Moreover, in after times Kentish custom differed from that of other parts of England in the matter of succession. The custom of Gavelkind prevailed in Kent. And among the statutes after the Norman Conquest there is an undated statement setting forth peculiar customs of Kent in matters where they differed from those of the rest of the kingdom.
Some of these differences may have been of later origin, but a comparison of the laws themselves with other Anglo-Saxon laws is conclusive upon the point that important differences always existed and, what is more, were recognised as existing.
Although the Kentish laws are not included with other Anglo-Saxon laws in any manuscript but that of Rochester, yet they were known to King Alfred. He mentioned them in the proem to his laws as well as the Mercian laws as among those which he had before him in framing his own. Moreover, we have seen that at the time of the Danish invasion certain differences between the Kentish and other laws were known and noted correctly in the fragment ‘Of Grith and of Mund.’
Finally, in its system of monetary reckoning the Kentish kingdom seems to have been peculiar from the first. And as our knowledge of the Kentish wergelds is essential to an understanding of the division of classes, a good deal must depend upon a previous understanding of the currency in which the amounts of the wergelds are described. Before proceeding further it is necessary, therefore, to devote a section to a careful consideration of the subject. The experience already gained will not be thrown away if it should help us to understand the meaning of the scætts and scillings of the Kentish laws.
II. THE SCÆTTS AND SCILLINGS OF THE KENTISH LAWS.
All the payments mentioned in the Kentish laws are stated in scætts and scillings—naturally, by far the larger number of them in the latter.
What were these scætts and scillings? First, what were the scætts?[278]
The scætts of 28·8 wheat-grains like Merovingian tremissis.
We have already seen that before the time of Offa the silver coinage current in England consisted mainly of the silver tremisses of Merovingian standard, i.e. twenty to the Roman ounce, or 28·8 wheat-grains. These are known to numismatists as silver pence of the Sceatt series.
That these silver coins were those known by the name of sceatts we seem to have the direct and independent evidence of the following fragment ‘On Mercian Law,’ already quoted but sufficiently important to be repeated here.[279]