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developing in Kent a process of the coalescing of small
tenements into larger units, of which more will be said below. Lands held
in the time of King Edward for several very small manors, have sometimes
by the date of the Survey been thrown into one manor. How much the
crystallization of Kentish custom and the maintenance of the gavelkind
system of partible inheritance of lands may have impeded this process is
an interesting question.
The unit of assessment in Kent and the original land measure
for areal as well as fiscal purposes was not the usual hide but the
sulung. This unit appears in Domesday as the solin with a plural in ‘ s’
but is otherwise indeclinable; in the ‘Excerpts’ it appears as solin,
solinum, or solingum and is declined ; in the ‘Domesday Monachorum’ as
sulling or sullinc, and is indeclinable. Vinogradoff established the fact
that the sulung was equal to two hides, or about two hundred acres. The
word ‘hide’ occurs only once in the Domesday account 31 and
then probably in error for solin. The quarter of the solin was clearly the
jugum, a measure which appears frequently, and the virgata was
probably a small virga measure like that of later times. Acres
occur in the Excerpts and in the ‘Domesday Monachorum’ as agri. It
is part of the peculiarity of Kentish custom that the large land measure
survived in the county as a whole, whereas elsewhere only occasional
traces of measures larger or different from the normal measures of
carucates or hides continued. If the assessments of hundreds be
determined, as well as may be, from the difficult evidence, it is perhaps
possible to find some traces of an original basis of rating, of some rude
approximation to a rating at 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, or 60 sulungs. The
sums rarely work out exactly, but on the other hand there is probably too
general an approximation to figures in this progression to be entirely the
result of chance. It will be best to illustrate from a few hundreds taken
somewhat at random. Thus Barham is very clear: there were two manors each
assessed at 6 sulungs. Chatham was probably in the same case. Chislet also
was assessed at 12 sulungs, held in one manor, Greenwich at 8 sulungs, in
six small manors, and Wrotham at 8 sulungs. Less exact were a number of
other hundreds, for example, Boughton (Boltone) at 13½, Street at 8, with
a few additional acres, Felborough at 20½, Ruxley (Helmestrei) at 26¾,
Littlefield at 7¼, Newchurch at 6⅛, Preston at 7¼, Toltingtrough
at 24½ in the time of King Edward, Twyford at 11½. While it is much more
difficult to determine the assessments of Eastry, Axton, Bewsborough, and
Eyhorne hundreds, in general it may perhaps be concluded that Kent showed
a closer relationship with the counties surrounding the open field nucleus
of the midlands, with its five hide unit, than with the nucleus itself. A
six sulung unit may possibly be indicated by the evidence: the occasional
assessment at eight hides being perhaps a fractional division of some
twenty—four sulung grouping.
The very low assessment of Kent has been commented on by Dr.
Round.32 A study of the figures in Domesday Book shows a
considerable decrease between the assessment of the time of King Edward
and the assessment of King William. This decrease can be observed in most
hundreds. Bromley hundred, for example, shows a reduction in most
instances of one half, and a similar
31 Seep. 217b at Little
Chart. Compare Vinogradoff in Engl. Hisi. Rev. xix, 282 et seq, and
Round on the words Solinum and Solanda, Ibid. vii, 708; and
Galba, E. iv, fol. 21b, on measures. See also article on Social and
Economic History, p. 319 et seq.
32 Feudal England, p. 95.
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