OF SELBORNE. 



407 



LETTER II. 



HAT Selborne was a place of some distinction 

 and note in the time of the Saxons, we can 

 give most undoubted proofs. But, as there 

 are few, if any, accounts of villages before 

 Domesday, it will be best to begin with that 

 venerable record. "Ipse rex tenet Selesburne. Eddid 

 regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit. De isto manerio dono 

 dedit rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia. 

 Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos et 

 sex denarios ; modo octo solidos et quatuor denarios." 

 Here we see that Selborne was a royal manor ; and that 

 Editha, the queen of Edward the Confessor, had been lady 

 of that manor ; and was succeeded in it by the Conqueror ; 

 and that it had a church. Beside these, many circum- 

 stances concur to prove it to have been a Saxon village ; 

 such as the name of the place itself, 1 the names of many 

 fields, and some families, 2 with a variety of words in hus- 

 bandry and common life, still subsisting among the country 

 people. 



What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to 



1 Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as 

 it has been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation ; 

 for Sel signifies great, and burn torrens, a brook or rivulet : so that the 

 name seems to be derived from the great perennial stream that breaks 

 out at the upper end of the village. Sel also signifies " bonus, item, 

 fcecundus, fertilis. Sel-jaejijf-'cun, foecunda graminis clausura; fertile 

 pascuum. Abiit tamen apud nonnullos in nomen proprium. Inde pratum 

 quoddam apud Godelming in agro Surriensi hodie vocatur Sal-gars-ton" 

 Lye's Saxon Dictionary, in the Supplement, by Mr. Manning. G. W. 



2 Thus the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp 

 means a soldier. Thus we have a church- litton, or enclosure for dead 

 bodies, and not a church-yard : there is also a Culver-croft near the 

 Grange-farm, being the enclosure where the priory pigeon-house stood, 

 from culver, a pigeon Again there are three steep pastures in this 

 parish called the Lithe, from Hlithe, clivus. The wicker-work that binds 



