a stranger, to redeem it within ten years at the price paid, with the additional cost of any improvements that may have been made. We are only concerned at present in the consideration of the first of these laws—the right of the eldest son to inherit the farm. This early custom of primogeniture could not have been first introduced into the North of England by Norwegian settlers of the ninth century, for as it is mentioned by Bede, who died in 735, it is clear that it existed there before they came. That the north-eastern counties of England and the Lowlands of Scotland were chiefly occupied by Anglian tribes is generally admitted. The Regiam Majestatem, or ancient laws of Scotland, tell us that succession by the eldest son was the custom in the case of knights, but among socmen the custom was to divide the heritage among all the sons, if from ancient time it had been divided. These considerations point to the probability that some of the Anglian tribes must have introduced both customs into ancient Bernicia. Northern tribes, who were afterwards called Norwegians, but perhaps earlier by some tribal name, may have brought in primogeniture. In considering this we should remember that King Alfred tells us the Angles came from the lands on both sides of the passage into the Baltic. It is necessary to remember that there was a custom of rural primogeniture existing in England centuries before the feudal system prevailed. Our early chroniclers who tell us of Angles and Saxons say little of their customs, but the information they give can be supplemented by the traces of the customs which still exist, or which are known to have existed, in parts of England and parts of Northern Europe from which the settlers came. The rural primogeniture such as survives now in Norway so clearly resembles the old rural primogeniture of which traces remain in the North of England, especially in that it secures the succession to the eldest daughter in default of sons, that it cannot reasonably be doubted they had a
