ABSTRACT
DURING the slow progress of the Teutonic invasion and occupation, many a Roman colony perished. The sites of some are now entirely lost, and some have been recently, as Uriconium, Silchester, and the like, discovered. Roman England was dotted over with villas, the foundations of which are now and then exposed in places which have long since been abandoned to tillage. Saxon England was not a settlement of towns, but of villages and communal customs. Even most of the bishoprics were settled in places which never could have been considerable. The seat of the bishop whose jurisdiction extended from the Humber to the Thames was an Oxfordshire village, which grew round an ancient monastery, founded within the walls of a Roman town. The Bishop of the West had his see at the hamlet of Crediton, that of the Central and East at Elmham. A few were from the first placed
The Oldest Towns. 103 in the ancient colonies of Roman England, as at London, Winchester, York, and Worcester.
