172 Caine. 
to prove that this “ villula,” had inereased to such a size as to ac- 
commodate, not merely a King’s representative, or even a King 
himself, but a whole body of parliament men and high ecclesiastics, 
enough to fill, over and over again, the Catherine Wheel—now 
Lansdowne Arms—the White Hart, the Talbot, the Plume of 
Feathers, and all the rest of the places now offering to the publie 
good entertainment for man and beast. Of that assembly something 
more presently : meanwhile the site of the Castle House seems to 
me to have been the germ and origin of the town, having been 
originally, perhaps, a Roman, certainly an Anglo-Saxon, residence 
for some publie official under the Crown. There are still to be seen 
some vaults of a size unusually large for a modern private house ; 
some of the stones having been, apparently, used in some previous 
building, but of what exact date is uncertain. 
DuNsTAN. 
The next event in your history (and really almost the only one 
that writers seem to have noticed) is the large assembly just men- 
tioned, which ended in the sudden crash and downfall of the floor, 
caused, as some were pleased to say, by the craft of the President, 
the celebrated Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. The story itself 
is told (as usual) in very few words in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
under the year 978. “In this yeare all the chief ‘witan’ of the 
English Nation fell at Calne from an upper chamber, except the holy 
Archbishop Dunstan, who alone supported himself upon a beam. 
Some were grievously wounded, and some did not eseape with life,” 
This assembly has often been spoken of as if it had been only a 
clerical gathering of monks and priests: but that was not at all the 
case. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says “the chief witan of the 
English Nation.” Now “ the witan” were the leading men of the 
country, lay as well as clerical, who formed what was called the 
“ witena-gemot,” or King’s council ; a species of parliament—dukes, 
thanes, principes, as they are described in other documents. This 
council, upon summons, attended the King wherever he happened 
to be. The Kings at that period were frequently in the West. We 
find them at Winchester, Andover, Amesbury, and twice at Calne. 
~ 
