Journ. Arch. Assoc. xxviii. 41, by Mr. Syer Cuming, who, writing about some triangular bricks discovered in Marden Castle, Dorchester, says, “Triangular bricks have been discovered at Malmesbury [Caer Bladon], and near Canterbury, having perforations through them of about the same diameter as those in the Dorset examples. The date of the Malmesbury bricks is not well defined; but those met with in Kent positively belong to the Roman epoch, and constituted a portion of a hearth with which was an iron tripus, hooks, &c. for cooking.”—Journ. Arch. Assoc. xviii. p. 272. On turning to this last-mentioned reference we find Mr. Syer Cuming himself the exponent of the Roman theory. Mr. J. Brent exhibited the “triangular bricks very imperfectly burnt,” which had been discovered in digging for gravel at Bigberry Hill about two miles from Canterbury at a distance of seven feet from the surface, which originally had been two feet higher (a wood which stood thereon having been grubbed up). Near to them was picked up a very perfect arrow-head of flint; and Mr. Cuming pointed out a vessel, found among the debris, “the parts of which bespeaking a Celtic origin,” and he “detected a portion of the rim of a rude urn referable to the stone period, so that,” says Mr. Cuming, “there are within the limited area of a few feet objects of the primeval, Celtic, and Roman periods.” But there is no evidence that these bricks are Roman, and they are associated at all events with primeval and Celtic objects.
page 422 note d Archaeologia, XXXVII. 257Google Scholar.
page 422 note e The position is best described by a passage in Gent. Mag. 1831, part ii. p. 500, whore the discovery of triangular bricks is noted.
page 423 note a , Guest, Origines Celticae, ii. 252.Google Scholar
page 423 note b Ibid. ii. 251, 252.
page 423 note c Eulogium Historiarum, Rolls Series, 1857, i. 225Google Scholar
page 424 note a Origines Gelticae, ii. 252Google Scholar.
page 424 note b Cf. Rev. Jones, W. H. in Wilts. Arch. Soc. viii. 69.Google Scholar
page 424 note c Origines Gelticae, ii. 270Google Scholar.
page 425 note a Mr. Trice Martin in his introduction to the Registrum Malmesburiense, ii. page xl. comes to the same conclusion as myself, that Meildulf's church was Celtic, “it must have followed the rule of St. Columba, and it was not until the reforms of Eadgar and Dunstan that the stricter Italian rule was enforced and observed.” I notice also that Dr. Leo points out that “it was to the west of England and to Wales that the British Christians were driven in early times, witness the names of the headlands on the Welsh Coast.”—Local Nomenclature of the Anglo-Saxons, p. 54.
page 425 note b Rev. Jones, W. H., in Wilts. Arch. Soc. viii. 76.Google Scholar
page 425 note c Ibid. 73.
page 426 note a Guest's map in Origines Celticae, ii. 242Google Scholar, gives the position of the races very clearly.
page 426 note b I say “occupation,” because, if Caer Bladon, sacked in A.D. 577, was still allowed to retain its British garrison in the castellum the “conquest” of the district clearly did not take place then. But an occupation unquestionably did take place when Mercians and West Saxons in later years overlapped their earlier boundaries and fought against each other or united against a common foe.
page 427 note a Part i. pp. 405-6.
page 428 note a English Village Community, p. 205. Mr. Seebohm quotes from the Owentian Code, p. 375, the following, “there are to be thirteen trevs in every maenol, and the thirteenth of these is the supernumerary trev.”
page 429 note a Domesday for Wilts, p. xxxi.
page 430 note a English Village Community, p. 205.
page 431 note a I have discussed this important subject, and its bearing upon such a state of things as appears at Malmesbury, in Archaeologia, ante, pp. 195—214.
page 431 note b See Municipal Corporation Commission, 1876, part ii. p. 836, “there is always one capital burgess who has not a ‘burgess past’; he is paid money out of what is subscribed by the other capital burgers.”
page 431 note c , Seebohm, English Village Community, p. 236.Google Scholar
page 431 note d See Municipal Corporation Commission, 1876, part ii. p. 833.Google Scholar
page 432 note a The evidence of Mr. Player before the Commission of 1876 illustrates how actual was the kinship basis of the Community. See Question 6318 et seqq.
page 432 note b , Tupper, Punjab Customary Law, vol. ii. pp. 74, 75.Google Scholar
page 432 note c Laveleye's Primitive Property gives parallel instances from Russia (p. 14), Switzerland (p. 94), Germany (p. III), Holland (p. 283), and it is an admitted feature of the primitive community wherever found.
page 433 note a I have given some details of this interesting subject, rhyming formulae, in an article in the Antiquary, vol. viii. pp. 12–15Google Scholar.
page 433 note b Archaeologia, vol. XXXVII. p. 383Google Scholar. On symbols of transfer generally, consult Spence's Court of Chancery, i. p. 22Google Scholar.
page 434 note a This is the same as recorded in the preamble of the local Act 1 and 2 Geo. IV. cap. 34, and it is important here to note this as an instance of archaic custom being recorded in a modern statute.
page 435 note a This naming of the holdings by the term “acres” led to a wrong statement of the area of the corporation property. In 1835 it was stated to be 516 acres (see above), but there were really 516 lots, which represented 800 statute acres, if not more. See Commission of 1876, Question 32,613 et seqq.
page 435 note b I communicated this to the Athenaeum of 3rd March, 1883; and see , Seebohm, English Village Community, p. 227Google Scholar.
page 435 note c , Seebohm'sEnglish Village Community, p. 254.Google Scholar
page 435 note d Davis, Agriculture of Wilts.Google Scholar
page 437 note a Registrum Malmesburiense, vol. ii. p. xliiiGoogle Scholar.
page 437 note b This is the hamlet alluded to above (p. 4) as the seat of the nunnery destroyed by the Saxons and called by the Britons Ilanburgh.
page 437 note c Beg. Malm. ii. 184Google Scholar.
page 437 note d Ibid. ii. 230.
page 437 note e Ibid. ii. 349.
page 437 note a Village Communities in the East and West.
page 437 note b English Village Community, p. 211.