14
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
mðuth to Wells in Norfolk1, was supported by va-
rious civil and military establishments, dispersed
along the whole sea-board. The term Littus Sax-
onicum has been explained to mean rather the coast
visited by, or exposed to the ravages of, the Sax-
ons, than the coast occupied by them : but against
this loose system of philological and historical in-
terpretation I beg emphatically to protest : it seems
to have arisen merely from the uncritical spirit in
which the Saxon and Welsh traditions have been
adopted as ascertained facts, and from the impos-
sibility of reconciling the account of Bcda with the
natural sense of the entry in the Notitia: but there
seems no reason whatever for adopting an excep-
tional rendering in this case, and as the Littus Sax-
onicum on the mainland was that district in which
members of the Saxon confederacy were settled, the
Littus Saxonicum per Britannias unquestionably
obtained its name from a similar circumstance2.
1 The document itself may be consulted in Graevius, vol. vii. The
“ Iittus Saxonicum per Britannias ” extended at least from the Bortus
Adurni to Branodunum, that is, from the neighbourhood of PortsmoutIi
to Branchester on the "Wash. In both these places there were civil or
military officers under the orders of the Comes Iittoris Saxonici.
2 Professor Leo, of Halle, has called attention to a remarkable re-
semblance between the names of certain places in Kent, and settlements
of the Alamanni upon the Neckar. A few of these, it must be admitted,
are striking, but the majority are only such as might be expected to
arise from similarities of surface and natural features in any two coun-
tries settled by cognate populations, having nearly the same language,
religious rites and civil institutions. Even if the fact be admitted in
the fullest extent, it is still unnecessary to adopt Dr. Leo’s hypothesis,
that the coincidence is due to a double migration from the shores of
the Elbe. Rectitud. sing, person, pp. 100-104. It has been already
CH. I.]
SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS.
15
Thus far the object of this rapid sketch has been
to show the improbability of our earliest records
being anything more than ill-understood and con-
fused traditions, accepted without criticism by our
first annalists, and to refute the opinion long enter-
tained by our chroniclers, that the Germanic set-
tlements in England really date from the middle ot'
the fifth century. The results at which we have
arrived are far from unimportant; indeed they seem
to form the only possible basis upon which we can
ground a consistent and intelligible account of the
manner of the settlements themselves. And, be it
remembered, that the evidence brought forward
upon this point are the assertions of indifferent and
impartial witnesses ; statesmen, soldiers, men of
letters and philosophers, who merely recorded
events of which they had full means of becoming
cognizant, with no object in general save that of
stating facts appertaining to the history of their
empire. Moreover, the accounts they give are pro-
bable in themselves and pèrfectly consistent with
other well-ascertained facts of Roman history. Can
the same praise be awarded to our own meagre
national traditions, or to the fuller, detailed, but pal-
stated that Constantius was accompanied to Britain by an Alamannic
king ; and I cannot doubt that under Valentinian, a force of Alamanni
Servedinthiscountry. Ammianussays: uValentinianus......in Ma-
criaui locum, Bucinobantibus, quae contra Moguntiacum gens est Ala-
manna, regem Fraomarium ordinavit : quern paullo postea, quoniam
recens excursus eundem penitus Vastaverat pagum, in Britannos trans-
Iatum potestate tribuni, Alamannorum praefecerat numéro, multitudine,
viribusque ea tempestate florenti.” Hist, xxix. c. 4. The context
renders it impossible that this “ numerus Alamannorum ” should have
been anything but genuine Gernjans.