Goadby's History of Loughborough Chapter 1, Part 2

This week, we continue the serialisation of Edwin Goadby’s ‘The History Of Loughborough, From The Time Of The Britons To The Middle Of The Nineteenth Century’, which appeared in the ‘Loughborough Monitor’ during the time Goadby was editor. I’ve kept both the text and the layout as it appeared in the newspaper, but have added one or two notes, where I have found useful information. As mentioned last week, in the 160 years since the original publication, there have been many more discoveries and revelations about Loughborough’s history, hence some of the information contained in these serials will be wrong. I have not tried to amend these in any way.

If you missed Chapter 1, Part 1, here’s the link to it!

Edwin Goadby

And now, onto Chapter 1, Part 2!!

THE HISTORY OF LOUGHBOROUGH, FROM THE TIME OF THE BRITONS TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Chapter 1, Loughborough Monitor, 26 May, 1864, pg. 5

CHAPTER I.

LOUGHBOROUGH IN THE TIME OF THE BRITONS, ROMANS, AND SAXONS.

Part II. –Camden’s Conjectures about its being a Royal Saxon Vill – Saxon Settlements – The Mark and the Scir – A Mark occupied neighbourhood – Its range – Peculiar Evidence for it – Loughborough the Burh, or Fortified Post – Growth of the Mark, and Names of Families – The Hundred – The burh, as elsewhere, a Nucleus of a Town.

BEFORE proceeding to consider the evidence for the position of Loughborough in Saxon times, it will be proper to notice and refute, if refutation be necessary, a conjecture which has received considerable attention and even met with wide acceptance as fact from its being associated with the name of so great an authority as the antiquary Camden. [1] That learned writer states that the similarity of the names shows it to have been the Royal Vill Lygeanbirg, which the Saxon Cuthulf took from the Britons, A.D., 571. If this were true, it must have been at that time colonised by Romanised Britons, and by them advanced to the importance of a fortified town. But, however plausible it may seem on several grounds, as, for instance, the curious general agreement about its being occupied by the Romans, a reference to the Saxon Chronicle itself at once entirely disproves it. The paragraph in question reads thus:

“A.D. 571. This year Cuthulf fought against the Britons at Bedconford (Bedford), and took four towns Lygeanbirg (Lenbury), and Aegelss-birg (Aylesbury), and Baenesingtun (Benson), and Egonesham (Eynsham), and the same year he died.”

The account in Ethelwerd’s Chronicle is the same, only that he styles the four places, “royal cities.” The whole of the towns, as the names given in parenthesis by Dr. Giles [2] will show, are situate in a group, and would be more or less dependent upon each other, especially if we alter Lenbury to Leighton Buzzard with the sanction of Kemble [?]  Indeed, this last authority in all Anglo-Saxon matters says of the very facts just quoted from the Chronicle, “I understand it only of a wide tract of land in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire, which had previously been dependent upon towns in those several districts, and which perished in consequence.” To have taken Loughborough, in fact, supposing it for one moment to have actually been the Lygeanbirg in question, Cuthulf must have made a circuitous march of some 60 miles, and taken over intermediate towns, Leicester amongst them, whose walls gave protection and encouragement to a flourishing community of artisans and craftsmen. We therefore conclude with Bishop Gibson [3] “that the resemblance of sound misled that great antiquary.”

The evidence for the position of Loughborough in Saxon times is chiefly such as is to be found in the undoubted meaning of the names of several surrounding places, viewed in the clear and satisfactory light thrown upon the settlement of the Saxons in this country by that able and distinguished archaeologist, John Mitchell Kemble [4], in his interesting work on “The Saxons in England;” and the great interest of the subject and its hitherto apparent neglect will sufficiently excuse our somewhat lengthy consideration of it.

