1. The lands in Ædulfness, or the later Liberty of the Soke, were divisible among sons, and failing these, among daughters, as in Kent. The evidence of this is found in the record known as the ‘Domesday of St. Paul’s,’ in which a list of tenants is given. In some of these entries the sons are named, and in others the daughters, as holding their father’s land in the year 1222, according to ancient custom.
2. The services due from the tenants are laid on the hides and not on the actual tenements. This was the case in Kent. Each hide, or, as in Kent, each sulong—the distinction being only in name—included a great number of plots. Some of these plots were very small, and in many instances the same person held plots in several hides. The system in the Essex soke was in this essential particular the Kentish system.
3. The widows of tenants had their dower lands, as in Kent, many entries of such lands being mentioned in the ‘Domesday of St. Paul’s.’
4. The tenants paid gafol, or small money rents, as in Kent.
5. They could pull down their houses or lease them, as in Kent, without their lord’s license, and in other ways act with a degree of freedom unknown on other manors in Essex, but common in Kent.
Within this ancient soke are Horsey Island and Peutie, or Pewit, Island, identical in name to Horsey and Peutie, or Pewit, Islands in the north of Portsmouth Harbour, and within the territory of the Jutes in Hampshire, who were themselves closely connected with the people of Kent.
There is no record relating to the settlement of East Anglia and Essex similar to those concerning Kent, Sussex, and Wessex. All we know is that attacks on this part of England were many and often by people from Germany, who settled in these counties and in Mercia.[1]
- ↑ Henry of Huntingdon, ‘History of the English,’ edited by Arnold, p. 48.
