ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



the natural riches of the river-bottoms, where the alluvial soil responded 

 even to the most primitive methods of husbandry. The neighbourhood 

 of the Severn however was exposed to forays by the Welsh, who were 

 not thrown back far beyond the river even by the victorious OfFa, if the 

 famous earthwork may really be assigned to him. 



In any case the Avon valley would prove more inviting to the early 

 settlers than the woodland beyond the Severn known as Malvern Chase, 

 which occupied the whole of the south-west portion of the county. 

 Above this lay the forest of Wyre, which was the western continuation 

 of Feckenham and of the greater Arden which stretched across Warwick- 

 shire. From the county town eastward to the border ran the southern 

 limit of Feckenham Forest, and Upton Snodsbury thus marks perhaps 

 the most northern settlement of the Hwiccans in the sixth and seventh 

 centuries. Between this and the two remaining sites, Bredon's Norton 

 and Little Hampton in the south-eastern angle of the county, we may 

 thus look for the chief and perhaps the only relics of the tribe within 

 the present county borders. Other traces of their occupation may no 

 doubt be detected in place names and traditions ; and though local 

 etymology has its pitfalls, it is hard to abstain from connecting some 

 names with that of the tribe which bestowed them. Thus there appears 

 to be no warrant in philology for the historian's conception ^ of the 

 county town in a literal sense as the ' stronghold of the Hwiccans,' the 

 name occurring in charters under the forms of Wigernaceaster, Wigar- 

 ceaster, Wigraceaster, and in Latin, Wigornia. But an instance that 

 seems to carry conviction with it is Wychwood Forest in Oxfordshire, 

 which appears in a charter dated 841 as Hwiccewudu.^ Though included 

 in the neighbouring county, this woodland may well have served as a 

 neutral zone between the West Saxons proper of the upper Thames valley 

 and their kinsmen on the Severn. According to a perambulation ^ made 

 in 1300 the forest stretched as far west as Tainton, which is virtually on 

 the present border of Gloucestershire, in the neighbourhood of Burford ; 

 and possibly included Daylesford, which is still in an outlying portion of 

 Worcestershire between Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Norton. 



If the year 577 be accepted as the earliest date for West Saxon 

 burials in Worcestershire and other Hwiccan districts, it may be allow- 

 able to use the same authority for the subsequent period and to put a 

 limit of date to West Saxon dominion in these parts. It is possible to 

 see in the treaty of Cirencester the formal acknowledgment by Cynegils 

 and Cwichelm of Penda's sovereignty;* and it was either at that time or 

 in 645, when Cenwealh was driven out for repudiating his Mercian wife, 

 that Hwiccia ceased to belong to Wessex and became a province of the 

 midland kingdom. 



A change of rulers would not necessarily imply any modification of 



1 Dr. Stubbs in Dictionary of Christian Biography, iii. i8l-z. 



* Prof. Earle, Journal of Archaohgical Institute, xix. 52. 



* A map and details are given in Archaokgia, xxxvii. 425. 



* J. R. Green, Making of England {li^j), ii. 19 ; Freeman, Norman Conquest, i. 37. 



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