87 



forced together by such narrow and inflexible limits. This 

 severe policy, being unnecessary for the indefinite and elastic 

 limits of a country community, we here find the more liberal 

 policy of the Saxon king not only predominant, but taking the 

 form of active conciliatory encouragement. 



In fact, besides being able to define Athelstan's toleration 

 or protection of this as a Welsh district ; we seem to be able, 

 out of this very case, to reconstruct an example of his manipu- 

 lation in carrying it into effect. We have already seen William 

 Worcester's record of a tradition, which he had at Exeter from 

 the Friar John Surges, that Brandwellan = Branwallader was 

 buried at Branston=Branscombe, eight miles from Axminster. 

 This Branscombe was bequeathed by King Alfred to his second 

 son Edward the Elder, the father of Athelstan. We next find 

 Branscombe, among the formerly alienated manors, recovered for 

 Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric ; and at this day it still 

 belongs to the Dean and Chapter. Here we almost see Athel- 

 stan's hand at work in Saxonizing that broader district of East 

 Devon and South Dorset, which as already suggested, had 

 escaped the earlier conquest ; and reducing his Welsh exception 

 to the smaller and stricter limit above defined. In the course of 

 this process, he includes this patrimonial manor in his muni- 

 ficent endowment of his monastery at Exeter ; and, although 

 leaving the name of the local British saint in the name of the 

 place, removes his shrine to that of St. Samson at Milton, in his 

 tolerated Welsh district ; and the Church at Branscombe receives 

 a new altar in the name which it still retains ; that of the great 

 West Saxon St. Winfred, the first Bishop of Mainz, who was 

 still commemorated in the church at Exeter to which he had 

 belonged. 



About six miles west of Milton, among the same crest of hills, 

 this continued British nationality is further confirmed by a 

 second dedication, at Alton Pancras. Not that this is of tribal 

 or non-Catholic origin, but it has manifestly become Damnonian 

 or Cornu-British by adoption. In truth this island has received 

 two distinct inoculations of the name, St. Pancras. A later one 



