Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/166

 Devon Notes and Queries, 115 I think the first is more likely to be Milborne Port in Somer- set, which was the King's manor in Domesday Book; the second seems to be Lustleigh, written Sutreworde in the same record (see Trans, Devon. Assoc,^ 1896, p. 430); and the third is possibly Lifton or North Lew, the former being the King's manor and the head of a hundred, and the latter the Queen's manor. At the end of this second list of places occurs the remarkable phrase: — "that is, all that I have among the Welsh race, excepting Triggshire." Whether this refers to all the places in the list, to those in Devon, or to the last three only (the break indicated above might be held to sup- port the last suggestion), it proves clearly that a considerable portion of Alfred's dominions was still peopled mainly by Cornish, and further, if the above identification of Heortigtun is correct, it shows that, while the south of Devon was in this state, the north had become English. Although this is contrary to what historians tell us, there are many other reasons for supposing that such was the case, some of which it will be well to mention. The earliest known land charter relating to Devon is a grant by King Ethelheard in 739 to Bishop Forthhere of Sherborne for founding a monastery at Crediton (Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Collection of Early Charters, p. i.) The area included the present hundred of Crediton and much more, extending even to the border of Dartmoor. Assuming that the English local names given for the boundaries were copied verbatim from the original grant, we have proof, not only that the English were settled at Crediton at that date, but also that they had been there for many years. The first time that the name Devon occurs in history seems to be in 823, when the men of Devon are represented as fighting on behalf of the English. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us ** there was a fight between the Weala and the Defna at Gafulford," and Ethelwerd's Chronicle states that "a battle was fought against the Britons in the province of Defna, at a place called Gafulforda.'' Although several other suggestions have been made, the usual identification of Gafulford with the present Camelford is not easily upset, and the latter entry seems to indicate that the north corner of Cornwall was then included in