The old boundary of the ecclesiastical division of the country before the time of the Norman conquest included this district, with Bedford, in the diocese of Dorchester. The boundary probably followed the lines of the old West Saxon kingdom, and shut it off [p429] from Essex and the rest of Hertfordshire, which were included in the diocese of London.
The district, therefore, seems to have remained nearly 400 years under Roman rule, and under the British post-Roman rule another 100 years, till within twenty-five or thirty years of the arrival of St. Augustine in England, and the date of the laws of King Ethelbert, and within little more than 100 years of the date of the laws of King Ine, which laws presumably were founded upon customs of this district, once a part of the West Saxon kingdom.
Do the Roman remains suggest continuity?
The question is whether the position of the Roman remains which have been discovered in this neighbourhood points to a continuity in the sites of the present villages between British, Roman, and Saxon times. This question may certainly, in many instances, and, perhaps, generally, be answered distinctly in the affirmative.
The town of Hitchin, or 'Hiz,' i.e. 'of the streams.'
Take first the town of Hitchin itself. Its name in the Domesday Survey was 'Hiz,' and there can be little doubt that it is a Celtic word, meaning 'streams.' [637] The position of the township accords with this name. The river 'Hiz' rises out of the chalk at Wellhead, almost immediately turns a mill, and, flowing through the town, joins the Ivel a few miles lower down in its course, and so flows ultimately into the Ouse. The Orton[638] rises at the west extremity of the township, in [p430] a few hundred yards turns West Mill, and forms the boundary of the parish till it meets the Hiz at Ickleford, where the two are forded by the Icknild way. The Purwell, rising from the south east, forms the boundary between the parishes of Hitchin and Much Wymondley, and then, after turning Purwell Mill, and dividing Hitchin from Walsworth Hamlet, also joins the Hiz before it reaches Ickleford. Thus two of these three pure chalk streams embrace the township, and one passes through it giving its Celtic name Hiz to the town.[639]
Its Celtic name.
It is not likely that either the Romans or the Saxon invaders gave it this Celtic name.
British and Roman remains.
As already mentioned, on the top of the hill, to the east of the town, British sepulchral urns have been recently found.