Immediately the Saxons had subdued the Romanized Britons, the strong pastoral instincts of their nature appear to have led the major part of them to resume the simplicity of their pastoral life. This is manifest by so many of them preferring the open country to the more secure fortified towns, notwithstanding that most of the cleared lands had lapsed into their original wildness, and offered but little inducement to the cultivator. Along the banks of the rivers, or on the highways which the genius of Rome had circled and divided the island, as though to enwrap it in the bands of her own civilisation, flocked this field-loving people, seeking wood and valley and water for their agricultural settlements. Thus, several families, united by a spirit of clanship, and tracing their descent from the same divinity of hero, agreed to settle upon the same territory. This they distinguished from the surrounding country by peculiar natural features, as a hill, a rock, or a stream, and by carved figures upon the trunks of trees and artificial mounds. A settlement so made was called a Mark, and the word had a double significance, for it not only meant the district or pasture or arable land occupied by the settlers themselves, but more especially the forest or waste portions of the ground by which this was enclosed and backed, and which separated their possessions from those of another community. The real primary meaning of the word Marc, as Grimm [5] maintains, is itself “forest” (hence our later word murky),and the secondary meaning indicates the fact that forests were the sign or mark of communities. The arable portion of the Mark was sometimes divided into separate alods [6] or estates, but the forest was not a partible possession, but always common property, and regarded as of so sacred a character that a stranger seen in it was slain if he did not blow a horn and shout by way of announcing his approach and honesty. A fortification was also erected to defend their wives and children during the daily absence of their protectors from the wild beasts which were then common, and the prowling robbers who were not less so; just as Reuben and Gad are recorded as having said, when settling in a similar manner, “We will build sheep-folds here for our cattle, and cities (or stone enclosures, as Dean Stanley [7] renders it) for our little ones” (Numbers xxxii, 16.) Upon some elevated site these free settlers held occasional Mark-courts to determine the law affecting all civil and criminal cases that affected their general interest, and the union of several marks for the purposes of religion and justice were called the Ga’ or Scir, from which in later times, sprang the political and territorial division of the Shire.

With those facts before us it will be no very difficult matter to show that a community calling itself a Mark, with all the features we have just so lightly sketched, existed upon and about the site of the present town of Loughborough. The strip of meadow and arable land along the river bank, backed by the woods on the rising ground, answers to all requirements of a Mark, and although we cannot perfectly make out all its boundaries, we can distinguish some of them with quite sufficient precision. “I will lay this down as a rule,” says Kemble, “that the ancient Mark is to be recognised by following the names of places ending in “den” (nent), which always denoted cubile ferarum, or pasture, usually for swine. Denu, a valley (fem.), a British not a Saxon word” (as many have supposed who have translated den or don as valley), “is very rarely, perhaps never, found in composition.” There are two places that unquestionably lead us along the line of the old mark. These are Quorndon and Garendon, not to extend so far as Storden Grange and Storden-lane, near Thringstone, which likely enough belonged to it, the terminal don being a corruption of den, as shown by their earlier names, and Quern, probably meaning a hand-mill, if not convertible into cherne, and so being a form of guern, an alder. Coming round by Garendon we meet with Newhurstcliffe, the Hurst, Crophurst, all of which are within the mark, hurst meaning a cleared space on an acclivity. Rusbyfield between Woodhouse and Swithland was also with the mark, and denoted a considerable range of land thereabouts, as we gather from similar names elsewhere.

