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–Kensington, Paddington, Notting-hill, Billingsgate,
Islington, Newington, Kennington, Wapping, and Teddington. There are
altogether 1,400 names of this type in England. Their value as a test of
Teutonic colonisation is shown by the fact that while 48 occur in
Northumberland, 127 in Yorkshire, 76 in Lincolnshire, 153 in Norfolk and
Suffolk, 48 in Essex, 60 in Kent, and 86 in Sussex and Surrey, only 2
are found in Cornwall, 6 in Cumberland, 24 in Devon, 13 in Worcester, 2
in Westmoreland, and none in Monmouth. Speaking generally, these clan
names are thickest along the original English coast, from Forth to
Portland; they decrease rapidly as we move inland; and they die away
altogether as we approach the purely Celtic west.

The English families, however, probably tilled the soil by the aid of
Welsh slaves; indeed, in Anglo-Saxon, the word serf and Welshman are
used almost interchangeably as equivalent synonyms. But though many