WITHAMBURY.
21
or garrison, they put up timber walls and towers, with huts for the
men, and a "Hall" for the commander. For King Edward was,
doubtless, reserved the inner camp, with a building suitable to so
successful a warrior king, then in the act of receiving the submission
of his foes. Of course the inhabitants lived around, but outside the
garrison enclosure. The wooden walls, consisting of whole trees and
large timber, were so placed that the earth could be thrown up
against them, and we find that the time necessary for this construc-
tion of the camp did not exceed eight weeks.
Edward probably encamped in the open at Maldon, whose Burg
was not constructed until seven years after that at Witham (in
920. A.D.).
"Town" is not the word by which Burg should be translated.
The town was not fortified until it became of sufficient importance
to need walls. Even in our day, a "Town" is considered to be pro-
moted in the social scale when it gets a "corporation" and becomes a
Borough.
In building new Burgs, and rebuilding others which had been
destroyed, "The Lady" of the Mercians and King Edward were
very busy. In the five years from 910 to 915 a.d., "The Lady"
built ten Burgs; and King Edward, between a.d. 913 and 924
getimbred twelve Burgs, and one besides he "wrought with stone
walls." In Edward's reign, only one Burg is recorded as having been
constructed by his enemies. It seems to me certain that more camps
were constructed, both by the King and the Danes, than are recorded
in the Chronicle. The Burg of Danbury bears a considerable re-
semblance to that of Witham, in its plan, and if omitted by accident
from the list of Alfred's and Edward's camps, may well have been a
stronghold of the Danes of this period, whose practice and knowledge
of warfare was similar to that of the Saxons.
[This camp has been, of course, attributed to the Romans, on the
faith of two coins of the Emperors Valens and Gratian, said to have
been found years ago by a Mr. Barwell, when levelling part of the
ramparts; but, as Morant hints, this is a slender basis of fact on
which to identify the spot with Antonine's Station, Ad Ansam, inas-
much as Roman coins and remains are found abundantly scattered
over the country hereabouts. We are informed by Col. Lucas that
in the course of cutting through the earthworks in making the
Great Eastern Railway, three iron weapons were found, besides some
human remains. "They were about four feet in length, with a kind of