period before the Conquest are thus disclosed, certain conclusions with regard to early conditions become possible, while many questions are raised which are difficult to answer.
   An assumption made by Dr. Farrer in his last and valuable work⁶⁸ seems somewhat too sweeping when considered in relation to Kentish arrangements: ‘As the holdings in a township,’ he says,.’ had been largely fixed before the Conquest, so the after distribution of estates by the Conqueror and his ministers among the tenants holding in chief of the King, was largely based on pre-Conquest ownership. The lands of a certain English thegn in a group of townships, varying in number, were usually although not always incorporated in the same Anglo-Norman fief.’ Dr. Round’s more qualified position, that it is probable that William ‘gave his followers either the whole estate of some individual ‘Englishman, or certain manors which he mentioned by name,’⁶⁹  makes more allowance for that passing of an English thegn’s lands to several Normans which occurs in Kent. The point is worth study and may be approached from two points of view. If, first, the lists of lands of Norman tenants be examined, it will be found that almost invariably they include the lands of a number of different Saxon tenants. Hugh de Montfort, for example, derived his fief from the holdings of some sixty sokemen, and from eleven tenants of whom almost all were clearly Saxon. It may be objected that Hugh’s lands were approximately contiguous, and probably assigned by William in part for strategic purposes : also that most of them were ‘held,’ if that be the proper term, directly of King Edward by their Saxon tenant, a statement true, it will appear, of most Saxon tenements in Kent. Better instances of the descent of lands at the time of the Conquest, which also cast some doubt on Dr. Farrer’s suggestion, can be drawn from the great holdings of Odo bishop of Bayeux, some of whose manors were held in dominio, but the great majority, as has been said, by Norman lords under the bishop. If the tenements of the more prominent amongst these subtenants be examined, it will be found impossible, in spite of the occasional derivation of several tenements in a fief from one Saxon, to make any general ruling that the new Norman group of tenements held by one tenant corresponded with an old Saxon group. For example, Hugh de Porth’s tenements probably numbered fifteen, varying in assessment from a half to four sulungs and lying in various hundreds ; of these tenements, five were derived from Osward, an unusually large number to find derived from one predecessor, three from Godric, the rest singly from various tenants. Ralf de Curbespine held eighteen tenements, smaller than the preceding, of which Molleva had held five and Svern Biga four, and the rest were derived from diverse tenants. Anschitil de Ros held ten tenements, much scattered, derived from at least ten Saxons. Adam son of Hubert held ten, including a dene, derived from seven tenants and two not named ; Malger had four small tenements from four tenants. Examples could be multiplied. If the question be approached from a second direction, and the fate of the tenement of one Saxon holder be examined, a similar scattering of tenements will appear. Thus Osward of whose tenements Hugh de Porth held five, had five other Norman successors for five other tenements, Godric, of whose tenements Hugh de Porth held three, had six other holdings
   ⁶⁸  Honors and Knights’ Fees, i, 1.
   ⁶⁸  V.C.H. Hants, i, 421; cf. V.C.H. Beds. i, 200, and elsewhere.