THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CXXI.—LANCASHIRE :—EARLY HISTORY.
LANCASHIRE:appears in the earliest historical times to have been included in the territories of the great tribe or con- federation of tribes called the Brigantes. There is great reason to believe that this name, whatever its meaning, was a generic one, including under it several tribes. It may possibly mean the Free Tribes, and so correspond to the generic term Franks on the Continent. Ptolemy, at any rate, mentions the Setantii, and seems to place them somewhere about the mouth of the Ribble. The Brigantes came into collision with the Roman power dur- ing the struggle with Caractacus, but they were not reduced under the dominion of Rome until the time of the celebrated Julius Agricola, in A.D. 81, and probably then only imperfectly. The great woods which covered most of the county of Lancaster in early times must have long delayed any real consolidation of the Roman power in this quarter. When the county was considered as fairly subjected, it was included within the Province of Maxima Ccesariensis. That the usual attendants of Roman conquest were not wanting in this district the remains of buildings and many antiquities which have from time to time been discovered still testify. When, however, we proceed to identify the names of the Roman stations, &c., mentioned in the Itineraries and our other meagre geographical authorities for the period, we encounter great difficulties. As Mr. Pearson remarks, the further northward we proceed the more difficult does this process of identification become. The Antonine Itineraries give us the names of MAMUCIUM or MANCIINIUM (which they place 18 miles from CORDATE, i.e., Kinderton, in Cheshire) ; COCCIUM (17 miles from MAricurimm), and BREMETONACIS (20 miles from Coccium), which appear to belong to the present county of Lancaster. Of these, the first is safely identified with Man-chester, but the second and third are variously assigned by antiquaries. The most accepted opinion at present identifies COCCIUM with Ribchester, and BREMETONACIS with Overborough. Others, however, place Coccium, near Rivington, at Black-rode (guided chiefly by the authority of the fabrication attributed to Richard of Cirencester) ; and BREMETONACIS, at Lancaster. Ptolemy mentions among the towns of the Brigantes Rnmonurium, which may, perhaps, have been in Lancashire, on the Ribble. We have already mentioned VERATINUM as lying on the Cheshire side of the Mersey, opposite to Warrington. The Ravenna Geographer gives us the name of CoLumum, which may possibly have been on the site of the present Coble. The additional names supplied by the pseudo-Richard we need not trouble our readers with, as they are really only modern conjectures. The exact course we should assign to the Roman roadways is, of course, to a great degree dependent on the identification we make of the preceding stations. CORDATE and Msiscuisium were, of course, connected by a road, and probably VERATINUM was connected similarly with both of them. The stations of Comma and BERME- TONACIS must have also been connected with MANcuriluss by a roadway, and both Coccrum and Mmicuisrust had probably lines of road into Yorkshire. We have already mentioned the roadway from Derby and Buxton to MANCUNIUM, and there was also probably a connecting-line from the last station through Stockport to the station at Melandra Castle, and thence to the eastern parts of Derbyshire. Some local names as well as remains of the roadways still indicate the course of these lines of communication. Thus, we have Staney Street; Stretford Street ; and King Street. Altogether, antiquaries have traced, or fancied that they traced, six roads diverging from MARCUNIUM. The remains of this Roman station have now nearly, if not wholly, disappeared ; but Dr. Stukeley, who visited it about the year 1700, gives the following account of them at that time :—" A. Roman castrum was on the west side [of Manchester], going from Chester by Stratford, and on the northern bank of the river Med- lock. It is a small piece of level ground, somewhat higher than that around it ; it does not cover the whole piece, but is a square 500 feet one way, 400 feet the other ; nor can it be said to be ditched about, but the ground near it for some distance is. manifestly removed into the castle, and spread along its verge, not as a regular vallum, but sloping inwards ; by this means the area of it is higher on the sides than in the middle, and the exterior ground is lowered around to the foot of the castle, which is steep, like the side of the vallum. Upon this edge there has been a wall quite round ; the foundations of it are to be discovered almost everywhere ; in some places large parcels of it are left, but. not above ground. Now they call it the Castle Croft. The rives Medlock runs near it, but it is no security to it, it being not close enough, nor are its banks steep hereabouts, though its channel is rock, as is the whole country near. This is a quarter of a mile from the present (1700) town of Manchester,"—it is now in the heart of the city,—" the Irwell river, coming through the town, runs on the west side of the castle, and there joins to it." Horsley, who. wrote more than thirty years later, says that the station then went by the name of " Giant's Castle" or " Tarquin's Castle,"— in allusion to the legendary Tarquin of the Arthurian Cycle of Romance. Camden, in Elizabeth's reign, speaks of the foundations. of an old square tower called Man Castle, where the river Medlock falls into the Irwell, in a park of the Earl of Derby, called Alparke, and he gives two inscriptions on stones which were discovered by him and another antiquary at that spot. Hollinworth, writing in the time of the Commonwealth, speaks of an altar, dedicated to "Fortuna Conservatrix," by a centurion of the sixth legion, Vixtrix, as having been discovered in the year 1612 under the root. of an oak in Medlock, near Knot Mill. Stukeley mentions a gold Mho and a large Roman ring of gold as found on Castle Field ; and in 1765, on the bank of the Castro, were found a number of Roman urns, wrought earthen vessels, and a fibula, and several coins, &c., and other remains have since, from time to time, been. discovered. "In 1771 the basement story of several inferior buildings, manifestly Roman, with some Roman coins, was dis- covered on the bank of the Medlock, at the south-eastern and. south-western points of the station in Castle Field." Among other relics, in 1832 a votive altar of red sandstone was discovered in Castle Field, raised by a standard-bearer of the Pretorian Legion.; and about the same time there was excavated, on the other side of the Medlock, a coffin which appeared to have been made of oak, enclosed in a cuing of red earthenware, and there were bones in the coffin when first opened. The Roman coins discovered at. Manchester are chiefly of Vesptu3ian, Antoninus Pius, Trajan, Hadrian, Nerva, Domitian, Vitellius, and Constantius.
