of North Lancashire and South Westmoreland appear to have come partly from Yorkshire and partly by the sea. Some of them would probably be Northumbrian Anglians, and others of Jutish extraction. The remains of early stone crosses at Whalley and at Burnley, of the same style as those found in other parts of ancient Northumbria, are traces of the early Anglian connection of these parts of Lancashire, and the runic inscription found at Lancaster supplies confirmatory evidence of this connection.
Close to Lancaster there are distinct traces of a later settlement of Norse, for around Heysham and Halton the hills are called fells, the pools are tarns, the streams becks, the farms are thwaits, and the island rocks are skears.[1]
As regards the early customs of partible inheritance which prevailed over large districts of Yorkshire, Glanville’s remarks in the time of Henry II. must be remembered—viz., that partible inheritance was only recognised by the law-courts of his time on those manors where it could be proved that the land always had been divided. Consequently, as this custom was allowed to continue on many manors of the great lordships of Richmond, Pickering, and St. Peter’s, York, it must have been a custom of immemorial usage, and proved to the satisfaction of the law in the twelfth century. This points to the conclusion that these areas were originally occupied by Goths and Frisians among the Anglian settlers of Yorkshire. The proof lay in an actual inspection of the subdivided lands, which must have borne their testimony, as well as in the sworn evidence of witnesses. The partible lands of the Dalecarlian people of Sweden, who are descendants of the Northern Goths, show at the present day similar evidence of this immemorial usage. The custom could not have been general throughout England, because it was allowed to continue in comparatively few places. If it had generally prevailed, its antiquity could have been proved,
- ↑ March, H. C., Lancashire and Cheshire Arch. Soc., ix. 50, 51.
