the division of the maintenance of the bridge amongst various lordships,
pier by pier, the king, the archbishop, the bishop, and the men of certain
vills, and, interestingly enough, of the men of two lests also, one of
which, Hollingbourne, is not elsewhere called a lest, being responsible
each for a share. Later documents show some of these same vills still
liable. Thus, for example, an inquest in 1340 99 shows that the vills
anciently liable for the support of the fifth pier, the archbishop’s,
were still liable for fixed amounts contributed to that support’ by
reason of their lands and tenements in the town.’ If the Domesday list
of contributory boroughs be examined in connection with these earlier and
later documents it will be found that while there is no mention of brigbot,
yet many of the contributing rural properties are the same as in the other
lists, and also the same lordships are indicated. There is, however, no
indication of the liability of a lest or of vills as such in the Saxon
document. It seems certain, however, that maintenance of the bridge was
one of the duties of the contributory houses in Rochester, whether that
maintenance was the cause of the appearance of such houses or the result
of it. Other documents of late times show nothing unique in the system
used for Rochester bridge.
For completeness the contributory houses and the rural connections of
other Kentish towns, the quasi—county boroughs, may be added.
|
It is clear, in conclusion, that Domesday raises as many questions again
as it answers, and that a study like this follows only certain lines of
interest out of many that are possible. The chief feeling of the student
of Kentish customs of somewhat later times is one of disappointment that
the Survey has been made to disclose so little peculiar to the county, and
of hope that others will be more successful in finding and following
obscure clues. Reverence for the great record necessarily brings a
realization that it might yield much more that is valuable to more skilful
interpretation.
99 Flower, Medieval Public Works (Selden Soc.), i, 203.
|