Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/431

 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS The scarcity of Suffolk place-names with the Danish termination —by is remarkable in view of their abundance beyond the Wash ; and there is, moreover, physical evidence that the population is of English rather than of Danish descent. According to Dr. Beddoe,"' ' the southern part of Cam- bridgeshire is anthropologically more like Norfolk and Suffolk than the northern, and East Anglia is more Anglian than either Danish or British. The British element is perhaps stronger in Suffolk than in Norfolk. . . . The people of Brandon, a small town where flint-working is thought to have been carried on since prehistoric times, seem to be comparatively dark.' Danish remains, which are so numerous in York and other centres appropri- ated in the Viking period, are remarkably scarce in Suffolk and East Anglia generally ; and a continuous coinage after the establishment of Guthrum's kingdom points to a measure of peace and prosperity that was not commonly enjoyed during the Danish wars. The whole question of the East Anglian mints has been discussed by Daniel Haigh,"* who arrived at some interesting ethnological results. The names of the moneyers (or persons responsible to the king for the weight and purity of the coinage) show that in the Danish hosts there must have been a large proportion not of pure Scandinavian descent. In the lists are two varieties of un-English names, some apparently Prankish and others certainly Scandinavian. Under Eadwig (955-9) the former diminish in number, and almost disappear by the time of vEthelred II (978—1016), while the Scandinavians naturally continue in large numbers. Three alternative explanations are offered, which may be given in the words of Messrs. Grueber and Keary"°: 'perhaps there were a great many Prankish soldiers in that portion of the great army which, under Guthrum, settled in East Anglia and Mercia ; or the army brought over a certain number of Prankish thralls who, having some skill in metal work, were employed to engrave dies and were authorized to place their names upon them ; or finally, the coins were issued by traders, and the majority of these in East Anglia at this time were men of Prankish descent.' "' Races of Britain, 254. '" Numismatic Chronicle, iv (1841), 34, 195. "' Cat. 0/ Engl. Coins (Brit. Mus.), ii, p. xliv ; see also p. ciii. 355