Ribchester, whether or not it be rightly identified with Comma, was evidently the site of a very large Roman station. Leland, in the reign of Henry VIII., speaks of "great squarid stones, voultes, and antique copies" as found there, and he says there is "a
place where the people fable that the Jews had a temple." The river Ribble divides Ribchester on the south from Blackburn parish. Camden, in the reign of Elizabeth, found a Roman inscribed stone at Solesbury Hall in the neighbourhood, and another stone in an adjoining wall, which he was unable to make
out, but which, when detached in 1814, was found by Whitaker to exhibit on one side a basso-relievo of exquisite workmanship, —Apollo reposing upon his lyre ; on the second side, the figures of two priests in flowing robes, holding the head of a horned animal between them ; the third side, baying been attached to the wall, was blank, and the fourth had a mutilated inscription. Camden in 1603 found at Ribchester an altar dedicated to the "Mother Goddesses." The same antiquary also describes other inscribed stones, one with the figure of a naked man on horseback brandishing a spear over another naked man on the ground. Dr. Stukeley in 1725 speaks of the rapid and broad river Ribble as having then eaten away a third of the city. According to him, the ground- plot lay east and west along the north side of the river, upon its bank, 800 feet long and 500 feet broad, forming an area of from nine to ten acres within its walls. "Originally," he says, "I apprehend, two streets ran along its length, and three crossed them on its breadth. By symmetry I find the whole channel of the river at present lies within the precinct of the old city, the original channel on the other side being filled up with city walls and rubbish, for it bends with a great elbow towards the city." In modern times two or three bridges have been swept away by the impetuousity of the floods. Other discoveries have been since made here. As, for instance, an altar dedicated to Mars and Victory, a stone said to be raised by the Twentieth Legion, and with the rude figure of a boar, the usual emblem of that legion ; one of the most splendid helmets yet discovered, with the vizor exactly imitating the human features ; and a bust of Minerva. These last two relics were discovered in 1796, in the shelving bank of the Ribble. In 1811, in endeavouring to stop the encroach- ments of the Ribble, the workmen discovered, opposite the church, at the depth of about a yard beneath the surface, the foundation of two parallel walls, lying nearly south and north, at the distance of about 24 yards from each other, and very strongly cemented. Among the rubbish were five human skulls, and a corresponding quantity of other bones. Within the wall was a flagged floor, and near the south end the remhins of a large flat stone, which they inadvertently broke, which had an inscription. According to Whitaker, this disclosed the fact that the building was a temple dedicated to Minerva, a fine helmeted brazen head of whom was discovered within the precincts, and that it was erected about the year 214, in the reign of Caracalla (Alexander Augustus). Further excavations disclosed the charred remains of what had probably been the roof, and beneath these several human skeletons of tall robust men, innumerable fragments of Samian ware, a neatly engraved steel-yard, &c. Only one coin was found, of one of the Antonines, in bad condition. A few months afterwards the sexton, in digging in the churchyard, came upon the base of a column resting on the earth at 44 feet beneath the surface of the churchyard, and further research proved that the temple had been of oblong shape, with sixteen columns in front, and that it was 112 feet in length. This, no doubt, was the "Jewish temple," of which report was made to the incredulous antiquary. An altar was also discovered in the churchyard in 1833, with an inscription, in the name of Caracalla and his mother, "for the safety of his camp." A great number of other Roman antiquities have since been discovered, all bearing testimony to the greatness of the old station at Ribchester. Domesday Survey mentions " Ribelcastre " among the 16 villages dependent upon Preston. Such was the downfall of this Roman city.
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