ained as yet an
almost unbroken forest; and the names of Selsea, Pevensey, Winchelsea,
Romney, and many others, show by their common insular termination
(found in all isles round the British coast, as in Sheppey, Walney,
Bardsea, Anglesea, Fursey, Wallasey, and so forth) that the marshland
was still wholly undrained, and that a few islands alone stood here and
there as masses of dry land out of their desolate and watery expanse.
The Hastings district, too, fell more naturally to Sussex than to Kent,
because the marshes dividing it from the former were far less
formidable than those which severed it from the latter. Most probably
the South Saxons intentionally aided nature in cutting off their
territory from all other parts of Britain; for every English kingdom
loved to surround itself with a distinct mark or border of waste, as a
defence against invasion from outside. The Romans had brought Sussex
within the great network of their road system; but the South Saxons no
doubt took special pains to cut off those parts of the roads which led
across their own frontier. At any rate, it is quite clear that Sussex
did not largely participate in the general life of the new England, and
that intercourse with the rest of the world was extremely limited.

The South Saxon kings probably lived for the most part at Chichester,
though no doubt they had _hams_, after the royal Teutonic fashion
generally, in many other parts of their territory; and they moved about
from one to the other, with their suite of thegns, eating up in each
what food was provided by their serfs for their use, and then moving on
to the next. The isolation of Sussex is strikingly shown by its long
adherence to the primitive paganism. Missionaries from Rome, under the
guidance of Augustine, converted Kent as early as 597. For Kent was the
nearest kingdom to the continent; it contained the chief port of entry
for continental travellers, Richborough--the Dover of those days--and
its king, accustomed to continental connections, had married a
Christian Frankish princess from Paris. Hence Kent was naturally the
first Teutonic principality to receive the faith. Next came
Northumbria, Lindsey, East Anglia, Wessex, and even inland Mercia. But
Sussex still held out for Thor and Woden as late as 679, three-quarters
of a century after the conversion of Kent, and twenty years after
Mercia itself had given way to the new faith. Even when Sussex was
finally converted, the manner