A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



Facing the mouth of the Colne and guarding the estuary of the 

 Blackwater was the fortress of Othona or Ithanceaster, now located with 

 general approval at Bradwell-on-Sea. So long as the Count of the Saxon 

 shore had garrisons and ships at his disposal, this approach to the interior 

 would not have been available ; and it was not till the central govern- 

 ment had collapsed, that the Teutonic immigrants who were pouring 

 inland all along the eastern coast from Kent to the Firth of Forth 

 would be able to penetrate the swampy belt that formed the Essex shore, 

 and, ascending the rivers, plant their settlements inland. 



Implicit confidence cannot be placed in the tradition professing to 

 date the arrival of the East Saxons, and practically nothing is known of 

 the course of affairs in this part of Britain during the fifth and sixth 

 centuries. No territory, says Lappenberg, 1 ever passed so obscurely into 

 the hands of an enemy as the north bank of the Thames where the 

 kingdom of the East Saxons comprised the counties of Essex and 

 Middlesex. The year 527* is mentioned, he continues, as that of the 

 first landing of the Saxons there under ./Escwine, whose name reminds 

 us of ./Esc, the prince of the Teutons on the south shore of the Thames. 

 His father's name, OfFa, points however to a connection with the royal 

 house of Mercia. 



Another account makes Sleda the first king of the East Saxons in 

 587,* and this is a much more likely date for the settlement of the people 

 whose relics are described in the following pages, though it is just 

 possible that there were Teutonic colonists on the coast before the 

 departure of the Romans and that the Saxon shore was so called on this 

 account. If they differed to any extent from the Romanized Briton, 

 their remains have yet to be discovered. 



An interesting piece of evidence is however afforded by the coinage 

 of the post-Roman period. It was not until about 600 that the English 

 replaced their feeble copies of Roman and Merovingian coins by a 

 creation of their own called the sceatta, and this denomination was 

 current till the close of the eighth century, when the penny was intro- 

 duced. Yet of all the sceattas those with the name Lundonia are alone 

 in being of silver so base that it becomes a question whether they should 

 not be described as copper coins. Gold pieces also occur, and it is 

 significant that the two classes of Roman coins current in this country 

 were of these two metals, whereas the preference for silver coins was in 

 some sort a badge of the Teutonic nations.* It would seem therefore that 

 London retained some degree of autonomy while the various Anglo- 

 Saxon kingdoms were growing up in other parts of the country ; and it 

 is fairly certain that the East Saxons were supplied with coined money 

 from London till the days of ./Ethelred II., who set up local mints' at 

 Maldon and Colchester. 



1 History of England under 4ngh-Saxon Kings (Thorpe's translation), i. 112. 



* Henry of Huntingdon. 3 William of Malmesbury. 



4 Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Coins (British Museum), i. p. xx. 



6 Others were established later at Horndon, Harwich (?) and Witham. 



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