The extent of the occupation of Warwickshire by the Saxons can be easily traced by the curious from the number of _marks_, as their early settlements were called. Thirty–one of the large number of thirteen hundred and twenty–nine names of settlements, which have been traced throughout the land, belong to Warwickshire. Some few of the most notable were Leamingas (Leamington), Beormingas (Birmingham), Ludingas (Luddington), Whittingas (Whittington), Poeccingas (Packington), Ælmingas (Almington), Secingas (Seckington), and Eardingas (Erdington). Warwickshire is not possessed of many Saxon remains. Of architecture dating from before the Conquest the fragments of round–headed door cases at Kenilworth, Stretton–on–Dunsmoor, Ryton, Honingham, Badgeley, and Burton Dassett may be mentioned. While at Polesworth nunnery, the ruins of Merevale Abbey, and in the churches at Salford Priors and Beaudesert there are some fragments. Occasionally Saxon jewels have been turned up in the soil. Perhaps amongst the most interesting of these relics are the two Saxon jewels of cut gold, one set with an opal and rubies, and the other adorned on both sides with a cross between two rudely–fashioned human figures, each holding a lance or sword in one hand, found more than a century and a quarter ago at Walton Hall, near Compton Verney. Tumuli, of course, exist in different parts of the country, from which at various times bones, skulls, and small ornaments have been excavated. Until the coming of William the Conqueror Warwickshire was almost without historians or records, although an attempt at a survey and the accumulation of historical data had been made in the previous reign of Edward the Confessor. Though the Saxon Chronicle gives many interesting and valuable details concerning lands, places, and incidentally also of the life of the people of the period, it is to the Domesday Book, that monumental work of the Conqueror, all historians and students have to go when in search of information regarding the English counties at the time of, immediately prior to, and after the Conquest. The value of this truly wonderful work as regards Warwickshire in particular is considerably enhanced by reason of its containing a comparative report of the nature, extent, and value of the different estates, names of towns, and position of roads in the reign of Edward the Confessor. From its pages one is enabled to gain a more or less vivid idea of the extent of the county, its inhabitants, and its peculiarities at a time when English history and that of Warwickshire was in the making.