BRITANNIA EPITOMIZED AND CONTINUED; BEING A COMPENDIOUS ACCOUNT OF THE ANTIENT AND PRESENT STATE OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND. BY SAMUEL TYMMS. VOL. I.-HOME CIRCUIT. LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. INTRODUCTION. IN laying before the public the first portion of a Compendious Account of the History and Antiquities of the Counties of England, the Editor wishes to say a few words respecting the progress and design of the undertaking. The plan of the work, it will be seen, is so extensive as to embrace a notice of nearly every thing of interest or importance in the history, statistics, and localities of each county; being divided into the following general and comprehensive classes. I. SITUATION AND EXTENT. Under this head, the boundaries, dimensions, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the county are comprised. II. ANTIENT STATE AND REMAINS. In this division the former state of the civil, ecclesiastical, and military importance of the county is developed and mention is made in chronological order of those remains of the Britons, and the subsequent : possessors of our Isle, which excite the wonder and admiration of the traveller, and which have so materially assisted to elucidate those early periods of our history. They consist principally of Encampments, or military fortifications prior to the construction of castles ;-Earthworks, comprising barrows, or tumuli raised over the dead, dykes or ditches forming the boundaries of territory, and amphitheatres on sides of hills:-Circles of Stones, and other vestigia of the peculiar rites of the Druids or priests of heathen Britain:―with an enumeration of the places where the pavements of our Roman civilizers have been disclosed, together with coins, urns, and other remains. In mentioning the kingdom in which the county was situate during the period of the Saxon domination, the Editor has preferred using the term "Octarchy" instead of the more generally adopted one of "Heptarchy," for the reasons assigned in Mr. Sharon Turner's "History of the Anglo-Saxons," vol. I. pp. 302, 309. The exertions of the British against their invaders having failed, eight Anglo-Saxon governments were established in the island. This state of Britain has been very improperly denominated, by the greater part of the old annalists and antiquaries, the Saxon Heptarchy. When all the kingdoms were settled, they formed an Octarchy. Before the year 500, there were only the kingdoms of Sussex and Kent, which formed a Duarchy. Wessex formed the Triarchy; East Anglia a Tetrarchy; Essex the Pen tarchy; Bernicia, in 547, an Hexarchy; Deira, in 560, an Heptarchy; and Mercia, in 586, the Octarchy. Matthew of Westminster gives the names of the eight kings who reigned in 586. From the first landing of Hengist, more than a century had elapsed to the complete establishment of the Anglo-Saxon Octarchy. In 728, upon the union of Wessex and Sussex, it again became an Heptarchy. Next follows an enumeration of all the Monastic Edifices which have been raised in the county, with the dates of their foundation, and, in very many instances, the names of the royal and noble founders, particularizing whether subservient to some Foreign monastery, or to a superior one in England. As it was usual to have a Church in every parish, those only are mentioned which exhibit remarkable specimens of our early architecture. And here, lest the even occasional use of the word " Saxon," as applied to remains of the semicircular style of architecture, may be cavilled at, from the now prevalent disbelief, in which the Editor in some measure participates, in the existence of any entire specimens of the architecture of that people, he has only to observe that he has adopted the terms of his author, except when pictorial representation or personal examination has induced him to believe in the greater accuracy of the term " Norman." Of the internal furniture of an ecclesiastical edifice, the most curious and interesting are the Stone Pulpits |