ame.

We have seen the picture of an ordinary English village in early Saxon
times, the villeins and slaves working in the fields and driving their
oxen, and the thane dressed in his linen tunic and short cloak, his hose
bandaged to the knee with strips of cloth, superintending the farming
operations. We have seen the freemen and thanes taking an active part in
public life, attending the courts of the hundred and shire, as well as
the folk moot or parish council of those times, and the slave mourning
over his lack of freedom. But many other relics of Saxon times remain,
and these will require another chapter for their examination.

[1] Until the eighteenth century there stood a pollard oak in the parish
of Shelford, Berks, where the hundred court used to be held.

[2] Other theories with regard to the origin of the hundred have been
suggested. Some writers maintain that the hundred was a district whence
the hundred warriors were derived, or a group of townships. But the
Bishop of Oxford in his _Constitutional History_ states: "It is very
probable that the colonists of Britain arranged themselves in hundreds
of warriors; it is not probable that the country was carved into equal
districts. The only conclusion that seems reasonable is that under the
name of geographical hundreds we have the variously sized _pagi_, or
districts, in which the hundred warriors settled, the boundaries of
these being determined by other causes."

CHAPTER VIII

SAXON RELICS

Peculiarities of Saxon barrows--Their contents--Weapons--Articles
of personal adornment--Cremation--Saxon Cemeteries--Jutes--Saxons--
Angles--Religion of Saxons--British Church in Wales--Conversion
of Saxons--Saxon crosses--Whalley--St. Wilfrid--Ruthwell cross--
Bewcastle cross--Eyam cross--Ilkley cross--Hexham cross--Cross at
St. Andrew's, Bishop Auckland--Cheeping crosses--Pilgrim crosses.

The earth has preserved a vast store of relics of the Saxons, and for
these we must search in the barrows which contain their dead. There are
certain peculiarities which characterise these memorials of the race.
The larger tumuli, whether belonging to Celt or Roman, usually stand
alone, or in groups of not more than two or three, and were the
monuments of distinguished people; whereas the Saxon barrows form a
regular cemetery, each group being the common burying-place of the
people in the district. Another characteristic is the large number of
articles which they conta