Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Scandinavian Britain - III. The Norse Settlements - 2. Cheshire and Lancashire
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
pastures of the first settlers met, is Thingwall ; and near
it is Landican, which, if we are right in explaining the
name as the chapel of an Irish saint or priest, stands
in relation to the Thingstead as the central church in
the Isle of Man does to the Tynwald. And further,
we see that Ingimund’s Norse were already Christianised
in Dublin and brought their religion with them ;
or, if they were not all as yet Christians, we may be sure
that the Lady of the Mercians insisted that settlers
under her rule should be baptised, though she did
not make them take an English priest. But just up
the hillside, above the muddy dell in which the
chapel stood, is Prenton (in Domesday, Prestune), the
priest’s farm. As in Iceland, the priest farmed his
own glebe. Later, when a new church was built,
perhaps (from its monuments) a generation or two
after the first settlement, the farm attached to it was
known as West Kirk-by. The churches at Neston
and Bromborough, as the crosses suggest, are of the
end of the tenth century, or early in the eleventh.
Overchurch, of course, was pre-Viking, and no doubt
destroyed by Hástein, or even earlier.
In Wirral we seem to have the first of those agricultural
settlements which characterise the Norse of the
west coast, as distinguished from the predatory and
trading centres of the Vikings in Wales, and the conquered
lands of the great Danish invasion in the east
of England. To their presence in Cheshire must
have been due the rise of the town refounded by
ealdorman Æthelred, for its wealth in the eleventh
century was won by trade with Dublin (see Mr.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
