95 



truth can well afford to satisfy; he brackets into a second 

 edition as " something singular" that various passages that he 

 quotes should still contain the form. " Defenasare along with 

 those of " Sumerssete " and "Dorsete."f 



It is not however without reason that Mr. Thorpe, in his note 

 on the rubric J, gives his opinion that the interpolated e in 

 Lambarde's edition was " either a clerical or a typographical 

 error." But next comes the question whether "Dunssete " is 

 merely a descriptive word, to be translated ; or the proper name 

 of a particular people. The Anglo-Saxon text is printed in the 

 Public Eecords Collection of 1840 from a MS. of the tenth 

 century, * but there is also printed || an ancient Latin version 

 from three MSS. of the thirteenth century, and in this it is 

 given as a name, without translation. It was Lambarde 

 who first translated it to " Monticolse ; " and he is followed 

 by Wilkins. Mr. Thorpe in the Eecord Collection, trans- 

 fers the name, without translation, into his English translation ; 

 but in his note he explains it to mean " Mountain dwellers." 



The truth in fact is that there never was a people called 

 " Devnssete." The "Sumorssete," the " Durnssete," and the 

 " Wilssete," were no doubt so called from some circumstance in 

 the conquest of them, as having been more simultaneously or 

 broadly colonised or settled by the conquerors. There is, how- 

 ever, no original precedent for the suffix "-saete" for the 

 Devonshire settlers. It is believed, indeed, that the area of the 

 earlier occupation of that province by the Saxons has been 

 much over-estimated. The received theory is that the early 

 dynastic or political advance of the Saxons westward, continued 

 into Devon as far as the Exe ; either by way of Dorset, or more 

 northward from Somerset. Mr. Kemble says: " As the Saxon 

 arms advanced westward, Exeter became for a time the frontier 

 town and market between the British and the men of Wessex : " 

 evidently meaning, as the other later authorities also appear to 

 mean, between the West-British kingdom and the West-Saxon 



f Norm. C. 2ndedn., vol. 11., also 564, 158 and 315. Palgrave, cclxiii. 

 J A. S. Laws, Pub. Rec., 1840, fol. edn., p. 150, 

 * P. 150 || p. 530 



