Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/125

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Our Darker Forefathers.
111

the British Bronze Age, and if this same character has been caused partly by people of a darker complexion and broad heads settling as immigrants among the fair-haired and long-headed Teutons in other parts of England, this racial character in both cases can be traced along different lines to the same distant source.

The consideration of the evidence that people of brunette complexions were among the Anglo-Saxon settlers in England leads on to that of people of a still darker hue, the dark, black, or brown-black settlers. Probably there must have been some of these among the Anglo-Saxons. for we meet with the personal names Blacman, Blæcman, Blakernan. Blacaman, Blac’sunu, Blæcca, and Blacheman, in various documents of the period.[1] Blæcca was an ealdorman of Lindsey who was converted by Paulinus; Blæcman was the son of Ealric or Edric, a descendant of Ida, ancestor of Ealhred. King of Bernicia, and so on.[2] The same kind of evidence is met with among the oldest place-names. Blacmannebergh is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter;[3] Blachemanestone was the name of a place in Dorset,[4] and Blachemenestone that of a place in Kent[5] Blacheshale and Blachenhale are Domesday names of places in Somerset, and Blachingelei occurs in the Domesday record of Surrey. The name Blachemene occurs in the Hertfordshire survey, and Blachene in Lincoln. Among the earliest names of the same kind in the charters we find Blácanden in Hants and Blácandon in Dorset. The places called Blachemanestone in Dorset and Blachemenestone in Kent were on or quite close to the coast, a circumstance which points to the settlers having come to these places by water rather than to a survival of black people of the old Celtic race having been left in them.

  1. Searle, W. G., loc. cit.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Codex Dipl.. No. 730.
  4. Domesday Book, i. 84 b.
  5. Ibid.