kings whom we find in the 8th century. The last earls of whom we have any record were the two brothers Sigehelm and Sigewulf, who fell at the Holm in 905 when the Kentish army was cut off by the Danes, on Edward the Elder’s return from his expedition into East Anglia. At a later period Kent appears to have been held, together with Sussex, by a single earl.
The internal organization of the kingdom of Kent seems to have been somewhat peculiar. Besides the division into West Kent and East Kent, which probably corresponds with the kingdoms of the 8th century, we find a number of lathes, apparently administrative districts under reeves, attached to royal villages. In East Kent there were four of these, namely, Canterbury, Eastry, Wye and Lymne, which can be traced back to the 9th century or earlier. In the 11th century we hear of two lathes in West Kent, those of Sutton and Aylesford.
The social organization of the Kentish nation was wholly different from that of Mercia and Wessex. Instead of two “noble” classes we find only one, called at first eorlcund, later as in Wessex, gesithcund. Again below the ordinary freeman we find three varieties of persons called laetas, probably freedmen, to whom we have nothing analogous in the other kingdoms. Moreover the wergeld of the ceorl, or ordinary freeman, was two or three times as great as that of the same class in Wessex and Mercia, and the same difference of treatment is found in all the compensations and fines relating to them. It is not unlikely that the peculiarities of Kentish custom observable in later times, especially with reference to the tenure of land, are connected with these characteristics. An explanation is probably to be obtained from a statement of Bede—that the settlers in Kent belonged to a different nationality from those who founded the other kingdoms, namely the Jutes (q.v.).
See Bede, Historiae ecclesiasticae, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896); Two of the Saxon Chronicles, edited by J. Earle and C. Plummer (Oxford, 1892–1899); W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885–1889); B. Seebohm, Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law (London, 1902); H. M. Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (Cambridge, 1905); and T. W. Shore, Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race (London, 1906). (F. G. M. B.)
KENT, a south-eastern county of England, bounded N. by the
Thames estuary, E. and S.E. by the English Channel, S.W. by
Sussex, and W. by Surrey. In the north-west the administrative
county of London encroaches upon the ancient county of Kent,
the area of which is 1554.7 sq. m. The county is roughly triangular
in form, London lying at the apex of the western angle,
the North Foreland at that of the eastern and Dungeness at that
of the southern. The county is divided centrally, from west to
east, by the well-marked range of hills known as the North
Downs, entering Kent from Surrey. In the west above Westerham
these hills exceed 800 ft.; to the east the height is much
less, but even in Kent (for in Surrey they are higher) the North
Downs form a more striking physical feature than their height
would indicate. They are intersected, especially on the north,
by many deep valleys, well wooded. At three points such valleys
cut completely through the main line of the hills. In the west
the Darent, flowing north to the Thames below Dartford, pierces
the hills north of Sevenoaks, but its waters are collected chiefly
from a subsidiary ridge of the Downs running parallel to the main
line and south of it, and known as the Ragstone Ridge, from
600 to 800 ft. in height. The Medway, however, cuts through
the entire hill system, rising in the Forest Ridges of Sussex,
flowing N.E. and E. past Tonbridge, collecting feeders from south
and east (the Teise, Beult and others) near Yalding, and then
flowing N.E. and N. through the hills, past Maidstone, joining
the Thames at its mouth through a broad estuary. The rich
lowlands, between the Downs and the Forest Ridges to the south
(which themselves extend into Kent), watered by the upper
Medway and its feeders, are called the Vale of Kent, and fall
within the district well known under the name of the Weald.
The easternmost penetration of the Downs is that effected by the
Stour (Great Stour) which rises on their southern face, flows S.E.
to Ashford, where it receives the East Stour, then turns N.E.
past Wye and Canterbury, to meander through the lowlands
representing the former channel which isolated the Isle of Thanet
from the mainland. The channel was called the Wantsume, and
its extent may be gathered from the position of the village of
Fordwich near Canterbury, which had formerly a tidal harbour,
and is a member of the Cinque Port of Sandwich. The Little
Stour joins the Great Stour in these lowlands from a deep vale
among the Downs.
