ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS restriction of burials to the consecrated ground of the churchyard. This change took place about the middle of the eighth century, and by that time Christianity had been professed by the South Saxons for about a century, they having been converted among the last in England. Some of the unfurnished graves with the Christian orientation may well belong to that century of transition, but the bulk must obviously date from the two hundred years preceding the conversion, if we accept the traditional date ot the Teutonic conquest. It may some day be possible to make further subdivisions and to distinguish the earlier from the later pagan burials by an examination of the grave-goods, possibly in connexion with orientation. Though the entire sequence cannot yet be formulated, some points bearing on the subject may here be mentioned, in addition to the comments already made on the various cemeteries. As might be expected in a district between two Jutish settlements, there are some examples in the county of Kentish work, or at least of work best represented among the Cantwara, for many of the relics may have been imported ready made from the Continent. And here the connexion is as much with the western coast as with the north of France. The rich and extensive cemetery of Herpes in the Charente includes most of the ornamental types found on High Down, while the bird brooch is found not only in the Visigothic cemetery but plenti- fully in Normandy and farther east. Such ornaments may indeed have been traded to these shores, but it is natural to suppose that some at least were brought by settlers from Gaul who would pre- serve and reproduce their traditional patterns in England. They would also adhere to their own burial practices, and it must be remembered that the Visigoths founded a kingdom in south-west France early in the fifth century, when they had been nominally Christians for a hundred years. Though nothing of an unmistakably religious character has been found in the early graves of Sussex, the east-and-west position of the majority corresponds to the almost invari- able orientation of several large cemeteries abroad, in which Christian symbols are also remarkably scarce. Existing evidence is insufficient to determine the actual course of events ; and graves cut in other directions become increasingly difficult to explain if the east-and-west position is considered to have been the rule amongst the first Teutonic settlers of Sussex. Influence from another quarter can be traced at High Down if nowhere else in the county, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suppUes a plausible explanation of West Saxon brooches in that cemetery.* In 607 Ceolwulf, King of Wessex, is recorded to have fought against the South Saxons ; and though Sussex was evidently under Mercian pro- tection in 661, twenty years later the South Saxon king was slain by Caedwalla of Wessex ; and troubles began which culminated five years later in the wasting of Kent and the Isle of Wight by the unconverted West Saxon. The High Down graves are in all probability somewhat ' Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i. 38. 347
