30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE [VITI. 



general terms in which, the law is expressed would 

 be satisfied, by holding that the aeht are to be 

 divided among the heirs of the movables, the next 

 of kin, the land passing to the heir of the land, 

 whoever he or they might be. 



Neither is the theory, that equal succession among 

 sons was the general rule, easily reconcilable with 

 the fact that, in many towns and manors, the youngest 

 son succeeded to the exclusion of his brothers. This 

 custom still exists in a country inhabited by Saxons, 

 in the northern part of Germany, Westphalia. 

 I have before me a project of a law for regulating 

 this course of descent. The custom was besides 

 emphatically termed Borough English, showing that 

 it must have existed in England before the 

 Norman Conquest. 



Again, on the vast manor of West Derby, the 

 country between the Kibble and the Mersey (com- 

 prising many small manors) which belonged to 

 Edward the Confessor, there were many free tenants, 

 and the customs according to which they held their 

 lands are recorded in Domesday. It is said, " Si quis 

 terram patris mortui habere volebat XL. solidos 

 relevabat : qui nolebat et terram et omnem pecuniam 

 patris mortui rex habebat," Domesday, vol. ii., 269 b. 

 " If any one wished to have the land of his deceased 

 father he paid 40s. relief," but there is no mention 

 of more than one son succeeding. The holdings 

 were apparently indivisible. 



