A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



connexion between the find at Barlaston and the series from the north-east 

 of the county and the opposite district of Derbyshire has been already noticed ; 

 and we cannot be far wrong in identifying the Dove valley colonists with the 

 Pecsaetan, or dwellers in the Peak, mentioned in the remarkable list of settle- 

 ments known as the Tribal Hidage, and dating from the first half of the 

 seventh century. 37 These settlers were evidently accustomed to bury their 

 dead in the grave-mounds or barrows of the Bronze period, but the reason 

 may simply be that such mounds are particularly plentiful and conspicuous 

 south of the Peak, and the practice was by no means confined to this area. 88 



The Pecsaetan were evidently included in the Mercian kingdom, but 

 the archaeological material is too meagre to settle the question whether they 

 were akin to the occupants of the Trent valley near Burton. The available 

 evidence points to their isolation, and the frequent discovery of enamels executed 

 in the traditional British style points to their close contact with the native 

 element. Further investigations with regard to the manufacture and distri- 

 bution of the enamelled bowls may eventually throw some light on this 

 question of intercourse. 



In connexion with the English occupation of this district, reference may 

 be made to the varieties of dialect observed within the county borders. 38 " 

 East and west, approximately through Stone, runs the southern limit of the 

 use of a ' suspended /, or a voiceless th, for the test-word the ; and this 

 peculiarity of pronunciation suggests a somewhat close racial connexion 

 between the inhabitants of the Potteries and those of Cheshire, Derbyshire, 

 and Nottinghamshire, the limit following roughly the line of the Trent 

 below Burton. Minor differences have also been noticed in this group of 

 counties, and in view of what has been said with regard to north Staffordshire 

 and Derbyshire, it is of interest to find that the dialect of Derbyshire south 

 of Buxton is also heard along a strip of north-east Staffordshire parallel to 

 the Dove, and bounded by a line from Buxton to Uttoxeter, thus embracing 

 practically all the early burials apart from those in the neighbourhood of 

 Burton. The latter is connected by dialect with south Staffordshire, north 

 Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and east Shropshire. 



It is probable that the original centre of Mercia was the Trent valley 

 near Burton, and the remains support the view that these were the most 

 westerly body of Angles, their kinsmen (the Middle and South Angles) 

 having occupied or obtained control of that part of the Midlands lying 

 between Sherwood on the north and Arden and Rockingham Forest on the 

 south. S9 They would thus be the neighbours of the West Saxons and their 

 early allies the Hwiccas of the Lower Severn ; but as the southern kingdom 

 declined, the Mercians pressed south and became the masters of south-east 

 England in the days of Wulfhere. This digression will help to explain why 

 there is much in the original West Saxon area that resembles the products of 

 Anglian graves in Staffordshire and other parts of Mercia ; whereas objects 

 distinctively West Saxon are not found in the northern Midlands. If there 



37 Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (New Ser.), xiv, 191. 



38 An example occurred at Oldbury, near Atherstone, Warwickshire (P.C.H. If am. \, 267) ; and many 

 are recorded from Yorkshire. 



** These details are taken from A. J. Ellis, EngRsh Dialects, their Sounds and Homes, 7, 90, 92, 101, and 

 map. 



39 For the limits of Mercia see H. M. Chadwick, Origin of the Engl. Nation, j. 



214 



