CHAPTER XII.
SETTLERS IN SUSSEX AND PART OF SURREY.
SUSSEX still shows some remarkable traces of its early Anglo-Saxon people. The survival of the custom of borough-English, by which the youngest son is the sole heir to his father’s estate, on about 140 manors in this county, is in all probability due to its having been the custom of some of the original settlers. It is most common in the Rape of Lewes, but exists also on manors elsewhere.
This custom of borough—English or junior right prevails more extensively in Sussex than in any county. While Kent is marked by a survival of partible inheritance, Sussex is marked in a similar way by the survival among the copyholders on a very large number of its manors of sole inheritance by the youngest son. These two customs resemble each other in one respect—the preference for the youngest. In Kent he was entitled to have the homestead on making an equitable compensation to his brothers, but in all other respects the inheritance was divided equally between the sons, so that in Kent the special recognition of the youngest son is only weak. On the contrary, in the Sussex custom the recognition of the claim of the youngest son was absolute, as he succeeded to the whole of the land to the exclusion of his brothers. As already shown, this custom can be traced more clearly to Eastern Europe than to any other source.
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