About two-thirds of the boundary line of Kent is formed by tidal water. The estuary of the Thames may be said to stretch from London Bridge to Sheerness in the Isle of Sheppey, which is divided from the mainland by the narrow channel (bridged at Queensbridge) of the Swale. Sheerness lies at the mouth of the Medway, a narrow branch of which cuts off a tongue of land termed the Isle of Grain lying opposite Sheerness. Along the banks of the Thames the coast is generally low and marshy, embankments being in several places necessary to prevent inundation. At a few points, however, as at Gravesend, spurs of the North Downs descend directly upon the shore. In the estuary of the Medway there are a number of low marshy islands, but Sheppey presents to the sea a range of slight cliffs from 80 to 90 ft. in height. The marshes extend along the Swale to Whitstable, whence stretches a low line of clay and sandstone cliffs towards the Isle of Thanet, when they become lofty and grand, extending round the Foreland southward to Pegwell Bay. The coast from Sheppey round to the South Foreland is skirted by numerous flats and sands, the most extensive of which are the Goodwin Sands off Deal. From Pegwell Bay south to a point near Deal the coast is flat, and the drained marshes or levels of the lower Stour extend to the west; but thence the coast rises again into chalk cliffs, the eastward termination of the North Downs, the famous white cliffs which form the nearest point of England to continental Europe, overlooking the Strait of Dover. These cliffs continue round the South Foreland to Folkestone, where they fall away, and are succeeded west of Sandgate by a flat shingly shore. To the south of Hythe this shore borders the wide expanse of Romney Marsh, which, immediately west of Hythe, is overlooked by a line of abrupt hills, but for the rest is divided on the north from the drainage system of the Stour only by a slight uplift. The marsh, drained by many channels, seldom rises over a dozen feet above sea-level. At its south-eastern extremity, and at the extreme south of the county, is the shingly promontory of Dungeness. Within historic times much of this marsh was covered by the sea, and the valley of the river Rother, which forms part of the boundary of Kent with Sussex, entering the sea at Rye harbour, was represented by a tidal estuary for a considerable distance inland.
Geology.—The northern part of the county lies on the southern rim of the London basin; here the beds are dipping northwards. The southern part of the county is occupied by a portion of the Wealden anticline. The London Clay occupies the tongue of land between the estuaries of the Thames and Medway, as well as Sheppey and a district about 8 m. wide stretching southwards from Whitstable to Canterbury, and extending eastwards to the Isle of Thanet. It reappears at Pegwell Bay, and in the neighbourhood of London it rises above the plastic clay into the elevation of Shooter’s Hill, with a height of about 450 ft. and a number of smaller eminences. The thickness of the formation near London is about 400 ft., and at Sheppey it reaches 480 ft. At Sheppey it is rich in various kinds of fossil fish and shells. The plastic clay, which rests chiefly on chalk, occupies the remainder of the estuary of the Thames, but at several places it is broken through by outcrops of chalk, which in some instances run northwards to the banks of the river. The Lower Tertiaries are represented by three different formations known as the Thanet beds, the Woolwich and Reading beds, and the Oldhaven and Blackheath beds. The Thanet beds resting on chalk form a narrow outcrop rising into cliffs at Pegwell Bay and Reculver, and consist (1) of a constant base bed of clayey greenish sand, seldom more than 5 ft. in thickness; (2) of a thin and local bed composed of alternations of brown clay and loam; (3) of a bed of fine light buff sand, which in west Kent attains a thickness of more than 60 ft.; (4) of bluish grey sandy marl containing fossils, and almost entirely confined to east Kent, the thickness of the formation being more than 60 ft.; and (5) of fine light grey sand of an equal thickness, also fossiliferous. The middle series of the Lower Tertiaries, known as the Woolwich and Reading beds, rests either on the Thanet beds or on chalk, and consists chiefly of irregular alternations of clay and sand of very various colours, the former often containing estuarine and oyster shells and the latter flint pebbles. The thickness of the formation varies from 15 to 80 ft., but most commonly it is from 25 to 40 ft. The highest and most local series of the Lower Tertiaries is the Oldhaven and Blackheath beds lying between the London Clay and the Woolwich beds. They consist chiefly of flint pebbles or of light-coloured quartzose sand, the thickness being from 20 to 30 ft, and, are best seen at Oldhaven and Blackheath. To the south the London
