and oppressed their more settled and civilised neighbours, and almost with impunity. It further served to conceal the advance and cover the retreat of the more regular invasions, by which the Welch Princes constantly avenged the wrongs of their race, and endangered the power or checked the conquests of the Mercian Kings. It became, in short, a standing menace to the Mercian people and government, daily more intolerable, and calling more loudly for repression.
The primitive Mark was from time to time, as social or political causes arose, reduced by public authority, and, to the extent of such reduction, deprived of its character as Mark—that is, parcelled out among private owners; and, if the Marks of two communities adjoined, such a measure on the part of either was preceded by an agreement as to their common limit. The remedy applicable to the condition of the Marches of Mercia and Wales was analogous, namely, to reduce, and, so far, to unmarch them—to plant regular settlements, and extend efficient government in the waste and lawless district—to confer upon civilised bodies of Mercian subjects a personal as well as national interest in its preservation and improvement, and so to constitute them a firm and enduring bulwark on the frontier. The first step toward this policy was the establishment of a common limit of these Marches, and such a limit was Offa's Dyke.[1]
It was not likely that a nation still powerful and independent would readily acquiesce in a diminution of territory, the consequence of a series of defeats, or would regard otherwise than with hostility a boundary line drawn against itself, partly, perhaps, by its own reluctant hands, or would view with indifference the advance and increase of hostile settlements. The moral and legal character of the Dyke was scarcely sufficient to maintain it inviolate, and the new settlers would scarcely be strong enough at first to hold their own positions, much less to guard the national frontier also. The history, topography, and form of the Dyke all support the probability that, though chiefly and primarily a line of demarcation, it had also a defensive character as against the Welch. The nature of the defence is somewhat obscure. Whether the theory of a system of patrol or ward, maintained, in part at least, by a charge on the neighbouring lands,[2] be established or no, it may be supposed that in time of war the parts of the Dyke covering the natural approaches to the country were occupied by bodies of troops, who were thus enabled to act with advantage against more numerous enemies.
The important place of the Dyke in Anglo-Welch history appears from other attendant circumstances and considerations. A work of such magnitude and permanence could not have been undertaken, much less effected, except in fulfilment of a formal treaty between the rival nations—a treaty facilitating its construction,
