the king here mentioned should be considered the Domesday references to land de gara and the very frequent references in later documents to small bits of warland on which some such royal obligations still rested, and which, was probably considered as opposed to land geld-free.²⁴ A certain number of instances occur in Sussex of land said to lie outside the rape. A similar situation exists in Kent with regard to denes said to be ‘outside the division’ of some great tenant in chief. Thus a dene of a half jugum or yoke which lay in Billerica (?) (Belice), being assessed there and cultivated by two villeins with a half plough,²⁵ also three denes in Postling (Pistinges) measured by a jugum and a virga,²⁶ a half dene in Tynton (Titentone),²⁷ cultivated by a villein, and another three denes in Postling (Postinges),²⁸  all lay ‘outside the division of Hugh de Montfort.’ Again the bishop of Bayeux placed in Bilsington three denes which remain ‘outside the division of the count of Eu,’²⁹ a division which can hardly be other than the count’s rape in Sussex, since he held no land directly of the king in Kent. The three denes in question may have been situated in the uncertain border land between Kent and Sussex,³⁰ and their place of assessment may have been changed to Bilsington through some arrangement made with the count of Eu.
   The assessment of Kent is difficult to determine accurately from the statements made by Domesday and the allied documents.^30a  In addition to large manors assessed at neat figures, the county, especially in the east, shows also a tangle of small holdings rated often at small fractional parts of a sulung, which are significant of conditions in Kent but cause arithmetical uncertainty. The records do not always make clear whether the assessment of these tenements was included in that of a large manor, or should be computed separately. The large manors which were interspersed amongst these small tenements were usually royal or else those that, having once been royal, had passed to the church by a Saxon land grant. Large agrarian units had been. built up in such cases, as a convenient method of exploitation. There is also to be considered a sometimes considerable difference between the assessment at the time of King Edward and that of King William. In a few cases the assessment of a small number of large vills exhausts the total assessment of the hundred, as in Barham (Kinghamford) and Bromley hundreds for example ; while in Chislet, Sturry, Sandwich, Folkestone, and occasionally in other cases^30b  the hundred was apparently drawn round the district pertaining to a single vill. More characteristic of the county, however, is the case of Axton hundred where three large manors are assessed at eight, six and ten sulungs respectively, and twenty-two other small tenements are listed. Small tenements abound in Eastry and Cornilo hundreds. Assessments of hundreds in weald and marsh were, as would be expected, very low, although the value of individual tenements was sometimes high. It seems probable that there had been
   ²⁴  Domesday Studies, 1, pp. 106, 108, 336, and compare Dom. Bk. I, 30 (Appleby), and Larking, op. cit.. App. p. 21.
   ²⁵  See p. 234a.         ²⁶  See p. 237b.       ²⁷  See p. 239a.      ²⁸  See p. 247-8.     ²⁹  See p. 238a.
   ³⁰  Compare Domesday Studies, II, p. 459.
  ^30a  Since the above was written Mr. Jolliffe’s interesting article ‘The Hidation of Kent’ has appeared (Eng. Hist. Rev. xliv, 612 et seq). The conclusions are too long to quote here in full. Mr. Jolliffe has grouped the hundreds of the County into units assessed at approximately 8o sulungs, or their multiple, and these units he identifies with the ancient lests.
   ^30b  Compare Edesham [Edesham] in the Domesday Monachorum.