A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Oswald* may have temporarily undone the work,' but before 675 the Enghsh 

 were firmly planted on the Ribble, and Ecgfrith (670-85) gave Cartmel 

 ' with all its Britons ' to St. Cuthbert.* 



The thoroughness with which the Northumbrian Angles settled the 

 conquered districts is attested by the almost complete disappearance of Celtic 

 place-names, except in the case of rivers. The first syllable of Manchester is 

 of course Celtic.'' Darwen (Derwent) may have borrowed the name of its 

 stream at a later date, and Frees (in the Fylde) and Leek (in the north- 

 eastern corner of the county) are perhaps doubtful instances of survival. 

 Cartmel would be a clear case if we could be sure that the passage in the 

 Historia de S. Cuthberto already quoted is giving the exact words of 

 Ecgfrith's grant.* It is, however, more probably a Scandinavian name. 



It has been suggested that the ancient tenure by 'cornage' or cattle rent 

 of which some traces are found in Lancashire after the Norman Conquest 

 may have been of Celtic origin, but the question is still a very open one.' 



The English settlements were naturally most numerous in Low Furness, 

 the valley of the Lune and the low-lying districts comprised in the later 

 hundreds of Amounderness, Leyland, and West Derby. 



From the gift of Cartmel no event is recorded in connexion with this 

 district until the last years of the eighth century. On 3 April, 798, notes 

 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was a great battle at Whalley (aet Hwael- 

 leage) ' in Northymbralande ' in which Alric son of Heardberht, and many 

 others were slain.'" From Symeon of Durham, who had a fuller northern 

 chronicle before him, we learn that this was an episode in the strife of 

 faction which was destroying the Northumbrian state. King Eardwulf, 

 confronted by a confederacy headed by the murderers of his predecessor 

 Ethelred, and perhaps encouraged by Mercia, met and overthrew his enemies 

 at Billingahoth near Whalley." 



Five years before the battle of Whalley the Northmen had made their 

 first recorded descent upon the east coast of Northumbria. In 795 they 

 reached Ireland, where by 832 they effected permanent settlements. York 

 was captured, and the kingdom of Northumbria overthrown in 867, and, nine 

 years later Healfdene, we are told in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, divided North- 



* The identification of Maserfeld, the scene of Oswald's defeat and death (642) with Winwick in Maker- 

 field (cf. Hardwick, Jncl. Battlefields in Lanes. 62-99) cannot be upheld. The battle is located at Oswestry 

 in a Life of St. Oswald written about 1 150 ; Sym. Dun. Opera (Rolls Ser.), ii, 353. 



' Elmet is included in the Mercian list known as the Tribal Hidage, c. 660 ; Birch, Cart. Sax. i, 414. 



« Hist, or the Ch. of York (Eddi), i, 25-6 (Rolls Ser.) ; Sym. Dun. Hist. Cuthb. (Surtees Soc), i, 141. 

 The mention of the Britons of Cartmel may suggest that it was a conquest of Ecgfrith, but the passage in 

 Eddi does not justify Green {Making of Engl. 358) in ascribing the conquest of all the region north of the 

 Ribble to that king. It is doubtful whether all the places mentioned by Eddi must be looked for in this 

 quarter (see above, p. 3), and in any case they were the gifts (to Wilfrid) of more than one king. 



' Engl. Hist. Rev. xv, 495. 



* The form of the statement rather suggests this, but the second syllable of the name looks like the old 

 Norse melr, ' sandbank.' 



' F.C.H. Cumb. i, 318. A comage rent is mentioned eo nomine at Little Heaton near Manchester in 

 1235 {Lanes. Final Cone, i, 66), and the rents paid as ' cowmale ' at Heysham and Nether Kellet as late as 

 1 44 1 (Duchy of Lane. Mins. Accts. 100, No. 1790) doubtless fall under the same category. For male or 

 mail-rent see Engl. Hist. Rev. ii, 335 ; Lawrie, Jnet. Seot. Chart. 10. 



'° Chron. (ed. Plummer), sub anno, and ii, 66. 



" Sym. Dun. Hist. Regum (Rolls Ser.), ii, 59. There is a Billinge near Blackburn, and a Billington close 

 to Whalley in which is Langho. Whitaker {Hist, of Whalley (18 1 8), 34) takes Billingahoth, which he amends 

 to Billinghoh, to be the long ridge between the two. His conjecture that the name of the Dux Wada who 

 escaped from the rout is preserved in Wadhow and Waddington is very rash. 



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