ceeded him as sole heiress of his customary tenement,[1] instead of, as in the case of a freehold, all his daughters as coheiresses. The surviving names of places around Carlisle point strongly to their Norwegian origin, and there can be no doubt that this curious tenure which prevailed in the city is a primitive one, which, like others in Cumberland, can be traced to Norway.
In considering its origin and survival, we must remember that customs were the laws of our Teutonic forefathers. To alter a custom which had come down from a remote antiquity was so great an innovation that it may reasonably be concluded such a change would not be made except under the pressing needs of altered conditions of life. Between the custom of rural primogeniture and those of equal division and of succession by the youngest son there is so great a difference that they must have had separate origins among different races of people. In the North of England, as elsewhere, there can be little doubt that in many cases all traces of these early customary laws, which at one time prevailed in certain districts or manors, have now been lost. We can, however, trace the partible custom as having existed among the ancient socmen of South Scotland, and rather extensively in Yorkshire, and in Tynedale and Reedsdale in Northumberland,[2] while that of junior right prevailed at Leeds, [3] and was not, apparently, unknown in ancient Bernicia over the border.[4]
It is not difficult to imagine that when a place was occupied at an early time by people of more than one race having their own different systems of inheritance, these customs would in the course of time become blended as the population became mixed in descent. This may, perhaps, have been the origin of the ancient system of
