Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/279

Rh among the many tribes from which the English in his time had their origin.

In a charter assigning the boundaries of land at Waltham, near Maidenhead, given to Abingdon Abbey the name ‘Godan pearruc’ occurs. This charter is dated 940, but the name was apparently an older one, and occurs in another charter. It denotes the enclosure of Goda, and Goda denotes a Goth, so that we may take it to have been derived from the settlement of a family of Goths.

There can be no doubt that the ancient names Goda and Geat denote a Goth and Jute, and if we note the old names of this kind as we proceed up the Thames, we find Goddards tything, Reading; Godstow and Godefordes Eyt, near Oxford; Godeslave, in Oxon; ‘terram Gode,’ the name of land belonging to the church at Culham; Geatescumbe, in the boundaries of the land of the Abbey of Abingdon, near Oxford, and others.

These names suggest that there was a migration into the Thames valley of people called by the race-names of the Goths, Geats, or Jutes, from Kent up the river. If we similarly trace the Kentish name itself up the valley, we meet with very old examples of it: Kenton, now Kempton, in Middlesex; Kentes, in East Berkshire; Kentswood, near Pangbourn; and Kentwines treöw, at Shefford, near the Thames above Oxford.

When we look for other confirmatory evidence of a Kentish migration up the Thames, we find it in the Hengist place-names near Oxford. Hengist is a name common in the early history of Frisians as well as Jutes, and these names near Oxford may have been given them by Frisians or Goths. People of both these races settled in Kent, and it was apparently from Kent that the people