THE KENTISH SYSTEM 3OI 



and days. The days seldom exceed ten, and a comparison of 

 items leads to the conclusion that ten day's-works constituted one 

 rood. The smallest Kentish unit of superficial land measure was 

 thus not the pole or perch, but the equivalent of four poles. 



Of the five units above described three were certainly not 

 widespread in England, at least under these names. The sulung, 

 the iugum, and the day's-work are not often mentioned outside of 

 Kent, and hence may without great inaccuracy be called Kentish. 

 The appearance of any of these names elsewhere will suggest the 

 Kentish system.^ The terms tenement and virgate are of course 

 common, but the connotation which they had in Kent is, for the 

 virgate at least, distinctive. 



In default of accessible documents, the methods of tillage em- 

 ployed by manorial tenants in the open fields of mediaeval 

 Kent are not easy to ascertain. There is, however, no reason 

 to think that the demesne may not at times have lain inter- 

 mixed with the tenants' land,^ as it often did in the midlands. 

 If such were the case, the record which we have concerning the 

 tillage of demesne lands may to some extent be representative of 

 methods of tillage in general. In any event, it will disclose the 

 fact that in fourteenth-century Kent certain arable lands were 

 tilled more continuously and with better results than were similar 

 lands in most other parts of England. 



Evidence regarding the tillage of the demesne can be drawn, as 

 heretofore, from the extents contained in the inquisitions post 

 mortem, especially in those of the late thirteenth and early four- 

 teenth centuries.^ These documents make it clear that in the 

 midlands the average annual value of an acre of arable which was 

 left fallow every second or third year was from ^d.to 6 d., with an 

 occasional drop to 3 d. and a rise to 8 d. In Kent the percentage 

 of the arable left fallow and the annual value of an acre did not 

 at times greatly differ from this. At Hothfield, in 1 2 Edward III, 

 80 acres from a total of 200 were untilled, and 6 d. is stated to 

 have been the average annual value of an acre.^ Elsewhere, while 



* This is less true of day's work (cf. p. 228, n. 2). 



^ Cf. above, p. 275. ' Cf. above, p. 46. 



* C. Inq. p. Mort., Edw. Ill, F. 56 (i), 17 July, 12 Edw. Ill, Hothfeld: " Sunt 

 ibidem cc acre terre arabilis que valent per annum c s. praetium acre vi d. De 



