THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
61 
among which Exeter is not identifiable j and tells the story of 
Brutus ; but of definite local history affords little trace. 
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the only important contemporary, 
or partially contemporary, authority for the history of Devon in 
pre-Norman days, and even its references are very scanty. In part 
it follows Bede, and its earlier portion is continued on through 
various hands. Its own independent testimony practically begins 
with the advent of the Danes, taking up the thread of the national 
history in continuous fashion in the opening years of the ninth 
century. There are, it is true, a few earlier references, and the 
first which can by any possibility be assigned to Devon is that 
Cynewulf of Wessex " fought very many battles against the 
Welch," and that Cyneard the etheling, by whom Cynewulf was 
killed, was buried at Axminster (a.d. 755). The only places in 
Devon mentioned in the Chronicle before the conquest of William 
are Exeter, Wembury (Wiganbeorche), Appledore, (?) a fortress in 
Devonshire by the north sea, Crediton, Tavistock, Lydford, Teign- 
ton, Penhoe, Clist, Exmouth (query whether as a town or the river 
embouchure), Dartmouth, and a harbour on the south coast in 
which there was a spirited fight with the Danes, where the ebb- 
tide left their ships aground, and there was a narrow opening to 
the sea, and which seems to have been either on the Exe, Teign, 
Dart, or Plym. 1 
It has been shown conclusively that the Saxon 2 Conquest of 
Devonshire — the first conquest that Dunmonia as such had known 
— must be placed somewhere between the year 710, in which king 
Ine fought the Welch king Gereint, and shortly after which he 
founded the burgh of Taunton 3 to guard his new frontier, and the 
year 823, in which the Weala and the Defena fought a battle at 
1 Asser's Life of JElfred (849-887) does not help us further ; nor does 
iESelweard, who wrote in the latter half of the tenth century, except that 
Asser gives the place of Hubba's defeat as Kynwit, and speaks of Exeter as 
in the British tongue "Caerwisc." 
2 I prefer to adhere to the old term ' Saxon ;' the modern use of ' English,' 
though possibly (?) more correct in the abstract, is apt to mislead. The Eng- 
lish seem to me, indeed, rather the net result of the fusion of races subsequent 
to the Norman Conquest ; and, moreover, the West was settled by Saxons 
proper, not by Angles, though Devon shows admixture. 
3 Probably in a qualified sense. Taunton dates to Roman, and in all like- 
lihood to British, times. 
