there were probably others. It is possible that some of these structures were of a very early date.

Outside Manchester, in this hundred, is a portion of a pre-Norman cross found on the banks of the Irwell near Eccles; a pre-Norman cross and other early sculptures at Bolton-le-Moors; and market crosses at Bolton-leMoors, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne, Bury, Oldham, Eccles, Stretford, and probably in some other towns.

The documentary evidence as to the early history of this division of the county is scanty. From the time of the departure of the Roman army, in the middle of the fifth century, we have little record of Lancashire history until about the middle of the ninth century, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the invasion of the Old Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes, and that these foreign invaders took possession of Mercia and Northumbria. It has been assumed, with much probability, that early in the seventh century Manchester was conquered, and that the lord* or thane built his hall and church on the site of the college, at the junction of the rivers Irk and Irwell. Fortunately some definite information about Manchester in the tenth century is contained in the AngloSaxon Chronicle: "A.D. 923. In this year, after harvest, King Edward went with his forces to Thelwall, and commanded the town to be built and occupied and manned; and commanded another force also of Mercians, the while that he sat there, to take possession of Manchester in North-humbria, and repair and man it."

*Mr. Henry Bradley tells us (Making of English): The history of the word lord is, on the whole, closely parallel to that of ghost. It is a contracted pronunciation of the old English 'hläfweard' or 'hläford,' which literally translated is bread-keeper.' The word originally meant the head of a household in relation to the servants and dependants, who were called his bread-eaters.'"'

G

Again, there is a brief reference in Domesday, quoted below by Professor Tait.

Subsequently to the warlike times (when the value of Manchester was mainly that it had a strongly defensive site, and was thus useful for military purposes) the town might never have risen again into importance had it not been that its proximity to the spurs of the Pennine range, which group themselves in a sort of amphitheatre on the north, east, and south-east, made it a convenient market town or great meeting place for the manufacturer who, from the thirteenth century, settled in the moorland towns of Blackburn, Burnley, Colne, Bacup, Todmorden, Rochdale, Oldham, and Ashton, where coal was accessible and where water came down in useful streams from the hills of this

Pennine range. A modern railway map, showing the iron roads between Manchester and these manufacturing towns, has, indeed, a singular resemblance to the map in Watkin's Lancashire of the Roman roads which once radiated in so many directions from this city.

For the later centuries, however, information is more ample, and the excellent work on mediæval Lancashire,* by Professor Tait, of Manchester University, sums up clearly much of the knowledge at present available, and corrects many errors in the works of previous historians.

I may note here in passing that Mr. Tait's investigations fully support the conclusions generally arrived at by local antiquaries, that in pre-Norman times the natural stronghold at the junction of the Irk with the Irwell was utilised by early settlers, and that here, within the encircling line of Hanging Ditch, the lord built his house and church, the church, as in so many other similar

*Medieval Manchester and the Beginnings of Lancashire. By James Tait, M.A., Professor of Ancient and Medieval History. Manchester: At the University Press, 1904.

instances, being again and again rebuilt and altered as the centuries passed on. The author thus endeavours to solve the difficulties which have attached to the supposed church of S. Michael, in Manchester, arising out of the reference in Domesday. He says: "The direct reference to Manchester runs thus-'The church of St. Mary and the church of St. Michael hold in Manchester one ploughland free from all burdens save Danegeld.' The church of St. Mary was undoubtedly the Saxon predecessor of the Cathedral. But what of St. Michael's?" Mr. Tait's explanation is that hitherto antiquaries have assumed that there was a second church in Manchester, situated at or near Alport, at the end of Deansgate. But evidence is entirely wanting to support this theory. He points out that in feudal terminology Manchester covered a good deal more than the township, and that at a date not very remote from Domesday. "The manor or lordship of Manchester was divided between two parishes. In the thirteenth century the bulk of it lay in the vast parish of Manchester, but the sub-manor of Ashton-under-Lyne formed a small parish by itself, and Ashton Church was and still is dedicated to St. Michael. As its advowson belonged to the lords of Manchester, it was probably a daughter church of St. Mary's. It is not impossible, indeed, that St. Mary's was the original mother church of the whole hundred, for Salford, the royal manor which formed the centre of the hundred, was in the parish of Manchester. . . . Lancashire parishes were proverbially large, and that of Manchester was no exception to the rule. It contained about sixty square miles, being bounded on the south by the river Mersey from Stockport to the confines of Urmston, on the west by the parishes of Flixton and Eccles, on the north by that of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, and on the east by Ashton parish and the river Tame."