The character of the Mark or March is very evident in the following passage: “Siquidem in Lindeseia superiori extat prioratus qui Marchby dicitur, longas ac latas pasturas pro gregibus alendis inhabitans, non omnino privato iure, sed communem cum compatriotis libertatem ex dono patronorum participans,” etc. Chron. Lanerc. an. 1289. See also the quotations from the Indiculus Pagan. and Synod. Leptin. an. 742, in Möser, Osnab. i. 52, and the whole of his twenty-ninth chapter, for the religious rites with which boundaries were dedicated, especially vol. i. p. 58, note c.

It is more than one could now undertake to do, without such local co-operation as is not to be expected in England as yet, but I am certain that the ancient Marks might still be traced. In looking over a good county map we are surprised by seeing the systematic succession of places ending in -den, -holt, -wood, -hurst, -fold, and other words which invariably denote forests and outlying pastures in the woods. These are all in the Mark, and within them we may trace with equal certainty, the -háms, -túns, -worðigs and -stedes which imply settled habitations. There are few counties which are not thus distributed into districts, whose limits may be assigned by the observation of these peculiar characteristics. I will lay this down as a rule, that the ancient Mark is to be recognised by following the names of places ending in -den (neut.), which always denoted cubile ferarum, or pasture, usually for swine. Denu, a valley (fem.), a British and not Saxon word, is very rarely, perhaps never, found in composition. The actual surface of the island, wherever the opportunity has been given of testing this hypothesis, confirms its history. But there are other remarkable facts bearing upon this subject, which are only to be got at by those who are fortunate enough to have free access to manorial records, before the act of Charles II. destroyed all feudal services in England. A striking example of the mark-jurisdiction is the “Court of Dens,” in Kent. This appears to have been a mark-court, in the sense in which mark-court is used throughout this second chapter, and which gradually became a lord’s court, only when the head markman succeeded in raising himself at the expense of his fellows: a court of the little marks, marches, or pastures in Kent, long after the meaning of such marks or marches had been forgotten: a court which in earlier times met to regulate the rights of the markmen in the dens or pastures. I am indebted (among many civilities, which I gratefully acknowledge) to the Rev. L. Larking of Ryarsh for the following extracts from Sir Roger Twisden’s journal, which throw some light upon what the court had become in the middle of the seventeenth century, but still show its existence, and lead us to a knowledge of its ancient form.

The reader who feels how thoroughly English liberty has become grounded in the struggles between the duties and privileges of various classes, how entirely the national right has been made up and settled by the conflict of private rights, how impossible it was for the union of empire and freedom to exist,—or for imperium and freedom to co-exist, without the battle in which the several autocracies measured their forces and discovered the just terms of compromise,—will value this record of the reluctance with which a staunch country squire submitted to the duties of his position. It is not only amusing, but instructive, to watch these men of the seventeenth century, fighting on the minutest grounds of squabble: very amusing, to those who take the world as it is, to have been always as it is, and likely always so to remain: very instructive to those who know the miserable condition from which such “squabbles” have raised us. There are people, who having no sense of right, but a profound sense of the wrong done them, raise barricades, and overturn dynasties in moments of irrepressible and pardonable excitement: there are people on the other hand who steadily and coolly measure right and wrong, who take to the law-book rather than the sword, who argue the question of ship-money, on which a system of government depends, as calmly as if it were a question of poor-rates in a parish attorney’s hands, and having brought their right, the ancient right of the land, into light, fall back into the orderly frame of society in which they lived before, as if no years of desperate struggle had intervened,—the law being vindicated, and the work of the workmen done. This work without distinction of Parliamentarian or King’s Man was done by the Seldens and the Twisdens, and men of more general note and name, but not more claim to our gratitude and respect. But to do this, required that study which unhappily our English gentlemen no longer think absolutely necessary to their education, the study of the law, of which they are the guardians, though a professional class may be its ministers; and most amusing now it is to see how zealously these old champions of the law did battle in its defence, even in the most minute and now unimportant details. It was then a happy thing for England that there were courts of Dens, and squires who did not like them: it is now an admirable thing for England that there are courts of all sorts and descriptions, and people who do not like them, who are constantly trying their right against them, constantly winning and losing at the great game of law, or perhaps the greater game, of the forms under which law is administered,—litigious people,—people liking to argue the right and the wrong in a strict form of logic, the legal form; who are always arguing, and therefore never fighting. If there had not been courts of Dens to argue about,—and unhappily, at last, to fight about,—there would most certainly not now be a “High Court of Parliament,” for there would never have been those who knew how to establish it. The country-gentlemen of the seventeenth century appeal to the experience of the nineteenth, in every land but this of England, whose steady, legal order the country-gentlemen of the seventeenth century founded; and the grateful middle class of the nineteenth century in no country but this respond to that appeal in this year 1848, by declaring that no force, whether of king or not of king, shall be known in England, except that of the law,—the great and ancient law,—that all associations of men are united in a guarantee of mutual peace and security.

