LETTER II 



THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in 

 the time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. 

 But, as there are few if any accounts of the villages be- 

 fore Domesday, it will be best to begin with that venerable 

 record. " Ipse rex tenet Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, 

 et nunquam geldavit. De isto manerio dono dedit rex 

 Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia. Tern- 

 pore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos et sex 

 denarios ; modo octo solidos et quatuor denarios." Here 

 we see that Selborne was a royal manor ; and that Editha 

 the queen of Edward the Confessor, had been lady of 

 that manor, and was succeeded in it by the Conqueror, 

 and that it had a church. Besides these, many circum- 

 stances concur to prove it to have been a Saxon village ; 

 such as the name of the place itself, 1 the names of 

 many fields, and some families, 2 with a variety of words 

 in husbandry and common life, still subsisting among 

 the country people. 



1 Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as it has 

 been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation ; for Sel signifies 

 great, and burn torrens, a brook or rivulet : so that the name seems to be derived 

 from the great perennial stream that breaks out at the upper end of the village. 

 Sel also signifies bonus, item facundus, fertilis. " Sel Ssejip-cun : facunda 

 graminis clausura ; fertile pascuum : a meadow in the parish of Godelming is 

 still called Sal-gars-ton" LYE'S Saxon Dictionary, in the Supplement, by Mr. 

 Manning. [G. W.] 



2 Thus, the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp means a 

 soldier. Thus we have a church-litton, or enclosure for dead bodies, and not a 

 church-yard ; there is also a Culver-croft near the Grange-farm, being the en- 

 closure where the priory pigeon-house stood, from culver a pigeon. Again there 

 are three steep pastures in this parish called the Lithe, from Hlithe, clivus. The 

 wicker-work that binds and fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from 



