other poets refer continually to the Croes Naidd (cross of refuge), a portion of the sacred cross which St. Helena' is said to have brought back with her, and which, it is stated in Luard's Annales Monastici (ii, 40), was "delivered over to King Edward I when he conquered Wales in 1283, and was the following year lodged in Westminster Abbey." At Bangor, among the Enwa Krwys, Edward Lhuyd gives the Tir y Pren (land of the tree), which is not to be confounded with the Is y Coed in the name of Bangor, but rather taken to have a technical meaning, as in 1 Peter, ii, 24. No place would be more likely to be chosen for the reception of such a treasure than Bangor, and so to have afforded sanctuary to such as needed it. Besides Eglwys y Groes, one of the Ellesmere group of lakes is called

1 May 3 is a black-letter day in our calendar for the "Invention of the Cross". In Camden's Britannia, vol. i, col. xciii, we find that "this Helena is the same who in old inscriptions is called Venerabilis, and Piissima Augusta, and is so highly celebrated for her Christian piety, for suppressing idols at Jerusalem, and erecting a church in the place where Christ suffered, and for finding the Cross....of Christ." But the world, angry at her good deeds, gave her the name of Stabularia because she sought out the manger where Christ lay, and built a church in the place where the stable stood. St. Ambrose deals with this aspersion in the following strain: "They tell us this lady was first an innkeeper, etc. This good innkeeper Helena hastened to Jerusalem, and there found out the place of our Lord's passion, and diligently sought the manger where her Lord lay. This good innkeeper was not ignorant of Him who cured the traveller that the robbers had wounded. This good innkeeper did not care how base and vile she was thought, so she could but gain Christ." There is a wonderful treasure in the British Museum in the shape of a medallion of Helena, the description of which has kindly been sent me by Mr. R. S. Poole: "Obv. FLAVIA AELENA AVGVSTA; bust of Helena r., draped; her hair is wavy, and her head is encircled with a broad band ornamented with a wreath; border of dots. Rev., PIETAS AVGVSTA. Pietas 1., wearing tunic and peplum; on 1. arm she holds child, and with r. hand presents apple to another before her, who raises his hands; border of dots. This medallion is in copper, and is unique. It is published in the Catalogue of Roman Medallions, Brit. Mus., p. 83, Pl. 56. The place of finding and the mint are not known.-R. S. P."

2 “Ὃς τὰς ἀμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ guλov." (1 Pet. ii, 24.)

Croesmere; and the site of a church, as supposed, is pointed out on its banks. The eight coins found in a jar at Eglwys y Groes (see Archæologia Cambrensis for July 1876, p. 237), of which none were of later date than the era of Constantine, might seem to point to that reign as the one when the church was erected, No. 6 having upon it his well known standard, the labarum; and No. 2, a small Latin cross upon an altar below a shield which is carried by two angels.

Marking the date of buildings by inscriptions or by coins is a custom that may be traced from the earliest times. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph of July 28, 1873, the late Mr. G. Smith says,-"Every tower in Assyria and Babylonia, so far as we know, contained at least four cylinders of baked clay, one in each corner of the structure. These cylinders are in general hollow, and covered on the outside with long inscriptions describing the titles, conquests, and buildings, of the monarchs who raised the towers." In the Great Pyramid, so free from figures or writing, Colonel Howard Vyse still found, in the chambers of construction, the ovals of Suphis, or Shofo, and Non-Shofo, identifiable with the Cheops and Chephren of Herodotus. In Tacitus (Histor., iv, c. 53) is given an elaborate account of the restoration of the Roman Capitol, the laying of the foundation-stone, etc.; and among other details is the following, "passimque injectæ fundamentis argenti aurique stipes, et metallorum primitiæ, nullis fornacibus

5

1 Gibbon, cap. xx, "An obscure though celebrated name, which has been vainly derived from almost all the languages of the world." 2 In the photographic copies of these coins the small cross upon the altar comes out so faintly as scarcely to be noticed; but upon sealing-wax it may be seen quite plainly, and we therefore claim it as an evidence of Christianity, and the bearers of the shield we consider to be angels.

3

My thanks are due to the Rev. W. H. Boscawen of Marchwiel for this quotation.

4 Mr. C. G. Price of Erbistock kindly gave me this reference and the next one.

5 Hence stipendium, the soldiers being paid in this coin (which

victæ, sed ut gignuntur". Perhaps also the means taken to identify the tomb of Attus Nævius may be brought forward as a case in point. (Livy, i, 36.) "Statua Atti, capite velato, quo in loco res acta est, in comitio, in gradibus ipsis ad lævam curiæ fuit: cotem quoque eodem loco sitam fuisse memorant, ut esset ad posteros miraculum ejus monumentum". In the recent Exhibition at Wrexham eleven Saxon coins were shown that had been found outside the west end of St. John Baptist's Church, Chester. They were supposed to be the original coins from under the foundation-stone of an earlier Saxon building in that place. At Hexham also there have just come to light twenty-one altars and a vast accumulation of copper coins, several thousand in number, of which the greater part belong to the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine the Great.

