Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/347

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Settlers in Northumbria.
333

hills or on the upland wastes, for temporary abodes while pasturing their cattle away from their permanent homesteads, as is the custom in Norway at the present time.

The descendants of Danish or Norse settlers may be distinguished in Lancashire as late as the time of Domesday Survey by the statements that some of them paid their rents in the Danish computation. Thus, in many places between the Ribble and the Mersey each carucate of land paid a tax or tribute of two ores of pennies.[1] The ore was a Danish coin of the value of sixteen pence, and later of twenty pence. Similarly, it may be noted in the ancient Northumbrian Priest-law that the fines mentioned are in half-marks, also of old Northern origin.

People of the same descent may be recognised in the land register of the monastery of Hexham, which tells us of ‘husbands’ and ‘terræ husband.’[2] These husbands were no doubt descended from Northern settlers known as bondi, a name still used for the peasant proprietors of Scandinavia.

The race characters shown at the present time by the people of Northumberland are, according to Beddoe, strongly Anglian, and can be well seen in the rural population around Hexham.[3] The Northumberland people are, in the main, above the average English size. It is on evidence that a regiment of men of that county standing in close formation occupies more space than an average regiment of the same number. The old race in north Durham is also Anglian in the main. The North and East Ridings of Yorkshire have an Anglo-Danish population, the prevailing types being Anglian and Danish. Phillips describes these people as tall, large-boned, and muscular, with a visage long and

  1. Domesday Book, quoted by Fishwick, H., ‘History of Lancashire,’ 54.
  2. Nasse, E., ‘The Agricultural Community,’ translated by Oudry, p. 71.
  3. Beddoe, J., ‘Races in Britain,’ 249.