A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



Saxon population. While there are indications that the East Saxon 

 settlement was comparatively late, actual remains discovered in the 

 graves of their kinsmen to the west show that the upper valley of the 

 Thames was reached and occupied by a Teutonic people before the bar- 

 barian craftsman had quite forgotten the artistic methods and designs of 

 Roman civilization. Continental archaeologists agree in referring a 

 somewhat realistic treatment of the favourite animal forms to the fifth 

 century, and undoubted specimens of the kind have occurred in the 

 Berkshire cemeteries as well as in the more Romanized district of the 

 Cantware. 



The loose employment by the early historians of the term Saxon to 

 denote any or all of the roving Teutonic bands that for centuries infested 

 the northern seas, does not affect the supposed connection between the 

 peoples east and west of London ; and there still remains a distinction 

 between Saxon and Angle that is certainly not accidental, but amply 

 confirmed by dialect and archaeology. On the imperfect data as yet 

 available is therefore based a belief that Essex was founded by a branch 

 of the Saxon race that passed over from the continent some time after 

 the Gewissae had found a new home in this country, but probably not 

 while the Angles were founding Norfolk and Suffolk. 



A study of the map, with some consideration of the early condition 

 of the county, must give the impression that Essex as a kingdom was 

 compact and powerful out of all proportion to its size. Its ability to 

 maintain the northern frontier against a population more numerous and 

 probably hostile, may be in part explained by the inclusion of Colchester 

 and London with their Romanized inhabitants under the rule of Uffa's 

 line; and partly perhaps by an understanding with their powerful and 

 progressive neighbours to the south. Whether there is any justification 

 for Dr. Beddoe's identification of the East Saxons with the Jutes l may 

 indeed be open to question, but in any case Essex first appears in his- 

 tory as a sub-kingdom forming part of the Kentish dominions which, 

 however, at that time stretched from the English Channel to the Hum- 

 ber, and included East Anglia. 



A natural frontier better than the Stour was afforded by the forest 

 of Middlesex that stretched in a continuous belt from the Chilterns 

 through south Hertfordshire into the western half of the present county 

 of Essex. This tract was indeed crossed by the Watling Street that 

 connected St. Albans with the Thames, but the Roman township was 

 beyond the forest and probably retained its independence till in course 

 of time a growing Teutonic population spread north and west, even 

 through woodlands that had prevented the Roman engineers from con- 

 tinuing the Ermine Street to London. Ethnological observations seem 

 to show that the Saxons settled in considerable numbers in the neigh- 

 bourhood of London, at least in Middlesex, but it is open to question 

 whether they ever destroyed the city. 2 The Chronicles are significantly 

 silent on this point, and it may be that no Teutons gained a footing 



1 Beddoe, Races of Britain, p. 42. * Ibid. p. 254. 



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