Though the word Tapoikia1 meant originally a diocese, yet the smaller divisions which we now call parishes were formed, not in one and the same way, nor in all places at the same time, but according as endowments and settlements began to be made upon particular churches. Gibbon (chap. xx) notices the edict of Milan, A.D. 313, by which "Constantine, with the concurrence of his colleague Licinius, restored to the Church the places of worship and public lands that had been confiscated." In A.D. 321, when Constantine was quietly settled upon the throne, he enacted a law at Rome (which is still extant in both the codes), " Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo catholico venerabilique concilio, decedens bonorum quod optaverit relinquere." (Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, vol. ii, p. 64.) Justinian, c. 500 A.D., "authorises and confirms the practice of endowing churches, and also forbids any was the same with the as, ten being equal to three-farthings of our money), and by weight.

1 Bingham's Antiquities, iii, p. 209. "The words #apoikia and dioinois, for the first three ages, were of the same importance, denoting not what we now call a parish church, but a city with its adjacent towns, or country region."

one building a church until he had given security to the bishop of a maintenance for the clergy." A church, therefore, implies an endowment. At the present time several lands called " Cae Percyn" (parson's field?) occur frequently in the modern parish of Hanmer, though not belonging now to the living. Bingham points out (vol. iii, p. 219) that "anciently all Church revenues were delivered into the common stock of the bishop's church, whence by his direction a monthly or an annual division was made among the clergy." It is in harmony with this statement that we find in Domesday one carucate here belonging to the presbyter; and the bishop complaining of the loss of two hides in the Danish troubles. Such large endowments point to the time when Maelor Saesneg belonged to Cunedda Wledic, who is mentioned as one of the first who endowed the church, and who lived in the century in which, according to strong probability, Eglwys y Groes was erected.

The names of many old townships (if we may so call them) at the Bangor end of Maelor have been already noticed, and we shall now give some that are found here also. It would thus appear that the whole of Maelor Saesneg was divided into ecclesiastical districts before the present Saxon parishes were formed, and that from the founding of Eglwys y Groes until the first year of William and Mary (1689), when Worthenbury became autonomous, there were only two centres in Maelor, i.e., Bangor and this one of which we are now speaking, whose name in all probability was Croxton2 (crux-ton).

Great and Little Croxton are names still given to a district of undefined extent,3 in close proximity to

1 Viz. in Hanmer, a croft by Bettisfield Park, of 10 a. 2 r. 19 p. ; at Gredington, 23 acres; on the Wern, a meadow of 5 acres; in Willington (including the schoolhouse field), 224 acres.

2 The Cheshire Croxton, near Middlewich, is on the river Croc. 3 There is a Maes y Groes (No. 41) on the Maes Llwyn Lane, perhaps half a mile to the south-east of Eglwys y Groes, which may mark the boundary on that side.

Eglwys y Groes, and containing within it a small lake of the same name; a hill called Bryn Crossett (probably Bryn Croesau the hill of the crosses), with the place called Wren's Nest, which looks like a large natural hollow; also a small hamlet called the Little Arowry (apovpa), around which the name of Cronimos lingers, to which we shall afterwards refer. The road from Uriconium to Deva (Archæologia Cambrensis for July 1874) passes by, and there is the site of an old house called Sawerdek. This township would cover parts of Hanmer and of Ty Broughton. The next township, Is y Coed, with its Maes y Groes and Hên Rûs, has been noticed already (Arch. Camb., April 1876). After this we have the Bur-vil at the east end of the present Bronington, taking its name from the Burgh upon which Fens-hall afterwards stood. At the south-west end of Bronington, and including the present Bettisfield, the name of Haughton occurs. It is often met with along the borders, variously written, and of uncertain meaning, but perhaps equivalent to althrey, i.e., allt-tref=the hill homestead. A barn by the Ellesmere road being often pointed out as carrying the water of one roof to Severn, and of the other to Dee. In a cover called the Springs, which is close by, the river Roden rises, running past Wem to Walcott, where it joins the Tern, and so into Severn. In a MS. map of 1570 in the British Museum, the name is spelled Haulton, which shows one stage that the word may have passed through on its way from Althrey to Haughton, viz., alta ripa,' haulton, haut ton, and haughton this last was reached by the year 1645.

The name of the next township, which covered a large part of the present Hanmer, occurs in a grant of lands at the end of the thirteenth century. In describing a boundary, the Maes-tre-budd' Wledic is mentioned (Plain of the Vill of Budd Wledic). This name is now lost, unless it is represented by the Gredington of to

1 See Camden's Britannia, vol. i.

2 Davies observes (Celtic Mythology, p. 364), "Budd is Victory, a title of Kêd or Ceres."