The Annals of Willenhall. Frederick William Hackwood

II.—The Saxon Settlement

       Table of Contents

      Fourteen or fifteen centuries ago the cluster of places which we now know as the town of Wolverhampton, and the numerous industrial centres grouped around it, were then primitive Saxon settlements, each of them peopled by the few families that claimed kinship with each other.

      These embryo townships were dotted about the clearings which had been made in the thick primeval forest with which the whole face of England was then covered, save only where the surface was barren hill or undrained swamp. Does not the terminal “field,” in such a place-name as Wednesfield, literally mean “feld,” or the woodland clearing from which the timbers had been “felled”? Each settlement, whether called a “ham” (that is, a home), or a “tun” (otherwise a town), was a farmer-commonwealth, cultivating the village fields in common; each was surrounded by a “mark,” or belt of waste land, which no man might appropriate, and no stranger advance across without first blowing his horn to give timely notice of his approach. Remnants of these open unappropriated lands may be traced by such place-names as Wednesfield “Heath,” and Monmore “Green.”

      At the outset each settlement at its foundation was independent of, and co-equal with, the others; Saxon society being founded on a system of family groupings, and a government of the ancient patriarchal type.

      All questions of government and public interest were settled by the voice of the people in “moot,” or open-air meeting, assembled beneath the shelter of some convenient tree. Our ancestors were an open-air, freedom-loving people, who mistrusted walls and contemned fortifications. In course of time, however, the exigencies of their environment—the aggressiveness of neighbours and foreigners, the incursions of invaders and marauders—materially modified their views, and changed their habits in this respect; and so it came about in the scheme of national defence that the temple-crowned hill of Woden became Woden’s burh (now Wednesbury), a hill fortified by deep ditch and high stockade.

      Presently the family tie gave way to the lordship, as certain chiefs, under the stress of circumstances, acquired domination over others, and hence arose the manor or residential lordship, the head of which took pledges for the fidelity of those below him, and in turn became responsible for them to the king above him—a system of mutual inter-dependence from the head of the state downwards. Under these new conditions Stow Heath became the head of a Saxon manor, in which were involved Willenhall, Wolverhampton, Bilston, Wednesfield, Eccleshall, and a number of other village settlements. Some of these, however, were in the Hundred of Seisdon, and some in the Hundred of Offlow—a “hundred” being originally the division of a county that contained a hundred villages.

      The unregenerate Teuton was a pirate and a plunderer; the settled Saxon became an oversea trader and trafficker. The Anglo-Saxon merchant of later and more settled times, raised by his wealth to the dignity of a thane, became a landed man, and a lord over his fellows. Herein we have the transition from a free village community to a Saxon manor.

      At Wolverhampton was seated one Wolfric, said to have been an ancestor of Wolfgeat, and a relation to Wulfruna; his manor house was situated on the slope of the hill between the present North Street and Waterloo Road—doubtless a large rambling mansion of low elevation, built of heavy timbers on a low plinth of boulders and hewn stones.

      Here at Hantun he kept his state—such as the luxury of the age permitted to him. Seated in his great oaken hall, with its heavy roof timbers, at the close of each day he drank deep draughts with his guests and his numerous servants, in the flaring light of odorous resin torches stuck in iron staples along the walls. The smoke from his fire of logs escaped as lazily as it might through an aperture in the roof. The earthen floor was strewn with rushes, more or less clean as it was littered by the refuse of few or more feasts. The only furniture consisted of a long trestle table, with rude benches of oak on each side; the whole effort at ornamentation being limited to trophies of war and the chase hanging upon the walls. Such, in brief, was the home life of a great thane.

      It will be observed that Wednesfield and Wednesbury at least were founded by the Saxons in their pagan days; that is before their acceptance of the White Christ, which was towards the close of the seventh century. Tradition hath it that at the Anglian advent into this district, the worship of Woden was first set up in a grove at Wednesfield. Here was first fixed the Woden Stone, the sacred altar on which human sacrifices were offered of that dread Teutonic deity, Woden.

      It was carved with Runic figures—for was not Woden the inventor of the Runic characters? In sacrificing, the priest, at the slaying of the victim, took care to consecrate the offering by pronouncing always the solemn formula, “I devote thee to Woden!”

      Part of the blood was then sprinkled on the worshippers, part on the sacred grove; the bodies were then either burnt on the altar or suspended on trees within this mystic grove. Later, when some advance had been made by the hierarchy, the Woden Stone was removed from the Wednesfield grove to be erected within the temple of Woden at Wednesbury.

      There are other evidences of pagan practices to be discovered in Staffordshire place-names. Tutbury is said to derive its name from Tuisto, the Saxon god who gave the name to Tuesday, as Woden lent his to Wednesday; and Thursfield from Thor, the deity worshipped on Thursday. There is also Thor’s cave, still so-called, in the north of this county (see “Staffordshire Curiosities,” p. 159), and other similar reminders of Anglo-Saxon paganism.

      It is not outside the bounds of possibility that a third local place-name is traceable to the personality of Woden. Sedgley may be derived from Sigge’s Lea, and Sigge was the real name of the Teutonic conqueror who, in overrunning north-west Europe, assumed the name of Woden for the sake of prestige—he was the founder of Sigtuna, otherwise Sigge’s town, in Sweden. In the science of English place-names it is well-known that while hills and streams and other natural phenomena were allowed to retain their old British names (as Barr, “a summit,” and Tame, “a flood water”), towns, villages, and other political divisions were very generally renamed by the Saxon conquerors, the places in many instances being called after the personal names of their owners.

      Here are some local illustrations of place-names conferred by the Anglian invaders when they had conquered and appropriated the territory.

      Arley, otherwise Earnlege, was “the Eagle’s ley.”

      Bilston signifies “the town of Bil’s folk.”

      Blakenhall was “the hall of Blac.”

      Bloxwich was “the village of Bloc”: as Wightwick was “Wiht’s village.”

      Bushbury was “the Bishop’s burg.”

      Chillington was originally “Cille’s town.”

      Codsall was “Code’s hall.”

      Darlaston was once “Deorlaf’s town.”

      Dunstall, otherwise Tunstall, was “an enclosed farmstead,” half a mile outside the ancient boundary of Cannock Forest.

      Essington was “the town of the descendants of Esne.”

      Ettingshall was “the hall of the Etri family.”

      Featherstone seems to have been “Feader’s stone.” According to a charter of the year 994 there was then a large stone called the “Warstone,” to mark the boundary of this place.

      Hatherton, or Hagathornden, signifies “the hill of the hawthorn.”

      Kinvaston