9i 



of the age in question, as to the part of England in which is 

 situated the actual place named in the record. 



" An. DCXIV. Now Cynegils and Cwichelm fought on Bean- 

 dune and slew two thousand and 65 Welsh." 



This was read for " Byndon," Dorset, by Camden (1587); as 

 it had ten years earlier been read by Lambarde.f But Gibson, 

 when editing the Saxon Chronicle, says that all the copies he 

 had used have the name with an m " Beawdune." He therefore 

 prefers Bampton, Devon ; and is approved in his view by E. 

 Gough in the Additions to Camden. Out of this removal has 

 been lately started another, to a third place. It is now said the 

 battle could not have been at Bampton Devon, because the 

 Saxons had not yet advanced so far to the west ; therefore it 

 must be the Bampton in Oxfordshire. 



Since Gibson, several MSS., including what is said to be the 

 'oldest,* have been brought forward, with the reading "Beaw- 

 dune." So also read Florence of Worcester, Henry of Hunting- 

 don, and Leland's extract from Marianus Scotus. Moreover, 

 although it is not to be denied that "-don " and "-ton" are some- 

 times converted ; it is believed that this does not happen so 

 generally as the convenience of such changes has tempted 

 interpreters to assume. The original appropriation by Camden 

 of this name to Bindon, in Dorset, may therefore safely replace 

 that of Gibson's even on its philological ground: and his 

 historical argument that all the Britons had already fled for 

 safety into more western parts of England, it is thought has 

 here been confuted. We find them here in the very place 

 where they were in immediate contact with Wareham, a favourite 

 landing-place of their disturbers. These doubts, indeed, could 

 never have been raised, if it had been yet observed that the 

 Saxons were at this very time making their way towards 

 Somerset by this route through Dorset ; and that, as we now see, 

 they were still flanked by an unconquered district of the 



fDict. Top. (1577), first printed 1730. 



*See Mon. H. Br., p. 306, and Pref. p. 75., and Anglo-Sax. Cnron., 

 Bolls ed., yol. i., pp. 38-39. 



