Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)Clark, George Thomas
History
Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)
Clark, George Thomas
Architecture -- England; Architecture, Medieval; Military architecture
British remains in Sussex are but scanty. A few of the larger and more
elevated of the hill-camps, and those of irregular form, as Cissbury,
which includes 60 acres, are supposed to be the work of the Regni, the
earliest recorded inhabitants of the district. It is also difficult not
to see in the Arun, the Adur, and the Ouse, names corresponding to the
Aeron, the Dour, and the Usk or Esk, by which many streams in Celtic
countries are still designated. Glynde has been claimed as a Celtic
name, but it is very rare, especially in Sussex, to find the name of a
parish of other than Teutonic origin.
Of the Roman period the traces are more numerous. The main road
intersecting the county from Chichester towards London is undoubtedly
of that date, and there seems to have been at least one other from
Chichester—the Roman Regnum—to Pevensey. There remain also several
rectangular camps, as Goushill, Hollingbury, Ditchling, Highdown, and
Brighthelmstone Down, evidently Roman. Chichester, though its Latin
name probably includes an earlier appellation, has the Roman cruciform
arrangement of its two main streets, though not the rectangular
outline. Anderida, Mutuantonis, and Mida, Roman towns of which the
site is disputed, seem to have been in Sussex; and at Bognor and other
places, pavements and foundations and inscribed stones, and other marks
of Roman habitation, have been discovered. Still the remains, whether
of British or Roman occupation, are but slight: all that speaks of
law, of order, of property, of the family tie, of the forefathers of
the people, of civil or religious polity, and of public worship—all of
this character which is ancestral, is English. This thorough uprooting
of the traces of earlier occupation is due, no doubt, to the position
of Sussex upon that part of the British coast most exposed to Saxon
and Danish invasion, and which bore the attacks of those formidable
invaders when at their earliest and fiercest. Sussex was late to come
under the humanising influences of Christianity, remaining Pagan till
the middle of the seventh century. The remarkable conservation, to our
days, of the names and divisions is probably due to the very peculiar
configuration of the district, and to the isolation produced by its
steep and lofty frontier ridges, and by the dense woodland which
covered, and to some extent does still cover, its central part. As the
position of the principal castles is determined by this configuration,
a few words concerning it will not be out of place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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