Bath under West Saxon Dominion. 29 



ments. They settled as they advanced, and advanced only 

 as they wanted to settle. Guided mainly by the colonizing 

 motive, they used up the country no faster than they were 

 impelled by the needs of their own expansion. When, in 

 577, they got possession of Akeman, they did not settle 

 there, but they emptied it of its inhabitants, and occupied 

 the country round about. All their habits made them averse 

 to city life ; they loved the free and open country, and 

 pitched their habitations where a stream, or a plain, or a 

 wood took their fancy. The desolation of Akeman seems 

 to have been the theme of a Saxon poet. 



There is at Exeter a book still lying where it was deposited 

 about the year 1050 by Leofric, the tenth bishop of Crediton 

 and first bishop of Exeter. It is a volume of English poetry ; 

 it is unmistakably described in the extant catalogue of books 

 given by him to his cathedral ; and it is still in the keeping 

 of the chapter. One of the oldest poems in this book is a 

 fragmentary piece descriptive of 3. city in ruins. There is 

 massive masonry : the place was once handsomely built and 

 decorated and held by warriors, but now all tumbled about ; 

 works of art exposed to the sky and forming a strange con- 

 trast with the desolation around; there is a wide pool of 

 water, hot without fire ; and there are the once-frequented 

 baths. This is no vague poetic dream, but the portrait of a 

 definite spot. It suits the old Brito-Roman ruin of Akeman 

 after '5 7 7 ; and it suits no other place that I can think of in 

 the habitable world. The old view that it was a fortress or 

 castle seems misplaced in time, as well as incompatible with 

 the expressions in the text.* 



* Years ago I discussed this little poem before the Bath Field Club ; and 

 ray argument was subsequently printed in the Proceedings of that 

 Society (1872). My identification of the ruin with Acemanceaster (Bath) 

 was approved by Mr. Freeman in his volume on ' Rufus." 



