A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



If analogy counts for anything, the Chilternsaetna would in the 

 ordinary course of events have given their name to a county in later 

 Anglo-Saxon times, and Chilternset would have survived along with 

 Dorset and Somerset. Though the Chiltern Hundreds still mark their 

 district, the settlers of Chiltern, like those in Elmet, the Peak of 

 Derbyshire and elsewhere, were absorbed into more important or more 

 convenient political divisions. Many names with the suffix saeta or 

 saetna occur in the early records ; and though few can be located with 

 any certainty, there is nothing in the form of their names inconsistent 

 with the British origin of these peoples, who may have coalesced with 

 their foreign conquerors. The Somersaetna and Dorsaetna certainly 

 retained their independence till the middle of the seventh century, while 

 the Magasaeta of Herefordshire and the Wilsaeta of Wiltshire were 

 both on the British border. There may be some significance too in 

 the story that before Caed walla won the throne of Wessex in 685 he 

 was a fugitive in the forests of Andred and Cilton, the latter being in 

 all probability an erroneous form of the original Ciltern. His thoroughly 

 British name warrants the conjecture that in these isolated tracts Caed- 

 walla found not only a refuge from his Saxon enemies, but help and 

 encouragement from the native element that must still have been strong 

 in his day, and probably survived to a much later date in some localities. 



Whatever the proportion of British blood in their veins, there is no 

 doubt that the inhabitants of this part of the country spoke Anglo- 

 Saxon at an early date. According to Dr. A. J. Ellis, 1 south Hertford- 

 shire belongs to the south-eastern district, which also comprises all 

 Middlesex, south-east Buckinghamshire and south-west Essex. Through- 

 out the district however there is a substratum of the mid-eastern dialect, 

 which is detected in the northern parts of Hertfordshire and in nearly 

 the whole of Essex, also in Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and mid- 

 Northamptonshire. With the exception therefore of the Anglian 

 districts of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, it may be said that all 

 east of the Chilterns and the Northamptonshire uplands is connected 

 by community of dialect, which no doubt took its rise in community of 

 race among the earliest Teutonic settlers of the district, and this has 

 been gradually modified by the speech of London during fourteen 

 centuries. 



The grouping of dialects in this part of the country would thus 

 unite Hertfordshire with Essex, and lead us to expect from archaeology 

 some indication of Saxon rather than of Anglian influence in the county. 

 The few results already obtained in Hertfordshire certainly show a 

 marked absence of Anglian characteristics, but many discoveries must be 

 made before the peculiarities of East Saxon remains can be demonstrated. 

 To the west of the Chilterns enough has been recovered from the graves 

 to show that the settlers in the upper Thames valley, presumably the 

 Saxons of the west, were homogeneous and distinguishable from their 

 neighbours ; but at present nothing has been found to link them with 



1 English Dialects : their Sounds and Homes, pp. 51, 57. 

 252 



