The Commune of London, and other studies

by John Horace Round

I must not wander too far from what is immediately my point, namely, the grouping of the hams and tons not haphazard but with cause. Even those students who discriminate suffixes, instead of lumping them together, like Kemble and his followers, make no distinction, I gather, between hams and tons. Mr. Seebohm, for instance, classes together “the Saxon ‘hams’ and ‘tuns,’”[15] and so does Professor York Powell, even though his views on the settlement are exceptionally original and advanced.[16] There are, however, various reasons which lead me to advance a different view. In the first place, the wide-spread existence, on the Continent, of ham in its foreign forms proves this suffix to be older than the settlement. ‘Ton,’ on the other hand, as is well known, is virtually absent on the Continent, which implies that it did not come into use till after the settlement in England. And as ham was thus used earlier than ton, so ton, one need hardly add, was used later than ham. The cases in Scotland, and in what is known as “little England beyond Wales,” will at once occur to the reader. Canon Taylor states of the latter that the Flemish names, such as Walterston, “belong to a class of names which we find nowhere else in the kingdom,” formed from “Walter and others common in the 12th century.”[17] But in Herefordshire, for instance, we have a Walterston; and in Dorset a Bardolfston, a Philipston, a Michaelston, and a Walterston, proving that the same practice prevailed within the borders of England. Nor need we travel outside the two counties I am specially concerned with to learn from the ‘Ælfelmston’ of Essex or the Brihtelmston of Sussex that we find ton compounded with names of the later Anglo-Saxon period. A third clue is afforded by the later version, found in the Liber de Hyda, of Alfred’s will. For there we find the ham of the original document rendered by ton. It is clear, therefore, I contend, that ton was a later form than ham. Now the map of England as a whole points to the same conclusion; for ton is by no means distinctive, like ham, of the districts earliest settled. And if we confine ourselves to a particular county, say this of Sussex, we discover, I maintain, an appreciable difference between the distribution of the hams and the tons. While the hams follow the course of the rivers, the scene of the first settlements, the tons are largely found grouped away on the uplands, as if representing a later stage in the settlement of the country. In connection with this I would adduce the “remarkable passage,” as Mr. Seebohm rightly terms it, in one of King Alfred’s treatises, where he contrasts the “permanent freehold ham” with the new and at first temporary ton, formed by ‘timbering’ a forest clearing in a part not previously settled.[18] It is true that Mr. Seebohm, as I have said, recognises no distinction, and even speaks of this example as “the growth of a new ham”; but it seems to me to confirm the view I am here advancing. It is obvious that if such a canon of research as that ham (not ton) was a mark of early settlement could be even provisionally accepted, it would greatly, and at once, advance our knowledge of the settlement of England. Although this is nothing more than a ‘pioneer’ paper, I may say that, after at least glancing at the maps of other counties, I can see nothing to oppose, but everything to confirm, the view that the settlers in the hams ascended the rivers (much as they seem, on a larger scale, to have done in Germany); and a study of the coast of England from the Tweed to the British Channel leads me to believe that, as a maritime people, their settlements began upon the coast.

I now pass to my second point—the insufficient attention which has hitherto been paid to our minor place-names. Kemble, for instance, working, as he did, on a large scale, was dependent, so far as names still existing are concerned, on the nomenclature of present parishes. And such a test, we shall find, is most fallacious. Canon Taylor, it is true, has endeavoured to supplement this deficiency,[19] but the classification of existing names, whether those of modern parishes or not, has not yet, so far as I can find, been even attempted. Hitherto I have mainly spoken of Sussex, because it is in that county that place-names can be best studied; the Essex evidence is chiefly of value for the contrast it presents. The principal contrast, and one to which I invite particular attention, is this: confining ourselves to the names I am concerned with—the ings, hams, and tons—we find that in Essex several parishes have only a single place-name between them, while in Sussex, on the contrary, a single parish may contain several of these place-names, each of them, surely, at one time representing a distinct local unit. This contrast comes out strongly in the maps I have prepared of the two counties, in which the parishes are disregarded, and each place-name separately entered. I do not pretend that the survey is exhaustive, especially in the case of Sussex, as I only attempt to show those which are found on an ordinary county map, together with those, now obsolete, which can safely be supplied from Domesday. But, so far as the contrast I am dealing with is concerned, it is at least not exaggerated.

As the actual names are not shown, I will now adduce a few examples. In Sussex, Burpham is composed of three tythings—Burpham, Wepham, Pippering; Climping comprises Atherington and Ilesham; Offham is included in South Stoke; Rackham in Amberley; Cootham in Storrington; Ashton, Wellingham, and Norlington in Ringmer; Buddington in Steyning; and Bidlington in Bramber.

In Essex, on the other hand, ‘Roothing’ does duty for eight parishes, Colne for four, Hanningfield, Laver, Bardfield, Tolleshunt, and Belchamp for three each, and several more for two. There are, of course, in Sussex also, double parishes to be found, such as North and South Mundham, but they are much scarcer.

We may learn, I think, a good deal from the contrast thus presented. In the first place, it teaches us that parochial divisions are artificial and comparatively modern. The formula that the parish is the township in its ecclesiastical capacity is (if unconsciously adopted) not historically true. Antiquaries familiar with the Norman period, or with the study of local history, must be acquainted with the ruins or the record of churches or chapels (the same building, I may observe in passing, is sometimes called both ecclesia and capella[20]), which formerly gave townships now merged in parishes a separate or quasi-separate ecclesiastical existence. In Sussex the present Angmering comprises what were once three parishes, each with a church of its own. The parish of Cudlow has long been absorbed in that of Climping. Balsham-in-Yapton was formerly a distinct hamlet and chapelry. Conversely, the chapelries of Petworth have for centuries been distinct parishes.

