Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/451

 9*s. vii. JUKE s, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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detached portion of Banbury hundred) was associated with a "St. Dionia," who is supposed to be the same as Diuma (Stanton's 4 Menology,'p. 742).

15. Herefinna. There are two Harvingtons in Worcestershire, one near Kidderminster and another near Evesham. The latter is called Herferthun in Domesday Book, but the former may indicate the position of this tribe.

16. Sweord ora. Here we seem to pass from Mercia proper to a district in Hampshire which the kings of the Mercians held in their own hands. We are told that Wulfhere gave the Isle of Wight and the country of the Meonwara to his godson Ethel wealch, King of Sussex, when the latter was baptized in Mercia in 661. The West Saxons conquered the Isle of Wight in 686. The name Sweord ora may be preserved in Swarraton, near- Winchester.

17. Gifla. Another reading is Eyfla. Domesday Book gives an Effelle in Hamp- shire, and Ivelton (Everton?) occurs later among some names belonging to the Hurst Castle district (3 Edward III. in Gal. Inq. p.m., ii. 27). There are now a Weevil, near Gosport, and a Wivelrod, near Alton.

18. Hicca. One alternative reading Wicca may point to Wickham (D.B. Wicheham) on the river Titchfield, but another, Huta, is better; it is allied with Ytene, the New Forest district.

19. Wiht gara, the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight. According to Bede (iv. 16) these should have 1,200 hides; perhaps 17 to 19 will explain this apparent discrepancy 600 hides in the island and 600 on the mainland.

20 and 21. The 30,000 hides of Mercia having been completed, what is the meaning of these divisions : Nox gaga (or Hex gaga) and Oht gaga, with 7,000 hides between them? Probablv they were administrative districts like the later counties, and the 5,000 hides assigned to the former remind us of Bede's South Mercians (iii. 24); but his classification may refer to a later period (731). From their position one would imagine them to be groupings of the smaller tribes, but the hidage of these cannot be arranged in two sums of 5,000 and 2,000. More reasonably it may be supposed that they show a division of the Wocen saetna. The cleavage between the Mercian dioceses of Lichfield and Leicester (Lincoln) by a line running northwards from Oxfordshire shows that there was some such separation in the political grouping at the time the diocesan limits were arranged.

22. The second table of the kingdom

subject to the Mercians begins with the Swinca. Replacing the c by t, we have their position fixed by Winchester (Wintanceaster), and perhaps Wintney (Winteney, 35 Ed- ward III.).

23. The Oil tern saetna are fixed byChiltern n Wiltshire and the Ohiltern Hills. In their

4,000 hides we are probably meant to include the West Saxons of Somerset, Dorset, most of Wiltshire, East Berkshire, and perhaps South Oxfordshire and South Buckingham- shire. Down to modern times three detached portions of South Wiltshire were to be found in East Berkshire.

It is tempting to notice that 23 and 24 make up 7,000 hides, the total for the Hwinca. Apart from other inconveniences, however, it will be found that this solution spoils the total. Regarding these as details, and 25 to 30 as independent tribes or districts, we should have a total of 100,200. It is better to take the Hwinca and Ciltern ssetna together as the whole West Saxon people, and the names that follow as subdivisions, but no exhaustive list is given as in the first column.

24. Hendrica. Again changing c to t, we have the Hendreds, near Wantage (D.B. Henret), as the locality. The 3,000 hides of the Latin text have been preferred to the 3,500 of the English, not only as being smaller, but as supplying the key to the four districts which follow. They were apparently subdivisions of the Hendrica.

25. Unecimg ga.Once more preferring t to c, we find here an early form of Wanating the old name of Wantage. The large district assigned to it probably occupied not only the northern half of Berkshire, but a large part of North Wiltshire, as well as the Bampton district of Oxfordshire. It included, there- fore, the Vale of the White Horse. Two detached portions of Berkshire were in recent times in Oxfordshire.

26. Aro scetna. Probably the dwellers along the river Arrow in Warwickshire and their neighbours. This is Mr. Birch's identifica- tion. There are, however, both Harwell and Harrowdown in North Berkshire.

27. Bilmiga. The Latin form Birmiga seems to point to Burmington and Bir- mingham in Warwickshire. The old boundary of the diocese of Worcester would include 26 and 27.

The name Fcerpinga (our 14) occurs in the MSS. between the two last named. If it were, as suggested, in the Banbury or Coventry region, it would, of course, be physically adjacent, and this would supply a reason for its being apparently misplaced.