Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/444

 480 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. iv. DEC. 9, ditch north of Binsey, which I have identi- fied as practically the same as that of Ceadwalla's grant, was the actual boundary line between the Abbot of Abingdon's land and that of the liberty of the city of Oxford, from a time beyond the memory of man. 2. He is silent on the place of meeting of the abbot's court being Grandpont, where Folly Bridge now is, the "Suthanford" of Eadwy's charter, in accordance with a not unusual practice for Anglo-Saxon courts to meet at convenient places on or close to boundaries. The abbot's land adjoined that of the liberty of Oxford along a boundary of some miles. 3. He is silent as to how the recognized boundaries of the abbey land at Abingdon, if Eoccenford was there, are to be identified with those to which I have drawn attention. So that we have arrived at this stage in the discussion. The boundaries I identify are actual boundaries recognized as such both by the Abbey of Abingdon and the liberty of the city of Oxford, while MR. STEVENSON points to no similarly recognized boundaries. MR. STEVENSON says, "If he is right, we should have the curious result that the Cead walla boundaries, which are expressly said to relate to Abingdon, really related to the country north of Bromcombe and Bagley." Here MR. STEVENSON has accurately stated my case, as I stated it myself in 9th S. iii. 44. At the time Ceadwalla's boundaries were first perambulated or laid down, there was no abbey at what is now Abingdon. That place, such as it was, appears to have been called Seovechesham. The building of the Anglo-Saxon abbey at Abingdon was not completed even 270 years after Ceadwalla's time. Among the grants of Eadwy is one dated 13 February, 956, making a grant of wood at Hawk ridge for build- ing the abbey at Abingdon (' Cartularium Saxonicum,' edited by De Gray Birch, iii. 88). The original abbey community was at or near Chandling's farm at the soutli of Bagley Wood, where Ceadwalla's bounds indicate it to have been. The " Abbendune" of these bounds was probably a down, or possibly the remains of a Celtic dun, close to the abbey, and the " port strete" a way leading to its tun or enclosure. The boundary went thence eastward " lang stret on hiwey to ecgunesworth and bacgan leah " (at or near where Bagley House is), thence eastward to Scseceling acre and Stanford, i.e., the stone ford at Sandford-on-Thames. These are the southernmost bounds of Ceadwalla's grant, and they extend from Bromcumbes heafod, now Broom Hill, on the west, to the Thames at Sandford on the east. MR. STEVENSON' says the bounds in Eadwy's charter certainly go southwards. As I differ from him I should be glad to see what proof he can bring forward in support of such a confident statement. He also says that Ceadwalla's boundaries and the charter of Eadred containing them are post-Norman forgeries, and he indicates more definitely that they are of thirteenth- century date. Eadred's charter is written in Latin. Ceadwalla's bounds, which are quoted in it, are written in Anglo-Saxon. I have no doubt these bounds are genuine. The Rev. Joseph Stevenson, the editor of the 'Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon' in the "Rolls Series," who gave more attention to this matter than any man before him or since, recognizes that the subject is difficult; but as regards this fragment of a charter of Cead- walla, he says, " There is no sufficient ground to question the genuineness of this docu- ment" (' Chron. Mon. do Abingdon,' ii. 495). If, as MR. W. H. STEVENSON says, these boundaries of Cead walla were forged, they were forged in Anglo-Saxon. It will be interesting to see the proof that in the thir- teenth century people wrote in Anglo-Saxon at all; not seini-Saxon, but the genuine ancient language. Was there a school of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford in the thirteenth century ? If there had been, I think we should not now be dis- cussing whether the later Anglo-Saxon name Oxeneford or Oxenaford, of which the earliest form is Eoccenford, was derived from men or oxen. The grants of land to the early monasteries were colonization grants. All that the early kings had in their power to give was the land, certain services of the people settled on the land, or who might become settled on it, and the fines and forfeitures arising from the administration of the law. The land men- tioned in Ceadwalla's grant was of this nature; wood is mentioned twice. In Eadwy's time, 270 years later, it had become much more settled. Compare the number of bounds mentioned in the section from Eoccenes to Wuduford, which occur in both Ceadwalla's grant and that of Eadwy : in Ceadwalla's grant seven, in Eadwy's fifteen. This shows that during the intervening time the land had been brought much more under cultivation, and consequently the boundary marks increased in number. Compare the number of the boundary ditches in the whole perambulation of both charters: in Cead- walla's bounds two, in Eadwy's eight. Com-