A HISTORY OF ESSEX though nothing of importance was found in them, the arrangement in two cases was remarkable. The bodies were disposed in a ring, and radiated from the centre, as was recently found to be the case at New- port Pagnell, Bucks. 1 The feet were in both cases turned towards the centre, and parallels are thus furnished in this country to a discovery made some years ago at Vendhuile, a Merovingian site in the Depart- ment of Aisne, France. 2 Saxon or Danish relics are said to have been discovered some years since at Goldhanger when several small grave mounds were opened on the marshes ; and several burials at Leigh near Southend were dated approximately by numerous silver pennies of Alfred (871-900) and Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury (890914). Specimens of these are in the museum at Colchester. By that date the practice of burying ornaments and weapons with the dead had been abandoned under the influence of the Church, and finds in graves of the later Anglo-Saxon period are very exceptional. Coins of the ninth and tenth centuries have seldom any other than a numismatic importance, and there are only a few recorded discoveries in Essex. A penny of Beornwulf, King of Mercia, found at Ashdon (Hadstock), 3 throws no light on a number of burials placed north and south and accompanied by weapons of some kind 4 ; nor is the post- Roman history of Ithanceaster (Bradwell-on-Sea) any clearer for the discovery of a silver penny and sceatta there. 6 To these may be added various coins found at Leyton 6 and Barking, 7 but no further details of any importance survive. As a comprehensive survey of the archaeological remains in the county may one day throw some light on the extent to which in the post-Roman period Christianity influenced the native or his conqueror, the few details recorded of missionary effort in this region will not be out of place. According to Bede, who wrote early in the eighth century, London was the metropolis of the East Saxons ; and the story of Mellitus, its first bishop, is too well known to be repeated here. From the archaeological point of view it is more important to notice that at the opening of Anglo-Saxon history, as soon as the records became credible, Essex is a sub-kingdom with its ruler Sigeberht bound by ties of marriage to his Kentish overlord. The foundation of the see of London was no doubt one of many ways in which Kentish influence was exercised north of the river ; and it is hard to imagine that along their opposite coasts there was not easy communication between Jute and Saxon, or whatever races owned a common allegiance to the throne of ^Ethelberht at the opening of the seventh century. Traces of such influence may be noticed in the Essex finds, but 1 Antiquary, 1900, xxxvi. 97.
- 6. Fleury, Antiquitis et monuments du Deft, de r Aisne, pt. 2, p. 131.
8 Journal of British Archetologcal Association, v. 80. 4 Essex Archaeological Transactions, new ser. iv. 7. B Gentleman's Magazine, 1865, pt. ii. 403. 6 T. Wright, History of Essex, ii. 500 ; Cough's edition of Camden's Britannia, ii. 50. 7 Lyson's Environs of London, iv. 58. 328
