STATUS OF PEASANTRY IN PORTLAND. 



77 



The Old English methods of land ownership and cultivation 

 approximated in many cases to the Celtic. Particularly would 

 this be the case where the Romano-British population remained 

 in any strength. Probably in such parts it was little more at first 

 than the substitution of Teutonic for Celtic masters, but at this 

 late date it is impossible to say in what proportion an admixture 

 of the population might occur. In Jutish Kent the custom of 

 gavelkind (the original mode of succession of free folk ?) 

 prevailed, and as wherever the Jutes settled, their allies the 

 Frisians appear to crop up also, the likeness to Celtic 

 inheritance is strengthened, for certain tribes of the Frisians had 

 the clan system fully developed. Thus as regards gavelkind and 

 the claims of the family, Celts and Jutes might approximate so 

 closely as to fall easily into line, and where there is strong 

 presumptive evidence of the population having been originally 

 Romano-British and Jute-Frisian, the system of gavelkind would 

 be likely to be established so firmly that it would need very 

 strong outside influence to upset it ; and it is to a population of 

 this class that we should look for the survival of such a system, 

 both Old English and Celtic methods having been based 

 probably upon some common and more primitive arrangements, 

 diversities growing out of environment and temperamental 

 differences. 



The hide, the chief standard measure in land holding, is now 

 clearly demonstrated to have meant a share, and not a fixed 

 measure, as it varied very much in different districts. The 

 Domesday hide was merely a geld hide ; i.e., a certain measure 

 of land to be taxed at so much, and these hides were smaller in 

 the south-western counties than in most other parts, though the 

 land was assessed in much smaller units in Kent, Thanet, Wight, 

 Ely, and part of Sussex. It seems natural to suppose that in the 

 more fertile localities the hide would be a smaller unit than in 

 sparsely peopled districts, where there was much waste land, but 

 there seems to have been another factor in this case. With 

 the exception of Ely, it is just such places as these we should 

 look to at this period (as in Portland) for superior commercial 



