ANGLO-SAXON 

 REMAINS 



IF account be taken of the original aspect and extent of Arden, the 

 Anglo-Saxon remains of Warwickshire now preserved in museums 

 acquire a coherence that is certainly exceptional, and an interest 



that seldom attaches to isolated finds. A glance at the map will 

 justify the statement of a well-known local antiquary that sepulchral 

 relics of the pagan period are confined to the valley of the Avon. 

 Perhaps the only exception is near Atherstone in the north, which must 

 have been alien territory before the Anglian invaders from the north 

 and cast skirted the forest and founded the Mercian kingdom of the 

 midlands. 



It is difficult in these days and in this country to appreciate the 

 sundering influence of such a forest as that which covered most of the 

 county between the Avon and the site of Birmingham. The enlarged 

 area of cultivation and the improved means of communication have 

 annihilated the obstacles that to a primitive population must have been 

 of immense importance. Friend and foe alike would find the transit 

 irksome if not dangerous ; and though great highways ran beside it, 

 Arden must have hindered intercourse between the dwellers to the north 

 and south of what is known to-day as Warwickshire. 



Of the Rycknield Way nothing need here be said, as it only skirts 

 the western border of the county ; but during the post-Roman period 

 an important part must have been played in the over-running of the 

 southern midlands by the Watling and Fosse Ways that meet at High 

 Cross. The latter road runs through the centre of the earliest settle- 

 ments of the Teutons in the Avon valley, and not only determined to 

 some extent the area of their occupation, but also seems to indicate at 

 least one point at which the strangers entered the county. 



Who these new-comers were may also be fairly conjectured from a 

 comparative examination of the data furnished by history and archaeology. 

 The Venerable Bede, who wrote at the beginning of the eighth century, 

 is our best authority 1 for the settlement of a people called the Hwiccii 

 or Hwiccans in the Severn valley. They seem to have been an offshoot, 

 and were certainly the neighbours, of the West Saxons ; and from the 

 extent of the pre-Reformation diocese of Worcester* it is permissible to 



1 Ecclesiastical History, bk. ii. chap, z ; bk. iv. chaps. 13, 23. 



2 The metropolis of the Hwiccan diocese (Kemble, Codex Diplomatics, No. xci.). 



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