ably through Pannonia), whereby
the alien culture of the south was already engrafted in part upon the
low civilisation of the native English. Amber was then exported from the
Baltic, while gold, silver, and glass beads were given in return. Roman
coins are discovered in Low German tombs of the first five centuries in
Sleswick, Holstein, Friesland, and the Isles; and Roman patterns are
imitated in the iron weapons and utensils of the same period. Gold
byzants of the fifth century prove an intercourse with Constantinople
at the exact date of the colonisation of Britain. From the very earliest
moment when we catch a glimpse of its nature, the home-grown English
culture had already begun to be modified by the superior arts of Rome.
Even the alphabet was known and used in its Runic form, though the
absence of writing materials caused its employment to be restricted to
inscriptions on wooden tablets, on rude stone monuments, or on utensils
of metal-work. A golden drinking-horn found in Sleswick, and engraved
with the maker's name, referred to the middle of the fourth century,
contains the earliest known specimen of the English language.

The early English society was founded entirely on the tie of blood.
Every clan or family lived by itself and formed a guild for mutual
protection, each kinsman being his brother's keeper, and bound to avenge
his death by feud with the tribe or clan which had killed him. This duty
of blood-revenge was the supreme religion of the race. Moreover, the
clan was answerable as a whole for the ill-deeds of all its members; and
the fine payable for murder or injury was handed over by the family of
the wrong-doer to the family of the injured man.

Each little village of the old English community possessed a general
independence of its own, and lay apart from all the others, often
surrounded by a broad belt or mark of virgin forest. It consisted of a
clearing like those of the American backwoods, where a single family or
kindred had made its home, and preserved its separate independence
intact. Each of these families was known by the name of its real or
supposed ancestor, the patronymic being formed by the addition of the
syllable _ing_. Thus the descendants of AElla would be called AEllings,
and their _ham_ or stockade would be known as AEllingaham, or in modern
form Allingham. So the _tun_ or enclosure of the Culmings would be
Culmingatun, similarly modernised into Culmington. Names of this type
abou