of their unsuccessful attempts at rebellion[38]; and the laws of Ini, a Westsaxon king, show that in the territories subject to his rule, and bordering upon the yet British lands, the Welshman occupied the place of a _perioecian_ rather than a _helot_[39]. Nothing in fact is more common, or less true, than the exaggerated account of total exterminations and miserable oppressions, in the traditional literature of conquered nations; and we may very safely appeal even to the personal appearance of the peasantry in many parts of England, as evidence how much Keltic blood was permitted to subsist and even to mingle with that of the ruling Germans; while the signatures to very early charters supply us with names assuredly not Teutonic, and therefore probably borne by persons of Keltic race, occupying positions of dignity at the courts of Anglosaxon kings[40]. Footnote 36: Many beyond a doubt found a refuge in Brittany among their brethren and co-religionists who had long been settled there. Conf. Ermold. Nigel. bk. iii. v. 11. in Pertz, ii. 490. The Cumbrians and Welsh had probably been as little subdued by the Romans as they were by the Saxons. Footnote 37: Gildas does not spare the native princes: see Epist. querul. _passim_; and when every excuse has been made for the exaggerations of an honest zeal, we must believe the condition of the people to have been bad in the extreme. Footnote 38: “Quorum illi qui Northwallos, id est Aquilonales Britones dicebantur, parti Westsaxonum regum obvenerant. Illi quondam consuetis servitiis seduli, diu nil asperum retulere, sed tunc rebellionem meditantes, Kentuuinus rex tam anxia caede perdomuit, ut nihil ulterius sperarent. Quare et ultima malorum accessit captivis tributaria functio; ut qui antea nec solam umbram palpabant libertatis, nunc iugum subiectionis palam ingemiscerent.” W. Malmsb. Vit. Aldhelmi, Ang. Sac. ii. 14. Footnote 39: Leg. Ini, § 32, 33. Footnote 40: See a tract of the author’s in the Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute, 1845, on Anglosaxon names. From some very interesting papers read by the Rev. R. Garnett before the Philological Society in 1843, 1844, we learn that a considerable proportion of the words which denote the daily processes of agriculture, domestic life, and generally indoor and outdoor service, are borrowed by us from the Keltic. Philolog. Trans, i. 171 _seq._ The amount of Keltic words yet current in English may of course he accounted for in part, without the hypothesis of an actual incorporation; but many have unquestionably been borrowed, and serve to show that a strong Keltic element was permitted to remain and influence the Saxon. That it did so especially in local names is not of much importance, as it may be doubted whether conquest ever succeeded in changing these entirely, in any country.