Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/184

170 should forfeit his right to the mægth. All these laws and customs relating to the mægth refer to one of the oldest of the Anglo-Saxon institutions affecting social life and the administration of law. The mægth and its organizations assist us in understanding the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons by families. All over England we find evidence of this in the Saxon place-names, many of which are tribal names, or derived from them. These family settlements made up the larger community of the mægth, whose existence as the basis of organization is evidence of the formation of villages or communities of people within the recognised degrees of kindred.

The term sibscraft for kinsmanship, and also mægth and sippe, denoting kindred, became disused at the close of the Saxon period. In many parts of England, however, it is probable that the name of the old mægth survives in the modern form may or maid. In the old country of the tribal Mægesetas there are two hills, May Hill near Ross, and another near Monmouth, whose names are probably examples. The numerous earthworks called Maiden Castle, many of them of Celtic origin, were probably used as defensive earthworks by the early mægths. Some of these, which comprised many families, were certainly large communities, and we know that the repair of local fortifications was one of the obligations of all Anglo-Saxons. The words mæden and mægden-man as variants of mægth are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon laws. These maiden names have thus probably been derived from the mægth. The mægenstan, or boundary of the mægth, is mentioned in a charter relating to Ashbury in Berks in 856, and there are many instances in which the origin of such names as Maybury and Mayland may reasonably be traced to an old mægth. Maidenhead, originally Maydenhithe, Maidstone or Maydenstan, and similar names, are probably examples which in their old forms referred to a mægth.

The sippe name, modified in sound, probably survived in the Anglo-Saxon names Siberton in