280 CASTERS AND CHESTERS. 



in the reign of King Alfred, we still find the word used as a 

 common noun ; for the Chronicle, mentions that a body 

 of Danish freebooters ' fared to a waste ceaster in Wir- 

 ral ; it is hight Lega ceaster ; ' that is to say, Legionis 

 castra, now Chester. The grand old English epic of 

 Beowulf, which is perhaps older than the colonisation of 

 Britain, speaks of townsfolk as ' the dwellers in 

 ceasters.' 



As a rule, each particular Eoman town retained its 

 full name, in a more or less clipped form, for official 

 uses; but in the ordinary colloquial language of the 

 neighbourhood they all seem to have been described as 

 ' the Ceaster ' simply, just as we ourselves habitually 

 speak of ' town,' meaning the particular town near 

 which we live, or, in a more general sense, London. 

 Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the 

 Roman capital of the province ; as when the Chronicle. 

 tells us that ' John succeeded to the bishopric of 

 Ceaster ' ; that ' Wilfrith was hallowed as bishop at 

 Ceaster ' ; or that ' ^Ethelberht the archbishop died at 

 Ceaster.' In the south it is employed to mean Win- 

 chester, the capital of the West Saxon kings and 

 overlords of all Britain ; as when the Chronicle says that 

 ' King Edgar drove out the priests at Ceaster from the 

 Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them with 

 monks.' So, as late as the days of Charles II., ' to go 

 to town ' meant in Shropshire to go to Shrewsbury, and 

 in Norfolk to go to Norwich. In only one instance has this 

 colloquial usage survived down to our own days in a large 

 town, and that is at Chester, where the short form has 

 quite ousted the full name of Lega ceaster. But in the 



