dred yards from the other.
At first this arrangement might seem rather Celtic than Roman, and in
fact, it may well be that the Romans occupied here earthworks far older
than anything built by them in Britain, and yet it seems perhaps more
probable that they are responsible for all we have here, un-Roman
though it seems, and that the true explanation is that the outer
defences, while their work, are the older of the two; that with the
decline of their administration in the fourth century, with the
building of the Stane Street and the general walling of the Roman towns
this older and larger defence was abandoned, and the place, whatever it
may have been, reduced to a mere fort to hold which upon the landward
side the inner defence was there built.

Of the fate of Clausentum in the Dark Age we know nothing; if it was a
mere fort with no life of its own it may or may not have been
abandoned; but it would seem certain that with the renewal of
civilisation in southern England, by the return of Christianity, a town
was established upon the right bank of the estuary opposite Clausentum.
This town was the first Southampton, and there Athelstane is said to
have established mints. This town, however, does not seem to have
occupied the same site as the Southampton we know, but rather to have
been gathered about St Mary's church to the north-east as Leland was
told when he visited Southampton in 1546. The place was probably burnt
by the Danes, and it is to one of them, to Canute, that we owe the
foundation of the town we know. If Canute was the founder of
Southampton, however, it was the Normans who really and finally
established it, the greatness of the place as a port really dating from
the Conquest. The Normans seem to have settled there early in
considerable numbers, and their energy and enterprise began the
development which continued throughout the Middle Age and the
Renaissance. In the seventeenth century, however, Southampton rapidly
declined, and this continued till in the time of our grandfathers it
was arrested and Southampton rose again, to become the chief port of
southern England. So extraordinary indeed has been her modern
development that it has completely engulfed the great town of the
Middle Age, which, for all that, still forms the nucleus as it were of
the modern city, though no one, I suppose would suspect it at first
sight.

Of the greatness of Southampton in the Middle Age, however, there can
be no doubt. I