OF SELBORNE. '279 



LETTER II. 



THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in the 

 time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. But, 

 as there are few if any accounts of villages before Domesday, 

 it will be best to begin with that venerable record. " Ipse 

 " rex tenet Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam 

 " geldavit. De isto manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo pres- 

 " bytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia. Tempore regis 

 " Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos et sex denarios ; 

 " modo octo solidos et quatuor denarios." Here we see that 

 Selborne was a royal manor ; and that Editha, the queen of 

 Edward the Confessor, had been lady of that manor; and 

 was succeeded in it by the Conqueror ; and that it had a 

 church. Besides these, many circumstances concur to prove 

 it to have been a Saxon village ; such as the name of the 

 place itself 1 the names of many fields, and some families, k 



this kind into the shade. Mr. Bennett was not aware of Mr. SewelPa 

 letter ; or his opinion respecting the cause of the existence of the coins 

 would doubtless have been different. Lord Selborne's discovery was, of 

 course, many years subsequent. See Bennett's edition, 1836, p. 517 note. 

 T. B.] 



* Selesburne, Selebume, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selbom, as it 

 has been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation ; for 

 Sel signifies great, and burn torrens, a brook or rivulet : so that the name 

 seems to be derived from the great perennial stream that breaks out at 

 the upper end of the village. Sel also signifies bonus, item, fcecundus, 

 fertilis. " Sel-saejir-tun : foecunda graminis clausura; fertile pascuum: 

 a meadow in the parish of Godelming is still called Sal-gars-ton." Lye's 

 Saxon Dictionary, in the Supplement, by Mr. Manning. 



k Thus the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp means 

 a soldier. Thus we have a church-litton, or enclosure for dead bodies, and 

 not a church-yard: there is also a Culver-croft near the Grange-farm, 

 being the enclosure where the priory pigeon-house stood, from culver a 

 pigeon. Again there are three steep pastures in this parish called the 

 Lithe, from H lithe, dims. The wicker-work that binds and fastens down 

 a hedge on the top is called ether, from ether an hedge. When the good 



