Wedermearc east of Lake Wetter in ancient Gothland, that it is difficult to see a more reasonable origin of the name, especially in a county which affords so many other traces of settlements of Northmen. The name Flamindic, similarly, appears to point to some of the people who were among the earliest to be known as Flemings. The survival of the old name Wendlebury for the earthwork on the Gog Magog Hills near Cambridge may be compared with the similar old name Wendlebury north-east of Oxford, and with Wendel Hill in the Elmet district of Yorkshire, all apparently referring to settlers who were called by this name. Among other significant Cambridgeshire place-names is Hinxton, which is certainly a contraction of Hengesteston, the town of Hengest. Leverington, written Liuerington in 1285, probably represents a tribal name, as also do Hockington, the town of the Hockings, and Haslingfield, written Haslingefeld in Domesday Book, the field of the Hæslings.[1]
The chief circumstances we can discover in the records of Cambridgeshire concerning the classes of tenants within it and their customs point more clearly to the later settlement of Danes than to the earlier one of Anglians and their allies. There was at the time of Domesday Survey a considerable number of cottars in this county, and in the Hundred Rolls, in which the actual holders of the land are stated in detail, a large number of small free tenants are mentioned by name. The presence of numerous holders of crofts, tofts, or other small tenements is a striking character of the records in the Hundred Rolls relating to this county. The very large number of small holdings of various sizes—12, 10, 7, 3, 2½, 2 acres, also 1½ acres and 1 acre—which were held in many places in Cambridgeshire proves that the customary and small free tenements were divided on inheritance, as in Gothland and in Kent.
- ↑ Skeat, W. W., Cambridge Antiquarian Soc., Oct. Pub., xxxvi.
