r skippers, and it was long before they acquired a taste
for urban life. The whole eastern half of England is filled with
villages bearing the characteristic English clan names, and marking each
the home of a distinct family of early settlers. As soon as the
new-comers had burnt the villa of the old Roman proprietor, and killed,
driven out, or enslaved his abandoned serfs, they took the land to
themselves and divided it out on their national system. Hence the whole
government and social organisation of England is purely Teutonic, and
the country even lost its old name of Britain for its new one of
England.

In England, as of old in Sleswick, the village community formed the unit
of English society. Each such township was still bounded by its mark of
forest, mere, or fen, which divided it from its nearest neighbours. In
each lived a single clan, supposed to be of kindred blood and bearing a
common name. The marksmen and their serfs, the latter being conquered
Welshmen, cultivated the soil under cereals for bread, and also for an
unnecessarily large supply of beer, as we learn at a later date from
numerous charters. Cattle and horses grazed in the pastures, while large
herds of pigs were kept in the forest which formed the mark. Thus the
early English settled down at once from a nation of pirates into one of
agriculturists. Here and there, among the woods and fens which still
covered a large part of the country, their little separate communities
rose in small fenced clearings or on low islets, now joined by drainage
to the mainland; while in the wider valleys, tilled in Roman times, the
wealthier chieftains formed their settlements and allotted lands to
their Welsh tributaries. Many family names appear in different parts of
England, for a reason which will hereafter be explained. Thus we find
the Bassingas at Bassingbourn, in Cambridgeshire; at Bassingfield, in
Notts; at Bassingham and Bassingthorpe, in Lincolnshire; and at
Bassington, in Northumberland. The Billings have left their stamp at
Billing, in Northampton; Billingford, in Norfolk; Billingham, in Durham;
Billingley, in Yorkshire; Billinghurst, in Sussex; and five other places
in various other counties. Birmingham, Nottingham, Wellington,
Faringdon, Warrington, and Wallingford are well-known names formed on
the same analogy. How thickly these clan settlements lie scattered over
Teutonic England may be judged from the number which occur in the London
district alone