210 Notes on the Evidence bearing
once the Roman province of Germania Prima (the present
Alsace) and around Mayence—districts into which German
populations had come early and remained long under Roman
Rule. These districts abounding in heims shade off into
others in which names ending in villa or wilare, weiler or wyl,
are common. This fact, he remarks, suggests very strongly
that here, as in England, ham and villa were synonyms for
the same thing, the former being the German, the latter the
Latin name. In some instances the name of the same place
has, in the charters of these districts, the suffix villa or wilare,
and sometimes heim. The Roman villa is known to have
been exceedingly like a manor, and a clear and continuous
connection can often be traced in Gaul between the Roman
villa and the manor. Mr. Seebohm also notices the evidence
of local names ending in ing or ingas. Local names with this
suffix are found on the continent as well as in England, and
many writers have called attention to them as the original
Saxon clan settlements on the basis of the free village com-
munity. But Mr. Seebohm points out that the actual evidence
as to what a Welsh tribal household was, is more likely to
guide truly than any theoretical view of the village com-
munity under the German mark system. The tribal house-
hold in Wales was "the joint holding of the heirs of a
common ancestor from the great-grandfather downwards,
with redistributions within it to make equality, first between
brothers, then between cousins, and finally between second
cousins; the youngest son always retaining the original
homestead in these divisions." Now it is well-known that
in the south-east of England, and especially in Kent (he re-
marks), the custom of Gavelkind has continued to the present
day, retaining the division among male heirs, and historical
traces of the right of the youngest son to the original home-
stead. As regards England generally, the map shows that
the largest number of places mentioned in Domesday Survey
ending in ing occurs east of a line drawn from the Wash to the
Isle of Wight, the county where they are most plentiful being
Sussex. It is a singular thing, he adds, that the personal names
prefixed in the ings in England, Flanders, the Moselle valley