144, and in Blewbury Hundred, anciently known as Blitberie, there were 166. They thus appear to have been too numerous as a class in these localities for their origin to be explained otherwise than as probable descendants of original free settlers. From the other evidence already stated, the migration up the river of colonists from Kent can scarcely be open to doubt, and the existence, centuries later, of these numerous cottars settled collectively in parts of the county near the river leads to the same conclusion.
One of the significant statements in Domesday Book relating to Oxfordshire is this: ‘If any shall kill another in his own court or house, his body and all his substance shall be in the King’s power, except his wife’s portion, if she has any.’ This refers to a privilege which corresponds to that of the Kentish tenants in gavelkind—viz., that a gavelkind tenant’s land was not forfeited if he should be convicted of felony. The custom in Oxfordshire was not general, as will be seen by the Domesday extract. If the widow was entitled to dower, her share of the husband’s estate could not be forfeited, but there were some people in Oxfordshire at that time whose widows had no dower, as may be inferred from the words ‘if she has any.’ This Domesday entry points to the custom having been an old one, and indicates the probable migration of people up the Thames from Kent, where the widow was entitled to half her husband’s estate for her life, and from the manors in Surrey and Middlesex where, by the custom of borough-English, she was entitled to the whole for her life. The Hundred Rolls for Oxfordshire confirm the probability of such migrations, for they contain some entries which show that widows held a virgate of land each among other virgate-holding tenants, and others showing widows holding only half a virgate[1]—i.e., half the customary holding. The Hundred Rolls also show, in the occur-
- ↑ Hundred Rolls, ii. 700, 717, 724, 739, 740, 742, etc.
18—2
