Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF MAPS
- AUTHOR'S PREFACE
- EDITOR'S PREFACE
- FOREWORD
- I SOUTH SOMERSET IN EARLY AGES
- II SOUTH SOMERSET IN SAXON AND DANISH TIMES
- III COKER IN THE TIME OF THE NORMAN KINGS
- IV COKER IN THE TIME OF THE DE MANDEVILLES (circa 1140–1308)
- V COKER IN THE TIME OF THE FIRST COURTENAYS (1308–1391)
- VI WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE LATER COURTENAYS (1391–1442)
- VII WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE NEW MEN (1556–91)
- VIII WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE PORTMANS (1591–1727)
- IX WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE BERKELEY PORTMANS (1728–1829)
- I Abstract from Domesday Book giving tenure of lands in the neighbourhood of Somerton, T.R.E. and T.R.W.
- II Domesday entry of Coker
- III Extracts from Neustria Pia with reference to the claim of St Stephen's Abbey, Caen, to have been granted the Manor of Coker
- IV A bailiff's account of the Manor of West Coker, 1309
- V Extent of East Coker Manor, 1321
- VI (i) Assessments for a twentieth, 1 Edward III, for East Coker and West Coker
- VII Accounts of West Coker Manor: (i) 1422; (ii) 1425
- VIII Indictment of persons charged with burning down George Middleton's house at West Coker on 1 September 1457
- IX The Coker family out of south Somerset, 1285–1498
- X Abbot Beere's survey of abbey lands in West Coker, 1507
- XI Accounts of West Coker Manor, 1527
- XII (i) Assessments for fifteenths and tenths for East Coker and West Coker, 10 Edw. III to 39 Eliz
- XIII West Coker cases of debt or trespass in the Court of Common Pleas. From Trinity 1597 to Trinity 1604
- XIV (i) Assessments for subsidies 13, 35 and 39 Eliz., 18 Jac. I, 3 and 16 Car. I, 13 and 15 Car. II, for West Coker
- XV Deliveries of West Country canvas, 1634–72
- XVI Numbers and names of fields in West Coker from the Map and Schedule annexed to the Tithe Agreement of 1838, with past variations and probable meanings
- INDEX
- Plate section
II - SOUTH SOMERSET IN SAXON AND DANISH TIMES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- LIST OF MAPS
- AUTHOR'S PREFACE
- EDITOR'S PREFACE
- FOREWORD
- I SOUTH SOMERSET IN EARLY AGES
- II SOUTH SOMERSET IN SAXON AND DANISH TIMES
- III COKER IN THE TIME OF THE NORMAN KINGS
- IV COKER IN THE TIME OF THE DE MANDEVILLES (circa 1140–1308)
- V COKER IN THE TIME OF THE FIRST COURTENAYS (1308–1391)
- VI WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE LATER COURTENAYS (1391–1442)
- VII WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE NEW MEN (1556–91)
- VIII WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE PORTMANS (1591–1727)
- IX WEST COKER IN THE TIME OF THE BERKELEY PORTMANS (1728–1829)
- I Abstract from Domesday Book giving tenure of lands in the neighbourhood of Somerton, T.R.E. and T.R.W.
- II Domesday entry of Coker
- III Extracts from Neustria Pia with reference to the claim of St Stephen's Abbey, Caen, to have been granted the Manor of Coker
- IV A bailiff's account of the Manor of West Coker, 1309
- V Extent of East Coker Manor, 1321
- VI (i) Assessments for a twentieth, 1 Edward III, for East Coker and West Coker
- VII Accounts of West Coker Manor: (i) 1422; (ii) 1425
- VIII Indictment of persons charged with burning down George Middleton's house at West Coker on 1 September 1457
- IX The Coker family out of south Somerset, 1285–1498
- X Abbot Beere's survey of abbey lands in West Coker, 1507
- XI Accounts of West Coker Manor, 1527
- XII (i) Assessments for fifteenths and tenths for East Coker and West Coker, 10 Edw. III to 39 Eliz
- XIII West Coker cases of debt or trespass in the Court of Common Pleas. From Trinity 1597 to Trinity 1604
- XIV (i) Assessments for subsidies 13, 35 and 39 Eliz., 18 Jac. I, 3 and 16 Car. I, 13 and 15 Car. II, for West Coker
- XV Deliveries of West Country canvas, 1634–72
- XVI Numbers and names of fields in West Coker from the Map and Schedule annexed to the Tithe Agreement of 1838, with past variations and probable meanings
- INDEX
- Plate section
Summary
The occupation of Somerset by the Saxon invaders was a slow and a comparatively late process. It was relatively little affected by Saxon conquest and influence in the opening phases of Saxon adventum in the fifth and early sixth centuries. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, first compiled towards the end of the ninth century, a branch of the West Saxons, known as the Gewissae, made their first settlement in the early part of the sixth century west of the extension of the so-called Jutish territory, in what is now the southern borderland of Hampshire and Wiltshire. They fought the Britons at Cardices Ford (Charford on the Avon) and advanced northwards towards the populated region of Salisbury Plain. The main body of West Saxons, according to archaeological evidence, were, possibly, still in the upper Thames valley in the middle of the sixth century. Then in 577 came the decisive battle at Deorham (Dyrham, just north of Bath) when British rulers were slain and British refugees driven from the ruins of Roman towns at Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath by Ceawlin and his son Cuthwine. The ruins of Bath are thus described in a seventh-century elegiac poem which dwells on earthly mutability, mortality and overshadowing fate:
Firmly the builder laid the foundations,
Cunningly bound them with iron bands;
Stately the palaces, splendid the baths,
Towers and pinnacles pointing on high;
Many a mead-hall rang with their revelry,
Many a court with the clangour of arms,
Till Fate the all-levelling laid them low.
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- The Annals of West Coker , pp. 17 - 48Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1957