loi 



dyke would correspond with the western boundary of the present 

 Hundred of Winfrith. May not this name "Winfrith" have 

 been 'Wentfreotk, or the Liberty of the Wentssete ? It had the 

 ancient forms, " Winfrode "* " Winfrot " and " Winford."f The 

 territory of the Wentssete recorded in the Code, as having 

 formerly belonged to the Durnssete but now to the West-Saxons, 

 would thus be the entire peninsula, south of the Welsh hill district ; 

 containing the Hundred of Winfrith, the Liberty of Bindon, and 

 Purbeck Island. But a part of the low heathy country north of 

 Wareham itself, and between it and the hill districts might also 

 be expected to be necessarily occupied by the invaders possessed 

 of Wareham ; and this seems to be indicated by another dyke, 

 by all writers hitherto described as one of the Belgic Dykes, 

 commonly known as " Coombs Ditch," which, extending from the 

 south-east escarpment of the Milton range to Lytcheat bay in 

 the Wareham estuary, would be the north-eastern frontier of the 

 Wentssete. The ditch is described as being on the east of the 

 dyke. 



Looking again at these two suggestions of the actual territory 

 of the Wentseete, the last seems to be the most acceptable. All 

 that it requires is ; that the West- Saxon possession of it was the 

 result of the fight at Bindon, A.D. 614, which is almost self- 

 evident ; and the small, but important, concession, that the name 

 " Durnssete" has, at some early time, dropped one of its letters, 



On the whole : if the question had depended entirely upon the 

 correct form of the name being " Durnssete," we should hardly 

 have been justified in attributing this Code to the district we 

 have been considering. But the external probability, furnished 

 by the parallel of the circumstances of the place to which the 

 Code must have belonged, with this district of Welsh among the 

 Durnssete, may be thought to be sufficient to identify them. The 

 question is much narrowed by the certainty that both the Code 

 and our Welsh district are within the West-Saxon territory ; and 

 the Code was evidently intended for such a circumscribed locality 

 as we have, by separate independent inferences, found this to 



*Domesday, both Exchequer and Exeter. fTesta de Nevill. 



