1. The natural way of outlet or extension for Kent would be up the Thames. That Kentish men did emigrate and settle beyond their marsh is proved by the laws of King Wihtred (A.D. 685), in which it is laid down that Kentish men carry their laws and customs “beyond the march.”
2. Names connected with Kent are common round London E. of Kennington, Kensington, Kenton, Kentish Town, Kenley, Kent’s Town.
3. The Kentish custom of gavelkind, by which the estate was divided among all the sons equally, the youngest son taking the homestead, prevailed, and in some places lingered long in many villages and manors round London, viz. Kentish Town, Stepney, Mile End, Hackney, Canonbury, Newington Barrow (Highbury), Hornsey, Islington, Streatham, Croydon, Peckham Rye, Kensington, Walworth, Vauxhall, Wandsworth, Battersea, Lambeth, Barnes, Sheen (Richmond), Petersham, Edmonton, Fulham, Tottenham, Ealing, Acton, and Isleworth.
FAMILY LIFE
Claud MS., B. iv.
This list (the authority for which is Thomas Robinson on Gavelkind) is long and unimportant. It becomes more important when Glanville is quoted as saying that partible inheritance was only recognised by the law courts when it could be proved to have been always in use. Now if in the twelfth century the use of gavelkind could be proved customary beyond the memory of man, the antiquity of the use on the manors is certainly established.
London, then, was surrounded by manors under gavelkind. Further out, the Archbishop of Canterbury had demesnes at Harrow and Hayes. In the reign of King John he converted gavelkind fees into knights’ fees.
4. Mr. Shore also calls attention to the two claims in William’s Charter, that all burgesses are law-worthy, and that thus every child is to be his (not his or her) father’s heir.
These words prove, he suggests, that there were no bondmen in London, as there were none in Kent, and that gavelkind, the peculiar Kentish custom, obtained in London at that time.
This view is submitted for the readers consideration. Against it we have to set the undoubted fact, as stated above, that the King of Essex was the Lord of London, although his overlord was the King of Kent. Had London been settled by Kentish men, how would the King of Essex get a footing there? Is it not much more reasonable to suppose that the City was first settled by the men of Essex; that the King of Kent became by battle and victory the overlord; that Kentish men naturally flocked to the place and acquired lands, and that they brought with them their own customs? We may thus explain the facts of the names and the Kentish customs. As regards the clauses in the Charter, I fail to see their importance. If there were slaves in London, they would not be accounted burgesses, and would not be named, for slaves had no rights; and the framers of the Charter would naturally use the word “his” rather than “his or her.”