This latter view has been borne out by modern research, and it has been now generally admitted that a family or tribe called “Beorm” or “Berm” gave the place its early Saxon name. More than six centuries ago, indeed, and for a period lasting four centuries, we find the name of De Bermingham as lords of the fee. The first was a Peter de Bermingham, who in the reign of Henry II. in 1154 had a castle here, and lived in considerable splendour. Here all succeeding members of the family dwelt until the Duke of Northumberland ousted them in 1537, and with their ejectment the castle soon fell into ruins and disappeared, although as late as 1816 a moat and some traces of the walls remained. In the days of Edward the Confessor the town probably formed part of the possessions of Ulwin, generally identified with the Alwyne whose son Turchill founded the Warwickshire family of Arden, of whom the mother of Shakespeare was a descendant. There is no doubt that the place was of considerable importance in Saxon times, as proof exists of the holding of a market there prior to the Conquest. Although there is no mention in the Domesday Book of any church at that date, during the rebuilding of St. Martin’s in 1562, some early stone–work, evidently belonging to a former building and pointing to the existence of a church dating from before the Conquest, was discovered. Fairs were certainly held very early in Birmingham’s existence as a town, and in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is a curious MS. map dating from the last years of the thirteenth century, with a church clearly indicated, in addition to a considerable number of houses. On this map, where the name is given as “Brymingha,” many neighbouring towns of traditionally greater importance at that period are not even marked, and neither Coventry nor Warwick are named. It would thus appear that in medieval times, although Birmingham must have been a small town it was also a flourishing one, with a market for country produce, cattle, hides, etc., which was visited not only by local traders but by those of adjoining and even distant counties.