Pumires.—On the Law of Gavelkind. 519 
Primá facie all the land in Kent is gavelkind, except such as is dis- 
gavelled by particular statute. How the custom came to survive the 
Norman Conquest it is difficult to say, for no lands in England were treated 
so rigorously as those in Kent, not a single tenant-in-chief being left by 
William. We can only now suppose that the English sub-tenants of Odo, 
Lanfranc, and other Norman nobles, held their lands, after the Conquest, 
as their forefathers held them. I am inclined to doubt Archbishop Sti- 
gand’s stipulation on behalf of the men of Kent, but nevertheless he may 
have made the stipulation. 
The custom also appears to have ruled in Wales before 84 and 35, 
Henry VIII., c. 26. 
In France, since the Revolution, a great number of small estates in land 
aro held under a similar custom. All the children inherit. There are, I 
believe, five million landowners in France. Public opinion in that country 
tenaciously adheres to this compulsory division of land, which was adopted, 
as John Stuart Mill tells us, to break down the law of primogeniture, 
and “ counteract the tendency of inherited property to collect in large masses.* 
In Norway this custom still holds good. Our Scanian ancestors doubt- 
less brought the law of gavelkind with them to England, about five centu- 
ries before the Norman Conquest. 
In Belgium, too, some lands are held under this custom. Wherever it 
is in force the custom appears rigorously to divide the land according to the 
population, and while preserving the independence of each individual, it 
prevents the accumulation of land into large estates. Under such a custom 
as the law of gavelkind it is quite possible to cut up New Zealand into five 
acre allotments, if population should ever grow so dense. 
"The custom, apparently, arose in this way. Each individual man of 
the Teutonic and Scanian tribes grew to feel himself so independent, that 
he insisted upon holding the folkland as bocland (bookland, that is land held 
by document). The mark was laid out upon the communal system, exactly 
the same as the Maori held his land before he began to individualize it :— 
so much corn land; so much forest; and so much pasturage; although 
the Maori only used the two first divisions. If we were to ask our Maori 
friends, I think the vast majority of them would prefer the individual title, 
but the chiefs naturally object, as the individualization destroys their mana. 
The atrocious lala custom in Fiji is kept up solely in consequence of the 
communal title, with the result that the common people are slaves. 
The Teuton or Scanian originally became so personally independent, 
owing to his mode of life on land and sea, that we find he carried this feel- 
ing so far as non-submission to chieftainship. He elected his chief for war 
uve a 
* Polit. Econ., B. ii.. cap. ii., sec. 4. 
