ANGLO-SAXON 

 REMAINS 



THERE are few districts in England where the nature and 

 course of the Anglo-Saxon conquest should be more easily 

 traced than in Sussex. About the derivation of the name there 

 can be no doubt whatever, and the kingdom of the South 

 Saxons implies other Saxon areas from which it had to be distinguished. 

 Wessex, the country of the West Saxons, is still a recognized division of 

 England, though its boundaries are somewhat vaguer than of old, and 

 Essex has remained a political unit in the east, while the territory of 

 the Middle Saxons to-day includes the capital of an empire. 



To judge from the tribal name, the South Downs were evidently 

 held in the post-Roman period by a population distinct from that of 

 Kent, but related to the occupants of the district round the upper 

 Thames and of a large area north of that river's lower reaches. Romney 

 Marsh would in itself form a natural barrier on the east, and whatever 

 the actual course of events in what is now Hampshire, it is recorded ' 

 that in 66 1 Wulthere of Mercia handed over Wight to his godson 

 Ethelwald, King of the South Saxons. It was evidently about the same 

 date that the Gospel was preached in these parts. From the time of 

 their landing to the middle of the seventh century, we may therefore 

 regard the South Saxons as a pagan community, and their cemeteries 

 show that they lived and died on the southern slopes of the Downs or 

 in the fertile strip of low-lying country along their base. Beyond the 

 chalk escarpment stretched the forest of the Weald, not inhabited to 

 any extent till after the eleventh century, as the Domesday map clearly 

 shows. 



At what date the Teutonic invaders first secured a footing on this 

 part of the sea-board, cannot be precisely determined ; and it is the 

 business of archaeology to throw some light on questions of this kind, 

 by careful examination of such relics as may be assigned to the fifth 

 and sixth centuries of our era. It must, however, be confessed at the 

 outset that such discoveries have hardly fulfilled the expectations raised 

 by the historical records. This is no doubt due in part to defective 

 observation and inadequate descriptions of the explorations ; but with 



• Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i. 54. 



333 



