Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Harnham. 207 
including Harnham, was made to the church of Winchester by 
Cenwealh, probably as an atonement for his apostacy. When this 
district had thus been placed under the immediate influence of the 
church, Pagan usages would of course be less and less tolerated, 
even if they were not thenceforth wholly forbidden. The inference 
therefore seems to be that with so many traces of Paganism in the 
mode of the interments as Harnham exhibits, it must have been 
a burial place of Anglo-Saxons of Wessex prior to their conversion 
to Christianity. 
Mr. Akerman’s authority upon these subjects is so high, that we 
most willingly adopt his view of the subject; making only the 
passing observation, that the total absence of any signs of the 
Pagan custom of burning the body, as well as the almost uniform 
position of these skeletons facing the East, are a very close approxi- 
mation to Christian custom. The situation also of the cemetery, 
no longer upon the elevated ground which the early Anglo-Saxon 
loved, as well as the generally peaceable character of the interments, 
wholly without sword, and with spear rarely, seem to point to the 
very latest days of Saxon Paganism; perhaps to the transition 
period between Paganism and Christianity, during which the 
ancient prejudices would be allowed a harmless indulgence, until 
they finally disappeared. There is at all events a mixture of Pagan 
and Christian customs in this cemetery, which it does not seem easy 
otherwise to account for. 
Mr. Akerman’s memoir is illustrated by an excellent map of the 
neighbourhood, showing as far as the identification of names will 
allow, the limits of the grant of land by Cenwealh to the church of 
Winchester. He also supplies the derivation of some of our 
modern South Wiltshire local names.! 
1 We do not quite concur with the remark, that the authors of Sir R. 0. 
Hoare’s history were wrong in their explanation of the name of Stoke-Verdon, 
They say it is so called from the Lords Verdon. Mr. Akerman is for the correct- 
ness of the popular pronunciation Stoke-Farthing, which he identifies with 
“ Fyrdynge’s Lew” of the Saxon Charter. This is very likely the case. But, 
if the authorities given in Sir R. C. Hoare’s book are faithful, which is not 
disputed, that place, at a later period, certainly belonged to the Lords Verdon. 
So that both derivations are right. 