There are other names of places that supply further information respecting this settlement, and show its direction of growth. The village of Cotes for instance derives its name from the Saxon word cot or cote, a cattle-pen, near which were the residences of the cotsaeta or cottagers under whose care the cattle were kept.  “The fold was often distant from the homestead” says Kemble, “and required careful watching, especially during the dark winter months. Sheep alone were not folded, but oxen, cows, and particularly mares.” The intervening river would be crossed by a rude wooden bridge, or perhaps even some more substantial structure, such as we find a few centuries later. The sheep were usually kept to themselves in what was technically known in later times as a bercary or sheep farm, which had its sheds, washpits, and other necessary conveniences. This we find undoubtedly, at Sheepshed [now Shepshed], anciently written Schpes-sheved, the latter word meaning something thatched, according to Dr. Yerburgh, [8] who is quoted by Potter. [9] It is singular, too, as showing the past intimate connection between these now distinct places, that a document belonging to Leicester Abbey, dated A.D. 1285, in describing the boundaries of Sheepshed parish, says, “Beginning at the Bercary (barcariam) of Loutherburg (Loughborough) the boundary goes to the heyweye (about Snell’s Nook gate) and then to Charleston (Charley)” The situation of this bercary cannot now be made out, but the fact of there being one in existence so late as the date of the document quoted is very significant as being a remnant of the once wide-lying mark. The word Nanpantan, also, which has puzzled so many, probably presents us with the name of some Saxon ancestor of the locality, from its close resemblance to some of the names of ancient marks found by Kemble in the collection of Saxon charters known as the Codex Diplomaticus; as for instance Incetan, Holigan, Mosetan, and others in his list. Its being written in old maps Nanpantan’s is no objection to this fact, but as preserving the possessive form rather a strong confirmation of it. Probably the yearly mark-court (mearc-mot) was held here, as that for the mark on the other side of the present forest would be held at Markfield, and this judicial gathering, and not the Druidical festival as Mr. Potter supposes, would be what is now known as Nanpantan Wake. The place of assembly for the marks generally was very likely at Copt Oak, as the coped or walled and protected oak, seems to correspond with the merheden ok of the Saxon charters, and is situate just upon the boundary of the West Goscote and Sparkenhoe hundreds. [10] That so important a fact may not seem pure conjecture on our part, we again quote Kemble. “On the summit of a range of hills, whose valleys sufficed for the cultivation of the markmen,” he says, “on the watershed from which the fertilizing streams descended, at the point where [last line is missing from the digital image] one another, was the proper place for the common periodical assemblages of the freemen: and such sites, marked even to this day by a few venerable oaks may be observed in various parts of England.”

The name of Barrow, too, is a Saxon word, and may have been the burial-ground of the mark, since all such grounds were upon elevated sites, so that the burial mounds might be present to the view of all the kinsmen and command the attention of the passing traveller. So frequently do these burial places occur in the Saxon charters as boundary marks, that whenever and wherever the site of one can be at all made out, the historian is warranted in assuming the existence of a community like the mark, and that, in fact, it bounded its territory in that particular direction. The Saxons were so excessively scrupulous in this matter that subsequently their custom and belief crystallised itself in the saying “the city is for the living and not for the dead.” We may add that some Saxon coins were reputed to have been found in ploughing a field in Barrow some twenty of thirty years ago, [i.e. between 1834 and 1844] but we have been unable to verify the fact, notwithstanding the firm persuasion of our informant.

The existence of this mark, however, does not rest solely upon these considerations, strong or weak as they may appear. There was an apparently trivial custom in existence once which would prove it of itself.  We have said that the woodland of the mark was not a partible possession so long as it was in the mark. All the inhabitants had equal rights in it of chase, masting for swine, &c., and the common right in Charnwood Forest formerly claimed by the inhabitants of Loughborough and other places skirting the forest, is nothing but this old mark freedom transformed in the process whereby property was acquired by private persons, and became vested in a manorial lord whose court-leet superseded the mark-court, but whose territorial jurisdiction could not destroy, but only divert into other channels, or give other forms to this primitive inalienable right of gratifying the instinctive earth-hunger of the great Saxon race.

The fortified post of the mark in this direction was unquestionably Loughborough, then Lucteburh, notwithstanding that it was written in the older form (Luchteburne) in Domesday book, since burh is an earlier form of burgh, the terminal that superseded burne almost immediately after the survey. This burh would be simply a fortified house, loop-holed, and surrounded by a fence or a ditch, and possibly the residence of some one more distinguished than the rest by valour or age. As the mark grew away from this rallying point by the natural law of the extension of its own numbers, and what has been seen with such terrible effect in similar settlements in America, the chemical exhaustion of the cleared soil with necessitated a still further advance in the direction whence cultivable land could be procured, a string of fortified hamlets was made on the extreme boundary of the mark, and each family had its own tun or protective enclosure. Thus a map will show us in the only direction this forest clearing could take, Long Whatton, Lockington, Hemington, Donington, Worthington Beeton, Packington, Sawnnington, and Thringstone, a string of fortified places admirably calculated to preserve the integrity of the mark in that direction. Within this line are Kegworth and Breedon, the first place having the pure Anglo-Saxon terminal weorthe or worth, a field, or perhaps farm, and the second denoting pasturage from the den already explained. A worth, we should add, was generally acquired property, and hence the term a worthy person and the question, What is he worth? had a primary reference to property. Whitwick is also Saxon, and the wic was originally the fortified mansion of some earl or thane, as the freeman had his worth and the family its tun. It would possibly be of later date than the tuns, as Kemble appears to regard the wic as a filial settlement. Outside of this line, and yet within the present territorial division of West Goscote, there was wild, waste land upon which the Danes subsequently settled, both facts being plainly indicated by the Danish termination by in Ashby and Blackfordby. The names of some of the families occupying the line of tuns are given by Mr. Kemble in his list of marks inferred from local names, as in Lockingan, the Hemingas, Doningas, Weothingas, Pasccingas, and Swanningas.

