8o THE STATUS OF PEASANTRY IN PORTLAND. 



and the freemen knights or rent-paying tenants. Holding in 

 villainage was not so much a personal disqualification as posses- 

 sion of land by base agricultural services. 



Gavelkind stood in closer relation to tribal division than to 

 Feudal practices, and this, together with socage tenure, was laid 

 great stress upon with regard to claims of superiority in Kent. 

 Also Kent lay upon an important trade route and throve by its 

 privileged position. It was evidently not to the interest of the 

 Norman kings to oppose the early emancipation of Kent ; they 

 gained too much from the commercial pursuits of their subjects 

 to reduce them to strict rule. 



The farming of the king's taxes was both important and 

 lucrative, especially in a commercial centre, and we find it on 

 record that the ancient Portland family of Pearce (still well 

 represented in the island in point of numbers, though much of 

 their landed possessions have passed away), were accorded this 

 privilege in 1341. 



The privileges of Ancient Demesne were exceedingly valuable 

 and peculiar. Only those manors which had belonged to the 

 king in pre-Conquest days, and which again became the property 

 of the Crown after the Conquest, are Ancient Demesne. When, 

 in addition to this, the tenants of a manor claimed to have been 

 freeholders from time immemorial (i.e., to have obtained their 

 position and name by tradition of free stock), such privileges 

 were of the utmost value, difficult to guage at this distance of 

 time and under such greatly altered circumstances. 



The Rev. R. W. Eyton states, in reference to Portland Isle at 

 the Domesday Survey, that the island with its vills and demesnes 

 paid highly, and that it was not assessed according to the hide. 

 He therefore inferred that it must have been both prosperous 

 and populous, either from quarrying, fishing, petty trading, or 

 commerce. One villain is mentioned with five serfs and ninety 

 bordarii. 



To sum up as briefly as possible, the Romano-British land 

 system in some of its features bore a sufficient resemblance to 

 the Old English for the one to be easily grafted on the other, 



