The Kentish land tenure was also distinguished by the prevalence of family or allodial rights.[1] The land was more or less of the nature of family land, as it was in parts of Hampshire and other counties that can be connected with settlements of Goths or other people of Northern origin.
In the division of the father’s land by the custom of Kent, the youngest son appears to have been entitled to the family hearth or homestead on making compensation to his brothers. This can also be traced among the Frisians.[2] Subject to this preference for the youngest in regard to the hearth, the partition by the gavelkind custom gave the eldest son the first choice of the divided parts of the land.[3]
Another of the incidental customs of Kent was the widow’s right to half of her deceased husband’s estate. This has survived with other gavelkind customs until modern times. By the old common law of England, a widow, unless debarred by some local custom, received one-third of her husband’s estate as dower. In the case of the Sussex tenants on manors where borough-English survived, she was entitled to have for her life the whole of her husband’s lands. On some manors in various parts of England her dower was only a fourth. It is of interest to find that this custom of a provision for widows prevailed among the Goths. Olaus Magnus, writing of the ancient Goths, tells us that ‘among them a man gave a dowry for his bride instead of receiving one with her.’ The earliest reference we have in England to the custom of the morning-gift, or endowment of the wife, is in the early laws of Kent, and the oldest race to which a similar custom can be traced is the Goths.
That Kent was largely settled by Goths is proved by the
