267 



English Channel to the Frith of Forth.* This event drove the 

 remnants of Roman civilization into the wilds of Wales, while the 

 British sous of the soil were reduced to serfdom under the Saxon. 

 Out of the silence that ensued there rose for British ears that cycle 

 of romance which dwells with loving memoiy on the deeds of King 

 Ai-thur and his knights in the hopeless struggle against the heathen. 

 From the date of the battle of Dji-ham there is just 99 

 years (according to the documents) before we hear anything 

 more of Akmanchesler, and then it is found to bear the name 

 of Bath. The grant of Osric, king of the Hwiccas, for the 

 building of a monasteiy at Bath is dated Nov. 6, 676. How 

 far that is a genuine and unaltered document, is a matter of 

 question. But the only eflFect of calling it in question will be to 

 lengthen the interval of historic silence, and thus to increase the 

 probability of desolation as well as the length of its duration. If 

 Osric was really the founder of Bath Abbey, it is nevertheless 

 possible that the date has been put a little too high. Ten or 

 twenty years later would make it synchronise better with other 

 and analogous acts of Osric. The veiy founding of a monastery 

 was often much like the founding of a colony, and it might have 

 had for one of its motives the purpose of winning population to a 

 neglected but highly important site. And even if the date of 676 

 were precisely correct, it is still possible and even probable that 

 for many generations the monastery was but a speck of life in a 

 wilderness of ruhi and decay. If, however, we give the document 

 much less credit and conclude that the story of Osric's foundation is 

 only an ambitious invention, then we leave a wider space for 

 the probable desolation of Akmanchester. So that, on the lowest 

 reckoning, we have in round numbers a hundred years between 

 Akmanchester and Bath ; and this is long enough to admit of the 

 wrecking of a stone-built city in this land of rain and frost ; but 

 if we admit probabilites and historical analogies, and Mr. C. Moore's 

 geological data, we shall surmise that Akmanchester was desolate 

 for a much longer period, until at length a new interest begins to 

 take root in the place, by means of which it became populous again 

 under the altered name of Bath. 



* E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. i., p. 14. 



