The survival, also, here and there in these counties of customs of inheritance that are different from the common customs point, probably, to different tribal usages of a very remote origin which were brought by early tribal settlers.
Many years ago some remarkable burial urns of the Anglo-Saxon age were found at Eye in Suffolk, and at Little Wilbraham in Cambridgeshire. Another large collection was found at Stade in the old Chaucian country of North Germany. Kemble says of these collections: ‘Generally the urns in sepulchres of North Europe are not of a complicated character. The urns found at Stade, as well as those from Eye and Little Wilbraham, are, however, beaten out and embossed, the raised parts most likely pressed out with the thumb.’ ‘The urns embossed like those at Eye, at Wilbraham, and at Stade stand by themselves.’[1]This is a remarkable coincidence, for it is near Eye that we find such old place-names as Fressingfield and Hoxne, names that are probably traces of Frisians and Hocings—i.e., Chaucians. Stade is in the old Chaucian county, and Hoxne is written in Domesday Book in the genitive plural form Hoxna.
Among many places which have old tribal names in Norfolk, we find both Wendling and Winterton, and these not improbably refer to settlers of the same race, who were called Wends by German tribes, such as the Frisians, and Winthr by the Scandians. The names Wendling and Winterton, which were probably given to these places by the neighbouring settlers, may, perhaps, point to people mainly of Frisian descent near Wendling, and to people mainly of Scandinavian descent near Winterton. The name Somerton, which occurs close to Winterton in Norfolk, is probably of later origin, and arose after the word Wintr had ceased to be understood as a race name. The name Wintretuna or Wintretona occurs in nine entries in that part of Domesday Book which relates to Norfolk.
- ↑ Kemble, J. M., Archæologia, xxxvi. 273.
