Page:VCH Northamptonshire 1.djvu/297

 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS Cransley and Finedon, Twywell and Cranford ; but these are only- special cases of what seems to have been the common practice in North- amptonshire, for the vast majority of early Anglo-Saxon settlements were made on the sand in the immediate vicinity of a clay formation, which would provide timber for fuel and forest-pasture for the herds of swine. A smaller but equally instructive group occurs in the north-west corner of the county, where the favourite situation for settlements appears to have been on the narrow water-bearing outcrop of marlstone, with plenty of marshy woodland on the adjoining lower lias. The claims of agriculture were also considered in the choice of a home ; and the Northampton sand, though inferior to the marlstone in point of fertility, is a good arable soil, while the neighbouring limestone tracts are comparatively barren, and the Oxford clay to the south very difficult of cultivation. Perhaps half a dozen sites remain that are not included in the two groups already noticed ; and of these six, two apparently were occupied in consequence of their proximity to the Nene, which was at that period the principal route to the interior of the county, from the direction of the Ermine Street and the Fens. There are no records to help in fixing the period during which these sites were occupied by Teutonic colonists to the exclusion of the Romanized Britons, who, though more thickly settled in the lower Nene valley, have yet left numerous traces in the neighbourhood of the Watling Street. It is generally allowed by historians that in the more secluded parts of the country the political fusion of Briton and Teuton was a tedious process ; and besides incidental remarks in the ancient records, ' the comparative scarcity of villages bearing the English clan names throughout the basins of the Welland, the Nene and the Great Ouse, suggests the probability that Mercia, middle England and the Fen country were not by any means so densely colonized as the coast districts.'* For instance, the territory of the North and South Gyrwa must have been very thinly populated, for it is estimated in the Numcrus Hydarum^ to con- tain only 1,200 hides ; and the legend of St. Guthlac, who was startled by strange noises in his cell near Croyland about the year 700, suggests that ' Welshmen ' were not uncommon in his neighbourhood.^ The results of anthropological research are here in accord with tradition. It is reason- able to suppose, says Dr. Beddoe, that the British or pre-Saxon element would remain between Banbury and Peterborough and between the Lea and the Warwickshire Avon in larger proportion than in most parts of England. He has personally noticed a high index of nigrescence at several points in that area, including a group of villages between Weedon and Northampton ; while a tendency to light hair and eyes is generally very noticeable in districts that are known to have come under Anglian or Saxon control during the pagan period. 227
 * Grant Allen, Jnglo-Saxon Britiiln, p. 49.
 * Birch, Cartulaiium Saxonicum, vol. i. p. 414 ; M.iitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 506-9.
 * Beddoe, Races of Britain, pp. 53, 54, 254.