ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS THERE are few districts in England where the nature and course of the Anglo-Saxon conquest should be more easily traced than in Sussex. About the derivation of the name there can be no doubt whatever, and the kingdom of the South Saxons implies other Saxon areas from which it had to be distinguished. Wessex, the country of the West Saxons, is still a recognized division of England, though its boundaries are somewhat vaguer than of old, and Essex has remained a political unit in the east, while the territory of the Middle Saxons to-day includes the capital of an empire. To judge from the tribal name, the South Downs were evidently held in the post-Roman period by a population distinct from that of Kent, but related to the occupants of the district round the upper Thames and of a large area north of that river's lower reaches. Romney Marsh would in itself form a natural barrier on the east, and whatever the actual course of events in what is now Hampshire, it is recorded ' that in 66 1 Wulthere of Mercia handed over Wight to his godson Ethelwald, King of the South Saxons. It was evidently about the same date that the Gospel was preached in these parts. From the time of their landing to the middle of the seventh century, we may therefore regard the South Saxons as a pagan community, and their cemeteries show that they lived and died on the southern slopes of the Downs or in the fertile strip of low-lying country along their base. Beyond the chalk escarpment stretched the forest of the Weald, not inhabited to any extent till after the eleventh century, as the Domesday map clearly shows. At what date the Teutonic invaders first secured a footing on this part of the sea-board, cannot be precisely determined ; and it is the business of archaeology to throw some light on questions of this kind, by careful examination of such relics as may be assigned to the fifth and sixth centuries of our era. It must, however, be confessed at the outset that such discoveries have hardly fulfilled the expectations raised by the historical records. This is no doubt due in part to defective observation and inadequate descriptions of the explorations ; but with • Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i. 54. 333