In Essex we have examples of another kind, examples which remind us that the combination or the subdivision of parishes are processes as familiar in comparatively modern as in far distant times. The roofless and deserted church to be seen at Little Birch testifies to the fact that, though now one, Great and Little Birch, till recently, were ecclesiastically distinct. In the adjoining parish of Stanway, the church, similarly roofless and deserted, was still in use in the last century.

Again, the civil unit as well as the ecclesiastical, the village, like the parish, may often prove misleading. It is, indeed, very doubtful whether we have ever sufficiently distinguished the manor and the village. If we construct for ourselves a county map from Domesday, we shall miss the names of several villages, although often of antiquity; but, on the other hand, shall meet with the names of important manors, often extending into several parishes, often suggesting by their forms a name as old as the migration, yet now represented at most by some obscure manor, and perhaps only by a solitary farm, or even, it may be, a field. In Sussex, for instance, the ‘Basingham’ of Domesday cannot now be identified; its ‘Belingeham’ is doubtful; its ‘Clotinga’ is now but a farm, as is ‘Estockingeham.’ ‘Sessingham’ and ‘Wiltingham’ are manors. In Essex ‘Hoosenga’ and ‘Hasingha’ occur together in Domesday, and are unidentified. Nor have I yet succeeded in identifying ‘Plesingho,’ a manor not only mentioned in Domesday, but duly found under Henry III. Morant, followed by Chisenhale-Marsh, identified it wrongly with Pleshy. Such names as these, eclipsed by those of modern villages, require to be disinterred by archæological research.

Another point on which light is thrown by the contrast of Essex and Sussex is the theory tentatively advanced by Mr. Maitland in the ‘Archæological Review,’ that the Hundred and the township may, in the beginning, have been represented by the same unit.[21] Broadly speaking, he adduced in support of this hypothesis the originally large township of Essex, proved by the existence of a group of villages bearing the same name, comparing it with the small Hundreds characteristic of Sussex. But in Sussex, I think, the small Hundreds were coincident with those many small townships; while in Essex the scattered townships are coincident with larger Hundreds. And this leads me to suggest that the Saxon settlements in Sussex lay far thicker on the ground than those found in Essex, and that we possibly find here some explanation of the admitted silence as to the East-Saxon settlement contrasting with the well-known mention of that in Sussex. It seems to me highly probable that Essex, in those remote times, was not only bordered and penetrated by marshes, but largely covered with forest. It is, perhaps, significant that in the district between Westham and Boreham, some twenty-five miles across as the crow flies, there is not a ham to be found.

From this I turn to the opposite extreme, that group of hams on the ‘Rother’ and its tributaries, thirty-seven in number. Isolated alike from ings and tons, and hemmed in by the spurs of the Andredswald, it is, perhaps, unique in character. Nowhere have I lighted on a group of hams so illustrative of the character of these settlements, or affording a test so admirable of the alleged connection between this suffix and the villa of the Roman Empire.

One of the sections of Mr. Seebohm’s work is devoted to what he terms “the connection between the Saxon ‘ham,’ the German ‘heim,’ and the Frankish ‘villa.’” This, indeed, it may fairly be said, is one of the important points in his case, and one to which he has devoted special research and attention. Now, I am not here dealing with the equation of ‘ham’ and ‘villa.’ If I were, I should urge, perhaps, that, as with the ‘Witan’ of the English and the ‘Great Council’ of the Normans, it does not follow that an equation of words involves their absolute identity of meaning. I confine myself to the suffix ‘-ham.’ “Its early geographical distribution,” Mr. Seebohm has suggested, “may have an important significance.” With this, it will be seen, I entirely agree. But, if the distribution is important, let us make sure of our facts; let us} as I urge throughout this volume, test and try our evidence before we advance to our conclusion. When Mr. Seebohm informs us that “the ‘hams’ of England were most numerous in the south-eastern counties, finding their densest centre in Essex,” the statement must startle any one who has the least acquaintance with Essex, where the termination ‘-ham’ is comparatively rare in place-names. On turning to Mr. Seebohm’s map, one is still further surprised to learn that its “local names ending in ‘ham’” attain in Domesday the enormous proportion of 39 per cent. The clue to the mystery is found in a note that “in Essex the h is often dropped, and the suffix becomes am.” For the whole calculation is based on a freak of my old friend, the Domesday scribe. The one to whom we are indebted for the text of the Essex survey displayed his misplaced scholarship in Latinizing the English names so thoroughly, that not only did Oakley, the first on the list, become ‘Accleia,’ but even in the accusative, “Accleiam tenet Robertus.” Thus we need travel no further than the first name on the index to learn how Mr. Seebohm’s error was caused. Elmstead, Bonhunt, Bentley, Coggeshall, Danbury, Dunmow, Alresford, and many other such names, have all by this simple process been converted into ‘hams.’ I hasten to add that my object in correcting this error is not to criticise so brilliant an investigator and so able a scholar as Mr. Seebohm, but to illustrate the practical impossibility of accomplishing any scientific work in this department of research until the place-names of England have been classified and traced to their origin. I am eager to see this urgent work undertaken county by county, on much the same lines as those adopted by the Government in France. It seems to me to be eminently a subject for discussion at the Annual Congress of Archæological Societies.