As the independence of the several families of a mark became established, another interesting Saxon institution was developed, viz, the Hundred. This, according [to] Kemble, was, at first, a purely numerical and not a territorial division.  A body of ten men, each representing a distinct family, pledged themselves for the good behaviour of each other, and was called the tithing and ten of these associations constituted a Hundred. In this manner was the Hundred of West Goscote, formed, of which Loughborough was and is, the most important town, but we are yet by no means warranted in assuming that the old hundred would accurately correspond with the modern one. The Saxon name of this hundred is lost, since the Norman authorities for some unexplained reasons withheld all but the general names of the different shires.

A gradual separation of the Saxon settlers under-lay these important changes. The nomadic element was lost in the growth of independent families, individual possessions, and strong local attachments. Villages arose and dotted the once common mark-land. Thus, with others of like nature, the fortified place of Lucteburh would become the nucleus of a rising town, and its inhabitants would secure some importance if not special privileges, from its having once been the common citadel of the mark, as we find it was held by five thanes or Earls in the time of Edward the Confessor, which is the first undoubted historical notice we have of it. It thus presents us, on a modest scale, with a phenomenon which we find in the early history of almost every nation. Everywhere primeval mans seems to have ben tormented with the same dread of his fellows, a feeling inseparable from a rude and lawless life, and driven to seek his safety in rocky heights and fortified positions. Only behind the gotra of the Arian, upon the Acropolis of the Pelasgian, within the vicus of the Sclavonian, or the burh and tun of the Saxon, does he fling away the restraint which this haunting idea imposes upon him. Gradually as freedom and security advance the beetling crag and the forest barricade are witnesses of a newer and nobler life, and there is a freer and truer converse between man and man. Towns sprung up, cities are formed, laws instituted, and trades organized; the fine arts are born, letters are cultivated, history begins, and humanity is ennobled.

END OF CHAPTER 1 PT 2

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NOTES

[1] This refers to Willaim Camden (1551-1623) who was as well as being an antiquarian, was also a topographer and historian. His best-known work is ‘Britannia’ which was a survey and mapping of Great Britain and Ireland.

[2] Dr John Allen Giles (1808-1884) was a historian, and a specialist in Anglo-Saxon history and language.

[3] Dr Edmund Gibson (1669-1748) was Bishop of Lincoln and Bishop of London, and translated the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, and the ‘Lindsey Chronicle’.

[4] John Mitchell Kemble (1807-1857) was a historian who was known for his research into the Anglo-Saxons, as well as being one of the first people to translate the epic poem written in Old English, ‘Beowulf’.

[5] Possibly he of fairytale fame.

[6] An alod is not a measurement, but rather a type of land ownership where the owner fully owns the land without any feudal services or incidents.

[7] The priest and Dean of Westminster, Arthur Penryn Stanley (1815-1881) was known as Dean Stanley.

[8] Richard Yerburgh (1774-1851) was Vicar of Sleaford and Rector of Tothill in Lincolnshire. He was also an antiquarian and wrote a ‘History of Sleaford’.

[9] Thomas Rossell Potter in ‘History and antiquities of the Charnwood Forest’

[10] The ‘Hundreds’ were administrative divisions of the country. There were six in Leicestershire: East Goscote; West Goscote; Framland; Guthlaxton; Gartree, and Sparkenhoe.

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Transcribed and presented here with the kind permission of the British Newspaper Archive. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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