The correspondence at this ratio of the Wessex twelve-hynde wergeld with the Frankish wergeld of 200 gold solidi, and of the Mercian twelve-hynde wergeld with the other Continental wergelds of 160 gold solidi, is sufficiently striking to be taken into account in any speculation as to the respective origins of the West Saxon and Mercian invading tribes. But that is not the object of this essay. It is enough to have noted a fact which may or may not turn out to be of some historical significance. The value of the wergelds to this inquiry consists in the light they throw upon the solidarity of tribal society and the position in social rank of the various classes of Anglo-Saxon society. But we have yet to examine the laws of the Kentish kings, and it will be best to suspend any further judgment on these points until this remaining part of our task has been done. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. _THE LAWS OF THE KENTISH KINGS._ I. DISTINCTION FROM ANGLO-SAXON LAWS, A.D. 596-696. The laws of the Kentish kings, if they had been on all fours with the other Anglo-Saxon laws, would have taken back the general evidence for Anglo-Saxon custom another hundred years earlier than the Laws of Ine, and nearer the time of the conquest of Britain. As it is, however, they have to be treated as in part exceptional. [Sidenote: Belgic agriculture.] It is very probable that for a long period the proximity of Kent to the Continent had resulted in the approximation of its social and economic conditions to those of the opposite shore of the Channel. The south-east corner of Britain was described by Cæsar as having been colonised by Belgæ and as having been for some time under Belgic rule. The Belgic tribes were the furthest advanced of Celtic tribes and, according to Cæsar, had fostered agriculture, while his informants spoke of the interior of Britain as pastoral. Under Roman rule the prominence of agriculture was continued. Ammianus Marcellinus describes large exports of British corn to supply Roman legions on the Rhine. He speaks of the British _tributarii_ in a way which suggests that this part of Britain under Roman rule had become subject to economic arrangements similar to those of the Belgic provinces of Gaul. [Sidenote: The sulungs and yokes of Kent.] The introduction, by invitation, of the Jutes into Kent and their settlement, in the first instance at all events, under a friendly agreement of payment of _annonæ_, may have given an exceptional character to the results of ultimate conquest. The permanent prominence of agriculture is perhaps shown by the fiscal assessment in ‘sulungs’ and ‘yokes’ instead of hides and virgates. [Sidenote: Early clerical influences.]