Book I.] EXNING. 13 



may then be sought for, and, as these are evidences generally 

 capable of comparative and chronological classification, they 

 become of importance, and in the hands of a judicious collector 

 are no longer rubbish unfit to occupy that most valuable of 

 commodities entrusted to our husbandry — time. 



Accordingf to the best authorities the Devil's Ditch 

 was the boundary between the two Saxon kingdoms 

 of East Anglia and Mercia while the Heptarchy lasted, 

 and although we have no definite evidence of the town 

 of Newmarket, pe^^ se, having existed prior to the 

 Middle Aees, it seems that this unnamed hamlet formed 

 a part of Exning in the Anglo-Saxon era. Exning may 

 be said to have decayed in the same ratio as New- 

 market increased in importance and prominence. 

 Formerly the parish of Exning comprehended the 

 whole of what is now that of Newmarket, and its 

 church was the mother-church to which the flock of the 

 latter resorted. Consequently Newmarket may claim, 

 as a portion of Exning (in those days of geographical 

 ambiguity) the honour of being the birth-place of St. 

 Etheldreda, a daughter of Anna and Hereswitha, 

 king and queen of East Anglia, circa a.d. 630. 

 Exning was anciently called Ixning — a word evidently 

 derivable from that of Iceni, by which Coesar and 

 Tacitus described the inhabitants of Cambridgeshire, 

 Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk.* There is no 

 name in the calendar of female British saints more 

 fertile of strange incident and marvellous adventure 

 than that of our St. Etheldreda ; and one of the most 



* See Baudrand's Geography, p. 503, edit. Paris, 1682 ; and Camden, 

 Mag. Brit., vol. v., p. 220, edit. orig. 



