A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



in 1880 a few articles of bone were discovered in the earth between the 

 layers of stone, resembling others from the original surface of the soil. 

 They were pronounced at the time to be of Saxon or even earlier date. In 

 a small mound at the top of the embankment there was found at the side 

 of a human skeleton a weapon or part of one, which was recognized as 

 belonging to a type rarely met with in England but common on the 

 continent. It is in the form of a single-edged knife, the edge of which is 

 quite straight and ends in a sharp point ; the back to within a short 

 distance of the point being strong and thick and terminating at the other 

 end in a tang to fasten into the wooden handle, which was also found, 

 but soon fell to pieces on exposure to the air. Another ' scramasax ' was 

 found at Clipstone with a spearhead and knife, and is now in the 

 Northampton Museum. 



Future discoveries of burial-grounds may correct any conclusions 

 which may be drawn from the material now collected ; but, with 

 this preliminary caution, it may be laid down as a general rule that 

 instances of cremation are met with north of the Watling Street and 

 of the Tove valley, while extended burials of pagans are characteristic 

 of the southern half of the county. Had the older records of dis- 

 coveries given any hint of the orientation of the graves or even given 

 the dimensions of the urns, the dividing line, if such existed, could 

 have been more easily traced. But this grouping of the localities seems 

 to afford a clue that in the present state of knowledge should not be 

 neglected. Assuming for the moment that the north-and-south position 

 marks an earlier period than the east-and-west, we find the earliest 

 Teutonic inhumations at Marston Hill, Badby, Newnham, Norton and 

 probably Welton, these being all south-west of the dividing line, while 

 instances exhibiting a Christian influence are met with at Desborough 

 north of this line, and at Ecton, Islip, and probably Great Addington, 

 all in the lower Nene valley. Cremation not associated with interments 

 of the entire skeleton can on the other hand be traced at Kettering, 

 Woodford, Cransley, Cranford and Peterborough to the north, and at 

 Pitsford and Northampton itself on the limit of the district. The three 

 cinerary urns from Marston perhaps held the remains of Mercians who 

 had come south under Penda, and had met their death before the Gospel 

 had been preached in these parts : these may provisionally be assigned 

 to the second quarter of the seventh century. But apart from these, 

 the discovery of urns and skeletons together in the centre of the county 

 at Brixworth, Holdenby and Desborough, though the cases are not 

 all uniform, suggests that a tribe presumably Anglian barely penetrated 

 into the uplands between Rugby and Naseby before the spread of 

 Christianity ; for urns do not seem to occur as a rule in Northampton- 

 shire with skeletons placed with the head to the south or the south-west 

 in the pre-Christian manner. The excavator of the Desborough ceme- 

 tery regarded these mixed burials as a sign of transition from cremation 

 to inhumation.' This may be true where urns are found with bodies 



' Archaok^a, vol. xlv. p. 467. 

 248 



