The name is absent

as Peterborough was in North Gyrwa land, this
must have comprised a part of Northamptonshire :
and 2E¾el^lδry^lδ derived her right to Ely from her
first husband, a prince of the South Gyrwians ; this
district is therefore supposed to have extended over
a part of Cambridgeshire and the isle of Ely. Spalda
may be the tract stretching to the north-east of
these, upon the river Welland, in which still lies
Spalding. The Hwiccas occupied Worcestershire
and Gloucestershire ɪ, and perhaps extended into
Herefordshire, to the west of the Severn. The
Wihtgaras are the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight ;
and the Cilternsetan were the people who owned
the hill and forest land about the Chilterns, verging
towards Oxfordshire, and very probably in the
Mark between Mercia and Wessex.

I fear that it will be impossible to identify any
more of these names, and it does not appear pro-
bable that they supply us with anything like a com-
plete catalogue of the English Gas. Setting aside
the fact, that no notice seems to be taken of Nor-
thumberland, save the mention of the little princi-
pality of Elmet, and that the local divisions of
Eastanglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex and Wessex are
passed over in the general names of the kingdoms,
we look in vain among them for names known to
us from other sources, and which can hardly have

ɪ CirencesterwasinthesouthoftheHwiccas. Gloucester_jWorcester,
and Pershore were all in this district. It was separated from Wiltshire
in Wessex by the Thames, and the ford at Cricklade was a pass often
disputed by the inhabitants of the border-lands.

been other than those of Gas. Thus we have no
mention of the Tonsetan, whose district lay appa-
rently upon the banks of the Severn ¹ ; of the Mean-
ware, or land of the Jutes, in Hampshire; of the
Mægsetan, or West Hecan, in Herefordshire; of the
Merscware in West Kent ; or of the Gedingas, who
occupied a tract in the province of Middlesex².
Although it is possible that these divisions are in-
cluded in some of the larger units mentioned in our
list, they still furnish an argument that the names
of the Gas were much more numerous than they
would appear from the list itself, and that this
marks only a period of transition.

It is çlear that when William OfMalmesbury men-
tions thirty-two shires as making up the whole of Eng-
land, he intends only England south of the Humber.
The list we have been examining contains thirty-four
entries; of all the names therein recorded, one
only can be shown to lie to the north of that river :
from this however it is not unreasonable to suppose
that the whole of England is intended to be com-
prised in the catalogue. Even admitting this, we
cannot but conclude that these divisions were more
numerous than our shires, seeing that large districts,
such as Mercia, Wessex and Eastanglia, are entered
only under one general head respectively.

The origin of the Ga in the federal union of two
or more Marks is natural, and must be referred to
periods far anterior to any historical record : that
of the division into Shires, as well as the period
at which this arose, are less easily determined.

¹ Cod. Dipl. No. 261.           ² Cod. Dipl. No. 101,

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