A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE connexion between the find at Barlaston and the series from the north-east of the county and the opposite district of Derbyshire has been already noticed ; and we cannot be far wrong in identifying the Dove valley colonists with the Pecsaetan, or dwellers in the Peak, mentioned in the remarkable list of settle- ments known as the Tribal Hidage, and dating from the first half of the seventh century. 37 These settlers were evidently accustomed to bury their dead in the grave-mounds or barrows of the Bronze period, but the reason may simply be that such mounds are particularly plentiful and conspicuous south of the Peak, and the practice was by no means confined to this area. 88 The Pecsaetan were evidently included in the Mercian kingdom, but the archaeological material is too meagre to settle the question whether they were akin to the occupants of the Trent valley near Burton. The available evidence points to their isolation, and the frequent discovery of enamels executed in the traditional British style points to their close contact with the native element. Further investigations with regard to the manufacture and distri- bution of the enamelled bowls may eventually throw some light on this question of intercourse. In connexion with the English occupation of this district, reference may be made to the varieties of dialect observed within the county borders. 38 " East and west, approximately through Stone, runs the southern limit of the use of a ' suspended /, or a voiceless th, for the test-word the ; and this peculiarity of pronunciation suggests a somewhat close racial connexion between the inhabitants of the Potteries and those of Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire, the limit following roughly the line of the Trent below Burton. Minor differences have also been noticed in this group of counties, and in view of what has been said with regard to north Staffordshire and Derbyshire, it is of interest to find that the dialect of Derbyshire south of Buxton is also heard along a strip of north-east Staffordshire parallel to the Dove, and bounded by a line from Buxton to Uttoxeter, thus embracing practically all the early burials apart from those in the neighbourhood of Burton. The latter is connected by dialect with south Staffordshire, north Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and east Shropshire. It is probable that the original centre of Mercia was the Trent valley near Burton, and the remains support the view that these were the most westerly body of Angles, their kinsmen (the Middle and South Angles) having occupied or obtained control of that part of the Midlands lying between Sherwood on the north and Arden and Rockingham Forest on the south. S9 They would thus be the neighbours of the West Saxons and their early allies the Hwiccas of the Lower Severn ; but as the southern kingdom declined, the Mercians pressed south and became the masters of south-east England in the days of Wulfhere. This digression will help to explain why there is much in the original West Saxon area that resembles the products of Anglian graves in Staffordshire and other parts of Mercia ; whereas objects distinctively West Saxon are not found in the northern Midlands. If there 37 Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (New Ser.), xiv, 191. 38 An example occurred at Oldbury, near Atherstone, Warwickshire (P.C.H. If am. , 267) ; and many are recorded from Yorkshire.
- These details are taken from A. J. Ellis, EngRsh Dialects, their Sounds and Homes, 7, 90, 92, 101, and
map. 39 For the limits of Mercia see H. M. Chadwick, Origin of the Engl. Nation, j. 214
