280 CASTERS AND CHESTERS. 



in the reign of King Alfred, we still find the word used as a 

 common noun ; for the Chronicle mentions that a body 

 of Danish freebooters ' fared to a waste ceaster in Wir- 

 ral ; it is hight Lega ceaster ; ' that is to say, Legionis 

 castra, now Chester. The grand old English epic of 

 Beowulf, which is perhaps older than the colonisation of 

 Britain, speaks of townsfolk as 'the dwellers in 

 ceasters.' 



As a rule, each particular Eoman town retained its 

 full name, in a more or less clipped form, for official 

 uses; but in the ordinary colloquial language of the 

 neighbourhood they all seem to have been described as 

 ' the Ceaster ' simply, just as we ourselves habitually 

 speak of ' town,' meaning the particular town near 

 which we live, or, in a more general sense, London. 

 Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the 

 Eoman capital of the province ; as when the Chronicle 

 tells us that ' John succeeded to the bishopric of 

 Ceaster ' ; that ' Wilfrith was hallowed as bishop at 

 Ceaster ' ; or that ' .ZEthelberht the archbishop died at 

 Ceaster.' In the south it is employed to mean Win- 

 chester, the capital of the West Saxon kings and 

 overlords of all Britain ; as when the Chronicle says that 

 ' King Edgar drove out the priests at Ceaster from the 

 Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them with 

 monks.' So, as late as the days of Charles II., ' to go 

 to town ' meant in Shropshire to go to Shrewsbury, and 

 in Norfolk to go to Norwich. In only one instance has this 

 colloquial usage survived down to our own days in a large 

 town, and that is at Chester, where the short form has 

 quite ousted the full name of Le^a ceaster. But in the 



