way_ from _via_, _wall_ from _vallum_, _street_ from _strata_, and
_port_ from _portus_. In this first crop of foreign words Ceaster also
must be reckoned, and it was originally employed in English as a common
rather than as a proper name. Thus we read in the brief _Chronicle_ of
the West Saxon kings, under the year 577, 'Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought
against the Welsh, and offslew three kings, Conmail and Condidan and
Farinmail, and took three ceasters, Gleawan ceaster and Ciren ceaster
and Bathan ceaster.' We might modernise a little, so as to show the
real sense, by saying 'Glevum city and Corinium city and Bath city.'
Here it is noticeable that in two of the cases--Gloucester and
Cirencester--the descriptive termination has become at last part of the
name; but in the third case--that of Bath--it has never succeeded in
doing so. Ages after, in the reign of King Alfred, we still find the
word used as a common noun; for the _Chronicle_ mentions that a body of
Danish freebooters 'fared to a waste ceaster in Wirral; it is hight
Lega ceaster;' that is to say, Legionis castra, now Chester. The grand
old English epic of Beowulf, which is perhaps older than the
colonisation of Britain, speaks of townsfolk as 'the dwellers in
ceasters.'

As a rule, each particular Roman town retained its full name, in a more
or less clipped form, for official uses; but in the ordinary colloquial
language of the neighbourhood they all seem to have been described as
'the Ceaster' simply, just as we ourselves habitually speak of 'town,'
meaning the particular town near which we live, or, in a more general
sense, London. Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the
Roman capital of the province; as when the _Chronicle_ tells us that
'John succeeded to the bishopric of Ceaster'; that 'Wilfrith was
hallowed as bishop at Ceaster'; or that 'AEthelberht the archbishop died
at Ceaster.' In the south it is employed to mean Winchester, the
capital of the West Saxon kings and overlords of all Britain; as when
the _Chronicle_ says that 'King Edgar drove out the priests at Ceaster
from the Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them with monks.' So,
as late as the days of Charles II., 'to go to town' meant in Shropshire
to go to Shrewsbury, and in Norfolk to go to Norwich. In only one
instance has this colloquial usage survived down to our own days in a
large town, and that is at Chester, where the short form has quite
ousted the full name of Lega ce