Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/239

Rh not a common one, and is practically confined to these counties as far as the Saxon usage of it is concerned, and where it occurs in the charters it is always as a boundary name.

The word as a boundary name may have come into use among the Anglo-Saxons from those people who were called Gewissas, for it is only found in Saxon charters relating to the counties which were settled by the Gewissas or colonised by them. Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and Berkshire were the earliest counties they occupied, and after the conquests of Ceawlin and other kings, West Saxon settlers occupied parts of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Somersetshire. The Thames forms a dividing line north of which the name crundel as a boundary does not occur in the charters. In Wiltshire the name is mentioned eighteen times, in Dorsetshire eleven times, Hampshire nine times, Berkshire fourteen times, Somersetshire four times, Gloucestershire once, and Worcestershire four times. On the Continent similar words occur in both Scandian and Slavonic countries, of which Carlscrona in Sweden and Kronstadt are apparently examples. In Central Europe the place-names beginning with the word krain occur chiefly in those parts that are or were Slavonic. The occurrence of these crundel names in Wessex, and only in those counties in which Gewissas settled, appears to connect its use with these people.

As it existed at the time of the Domesday Survey, the extensive settlement of Crondall in the north-east corner of Hampshire was certainly Scandinavian, for among the customs of that great manor, which included Crondall, Yateley, Farnborough, and Aldershot, that of sole inheritance by the eldest daughter in default of sons prevailed, as over a large part of Cumberland, and this is a peculiarly Norse custom. 15