the kindred could furnish no male heir within the necessary limit, extending in this case to the fifth degree. The _share-house_ of the Kentish _Gavel_ (the _Bold-getal_ perhaps of Alfred’s laws), with the hearth reserved, as among the Welsh, for the youngest heir; the allotment of which the name of _shifting_ betokens the original character; and the freedom of the heirs from the consequences of the father’s felony, alluded to in the old Kentish rhymes, “the father to the bough, the son to the plough,”--a freedom which was confirmed, rather than introduced, in Scotland by the laws of William,[275]--closely resemble the characteristics of the Celtic holding: though the preference of the youngest heir in the Welsh and Kentish Gavel, and in the tenure known as _Borough-English_, discloses the pre-existence of a state of society unknown, apparently, amongst the Gael; whilst the allodial character of the Kentish Gavel seems to have been almost peculiar to that county. Both the principle of joint proprietary right, and the elective character of the Senior, were thoroughly recognised in the Imperial Benefice, at least as late as the eleventh century. The kindred, ending at the seventh in descent, and never acquiring hereditary right before the lapse of three generations, chose and presented their Senior to their lord, their representative fulfilling all the obligations of the benefice, which, being held by military service, differed in certain particulars from the older Gavel.[276] Stated military service was required for a stated portion of land, a well-armed soldier attending his lord from every benefice, which was always originally of a certain stated size, the holder of many being answerable for an equivalent number of men-at-arms, whilst the responsibility in half a benefice was shared between the Seniors of two such holdings. As the military feud required the service of a man-at-arms, it followed that the lord was entitled to provide a substitute whenever such service could not be rendered through the minority or sex of the heirs; and out of this right arose the claim of the lord of a military fief to control the marriage of the heiress, and to act as guardian of the minor, rights which, in the case of the Gavel, belonged to the kindred. The earlier system was ruled by a different principle of military service: the greater the numbers of the family or tribe, the more prominent their position in battle, the wider the district allotted to them in the annual distribution of the land; and hence it was the pride of the German _pagi_, in the days of Tacitus, to contribute a far greater number of warriors than their necessary quota of “a hundred.” The earlier principle was still in full force amongst the Celts, every freeman continuing to carry arms, and to be liable at the call of the king to attend the yearly assembly of the _Sluagh_ or _Leuchte_--the Welsh _Lluyd_, the German _Leudes_--if required for a “hosting across