The Romans, as was pointed out in the previous chapter, left comparatively few traces in Devonshire; and at only twelve spots in the county have Roman relics other than coins been discovered. At Exeter, the only town where there seems to have been continuous occupation, there have been found the foundations of the city walls, a bath, several tesselated pavements—one of which has been relaid in the hall of the police-court, on the spot where it was discovered—statuettes in bronze and in stone, engraved gems, lamps—one encrusted with lizards, toads, and newts—many pieces of finely decorated Samian pottery, and great numbers of coins. The finest mosaic pavement was that found at Uplyme, on the site of one of the only two known Roman villas in the county. Coins have been dug up in many places. Considerable hoards have been discovered at Compton Gifford, Holcombe, Tiverton, and Widworthy. The largest, however, was at Kingskerswell, where 2000 were found together. Perhaps the most remarkable Roman relic was a bronze object found on the beach at Sidmouth, believed to be the head of a standard, and representing Chiron the Centaur carrying Achilles.

Except as regards coins, of which great numbers are in existence, especially, as has been stated, in the Royal Museum at Stockholm, few antiquities that can be ascribed to the Saxons have been found in Devonshire. One remarkable relic, now in the British Museum, was a bronze sword-hilt, dug up in Exeter in 1833, finely ornamented with key-pattern, and inscribed LEOFRIC·ME·FEC(IT). Part of the lettering is inverted, a fact which at first entirely disguised the real words. One of the treasures of Exeter Cathedral is an Old English manuscript headed "A Mycel Englisc Bok," placed in the Chapter Library by Leofric, who in 1050 was bishop of the diocese. It contains some of the work of Cynewulf and his school. One poem has been thus translated:

"To the Frisian wife
comes a dear welcome guest;
the keel is at rest;
his vessel is come;
her husband is home;
her own cherished lord
she leads to the board;
his wet weeds she wrings;
dry garments she brings.
Ah, happy is he
whom, home from the sea
his true love awaits."

Saxon Sword-hilt

A Norman relic of the highest interest is the Exeter Domesday Book, also preserved in the Chapter Library, describing in greater detail than is given by the Winchester Survey, especially as regards live stock, the five counties of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire. Among many points of difference between the two books is that where the more general survey gives the letters T.R.E., for tempore regis Edwardi, meaning that such were the facts in the time of Edward the Confessor, the Exeter Book uses the phrase "eadie qa rex·E·f·u·&·m·" for eâ die qua Rex Edwardus fuit vivus et mortuus, that is to say, "on the day when King Edward was alive and dead," meaning the day he died, which was the 6th of January, 1066. It is worthy of note that, with one exception, the Devonshire Hundreds were the same in 1086, the supposed year of the completion of the Survey, as they are in our time.

Scattered up and down over Devonshire are many old stone crosses, some in churchyards or by the wayside, probably intended as preaching places, and some standing on the open moor as marks of boundary or of lines of ancient roadway, a few of them bearing brief inscriptions or traces of decoration. Fine examples are those of Addiscot, Helliton, Mary Tavy, and South Zeal, the last-named of which has been restored, and measures, with its steps, eighteen feet in height; the Merchant's Cross near Meavy, the tallest on Dartmoor; the very ancient Coplestone Cross, once decorated with interlaced Celtic ornament, standing where three parishes meet, and named in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 974; and the Nun's or Siward's Cross, inscribed on one side (SI)WARD, and on the other BOC LOND, set up in the twelfth century to mark the boundary between the royal forest and the property of Buckland Abbey.

With these may be mentioned the inscribed stones of Lustleigh, Stowford, Tiverton, and Fardel—the latter now removed. The last-named, and one of the three Tiverton examples, bear inscriptions in Ogham or Irish runic characters.