58 Gleanings from the Wiltshire Domesday. 
and, to a much greater extent, of those who owned or occupied 
lands in Wilts in the time of the Confessor, still lingers amongst us. 
It tells us, at all events, very clearly, the nature of the revolution 
effected by the Norman Conquest. Some years ago we all believed 
that the English were exterminated root and branch, but now we 
know,—and in these English names still remaining in such numbers 
we have in some sort an incidental confirmation of the fact,—that the 
revolution was as bloodless as it could be. The principal landowners, 
who were his active opponents, were supplanted by the Conqueror, - 
but the rights of the Church were all along respected, and the 
tenants for the most part were not interfered with. The people 
changed masters, but held their land in the same way, and under 
the same customs, as before. 
Nor must we forget, that, during the ten intervening centuries 
since Domesday Book was compiled, many circumstances, such as 
the merging of smaller into larger estates, and the successive 
changes of ownership, have all tended to obliterate many of the 
older names. Hardly a neighbourhood is there in which we do not 
seek in vain for one or more of the ancient names that once existed. 
Thus, in the immediate vicinity of Bradford on Avon, there are 
two places called in Domesday Book respectively “ Berrelege” and 
“ Withenham,” the names of which have quite disappeared, whilst 
the very site of the former is a puzzle to archzologists, and yet these 
were two distinct parishes, and in the Bishops’ registers we have 
the names of the incumbents appointed to them during the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries. And so our examples, even though 
they be not very numerous, are a testimony, however slight, to that 
feeling which instinctively reverences the past, and shows itself 
in so many of our acts, both private and public, in a steady 
and persistent resolve to be guided by ancient precedents. Even 
if exigencies so demand that we pull down a portion of our walls, 
we seek to rebuld them on the old foundations. Our motto, as 
Englishmen, has been hitherto—long may it continue so—Stare 
super antiquas vias. 
Witt1am Henry Jones. 
Bradford-on-Avon, July, 1871. 
