Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/37

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The Saxons and their Tribes.
23

and these are the people from whom Bede tells us that some of the English in his time were known to have been derived.

During the folk-wanderings some of the Suevi migrated to Swabia, in South Germany, and these people, called by the Scandian nations the Swæfas, were practically of the same race as the Saxons, and their name is sometimes used for Saxon. The Angarians, or Men of Engern, also were a tribe of the Old Saxons. Later on, we find the name Ostphalia used for the Saxon country lying east of Engern, now called Hanover, and Westphalia for the country lying west of this district. Among the Saxons there were tribal divisions or clans, such as that of the people known as the Ymbre, or Ambrones, and the pagus of the Bucki among the Engern people.[1]

This pagus of the Old Saxons has probably left its name not only in that of Buccingaham, now Buckingham, but also in other English counties. In Norfolk we find the Anglo-Saxon names Buchestuna, Buckenham. and others. In Northampton the Domesday names Buchebi, Buchenho, Buchestone, and others, occur. In Huntingdonshire, similarly,we find Buchesunorth, Buchesworth, and Buchelone; in Yorkshire Bucktorp, in Nottinghamshire Buchetone, in Devon Buchesworth and Bucheside, all apparently named after settlers called Buche. If a settler was of the Bucki tribe, it is easy to see how he could be known to his neighbours by this name.

The Buccinobantes, mentioned by Ammianus,[2] were a German tribe, from which settlers were introduced into Britain as Roman colonists before the end of Roman rule in Britain.[3] The results of research render it more and more probable that Teutonic people under the Saxon name were gradually gaining a footing in the island

  1. ‘Monumenta Germaniæ,’ edited by Pertz, Scriptures i., 154.
  2. Latham, R. G., loc cit., Epilegomena, lxxxii.
  3. Stephens, G., ‘Old Northern Runic Monuments,’ i. 61.