381 
in, I think, a very satisfactory manner. It appears to have 
extended in different directions to Tadcaster, Shirburn, Hali- 
fax, Bingley, and the borders of Craven, including the whole 
or greater part of the valleys of the Aire, the Calder, and the 
Wharfe, and to have remained with the same limits through 
the Saxon period still dependent upon Leeds, which had 
become a royal town ; but the Saxons called this territory 
Elmete. This name is said to have been given to it on 
account of the number of elm trees which grew in its 
woods, but this is a derivation which appears to me hardly 
satisfactory, and that of the name "Leeds is still more , 
obscure. 
""The territory of Loid^s, or Elmete, had other claims upon A 
the consideration of King Edwin, in its pleasant valleys, the q 
extensive woods with which they were covered, no doubt 
filled with game, and perhaps the political importance of its 
geographical position and of its roads, and he built for him- 
self at, or not far from Leeds, a mansion, or palace, which 
continued long to be a favourite residence of the Northum- 
brian kings. The site of this palace has been generally 
supposed to be Osmundthorpe, where in Thoresby's time 
extensive and bold entrenchments were still to be seen, and 
where antiquities of various kinds have been at different " 
times dug up. Among these was a gold coin of the Emperor 
Justinian, found in the year 1774, an object which points to 
a date not earlier than the seventh century, when that 
emperor lived, and which hardly can have been possessed in 
this district by any one of less than princely rank. The/^ ##VvV#>^£ 
remarkable earthworks of what is supposed also to have been^ ^ 
a residence of Edwin of Northumbria, are found at Barwick- 
in-Elmete. 
These earthworks belong to a class which is, I think, not 
very uncommon in the North of England. They consist of ' 
one larger inclosure, of an oblong form, which no floubt con- 
