upon British Ethnology. 211
around Troyes and Langres, in the old Agri Decumates (now
Wurtemburg), and even those in Frisia are to a very large
extent identical. Thus, if the names were clan-names it
might be impossible to deny that the English and continental
districts were peopled by branches of the same clans. But
the names being personal and not family or clan names "the
Baldo of one tribe need not be closely related to the Baldo
of another tribe, any more than John Smith need be related
to John Jones." Still this singular identity even of personal
names suggests that those who gave them to English villages
were much more probably colonists from Romanized Germany
than Angles, Saxons, or Jutes. These holdings of tribal
households may have been from the first (Mr. Seebohm
thinks) embryo manors with serfs on them. "As a matter
of fact the actual settlements in question had, at all events,
become manors before the dates of the earliest documents."
Tribal households may have occasionally expanded into free
village communities. But the evidence is against the view
that German emigration generally took that form.
In summing up the economic evidence, Mr. Seebohm re-
marks that it is sufficient to prove either that there was a
sufficient degree of continuity between Roman Villa and
Saxon Manor to preserve the type, or that the German in-
vaders must have been thoroughly Romanized before their
arrival here ; it being utterly impossible that a system abound-
ing with survivals of usages of the Roman-German province
could have been introduced into England by un-Romanized
pirates from Northern Germany.
In addition to this evidence of continuity in land tenure,
Mr. Seebohm points out how common is that of continuity
between Roman and English villages in the small district of
which Hitchin is the centre, and which he has had an oppor-
tunity of examining. He also notices the amount of archaeo-
logical evidence of a similar kind elsewhere which accumulates
as time goes on. Turning from villages to towns, I may
remark that Professor Pearson24 gives a list of about fifty
towns in illustration of the very considerable amount of cou-
24 'Historical Maps of England.'