It is now time to return to Sir R. Twisden and the Court of Dens. It appears that this was held at Aldington, and that it claimed jurisdiction over a considerable space. If we follow the main road from Hythe to Maidstone, a little to the north of Aldington[[837]], and running to the east of Boughton, we find a tract of country extending to the borders of Sussex and filled with places ending in -den, or -hurst; this country of the Dens runs exactly where we should expect to find it, viz. along the edge of the Weald, within whose shades the swains found mast and pasture. I will enumerate a few of the places so named: they can readily be found on a good map of Kent, and form a belt of mark or forest round the cultivated country, quite independent of the woods which once lay between village and village.

Ashenden.Castleden.
Bainden.Chiddenden.
Benenden.Cottenden, Sussex.
Bethersden.Cowden.
Biddenden.Frittenden.
Godden.Greenhurst, Sussex.
Hazleden.Hawkhurst.
Hernden.Henhurst.
Hiffenden.Hophurst, Sussex.
Hollenden.Lamberhurst.
Horsmonden.Midhurst, Sussex.
Iden, Sussex.Nuthurst, Sussex.
Marden, Sussex.Penhurst, Sussex.
Newenden,Penshurst.
Rolvenden.Sandhurst.
Romden.Shadoxhurst.
Smarden.Shiphurst.
Surrenden.Sinkhurst.
Tenterden.Sissinghurst.
Wisenden.Speldhurst.
Staplehurst.
Ashurst.Ticehurst, Sussex.
Billinghurst, Sussex.Wadhurst, Sussex.
Collinghurst, Sussex.Warminghurst, Sussex.
Crowhurst, Sussex.
Dodhurst.Alfold, Sussex.
Duckhurst.Arnisfold, Sussex.
Ewhurst, Sussex.Cowfold, Sussex.
Fenchurst.Chiddingfold, Surrey.
Goudhurst.Shinfold, Sussex.

It is not likely that all these various places, the list of which might be greatly increased, were ever reduced under one judicial unity; but, even with the aid of Sussex, I have been able to mention only twenty-five dens, and we know that at least thirty-two, if not forty-four, were subject to the court of Aldington.

The entries in Twisden’s Journal are to the following effect:—

“18th September 1655. I was at Aldyngton Court, at the chusing the officers to gather the Lord’s Rent, where grew a question, whither, if the Lord released our Rent, Sute, and Service, to the Court, we were subject to the slavery of attendance, and whither the Tenants could prescribe men, &c., &c., &c., or impose an office upon them,—and it was the whole resolution of the Court, the Lord might sell his quit-rents and all manner of attendance on the Court, and then he could not be tyed to any office, nor the Tenants impose any office upon him....

“The 16th September 1656, I went to Aldyngton Court, but came too late, there beeing layd on me the office for collecting the 32 Denns, for my land in them. I desired to know what land it was ... in the 32 Dens upon which the office was laid, but this I could not learn ... the issue was, that if they can name the land or descry it, I am to do it,—if not, I refused to gather it.”

“1658. I was at Aldynton Court again, and then there was much stir about this land which could not bee found. I still insisted the Denne of Plevynden held of Wye, that the 16s. 2d. ob. I payd was for light money in time past. The Conclusion was, They will distrain me if they can find the land, and then come to a trial in their Court which is held at Smethe.”