During the century or two after the first settlement there was time, no doubt, for the growth of kindreds, and the thane in the king’s service would soon become the head of a family group; but, on the other hand, many influences were at work undermining the solidarity of the kindred and strengthening the manorial element. Tribal instincts die hard. But probably there never was full opportunity for the growth upon English soil of anything like the solidarity in landholding of the Norse kindreds of odal sharers tracing back their family possession for four or five generations. [Sidenote: Folk-land may have devolved under tribal custom.] There is but little evidence on the rights or rules of succession to be found in the laws. And the silence is suggestive of the continuance of custom. Even the diplomatic evidence of wills and charters is so much restricted to boc-land that it perhaps throws a shadow rather than direct light upon the ordinary devolution of land which had not become the subject of the Romanised rules of ownership, conveyance and testamentary disposition. But if Professor Vinogradoff is right in his view that folk-land was that land which was still held under ancient custom, then for anything we know, in spite of documentary silence, folk-land may still have been held more or less as family rather than individual property even in later times. If the suggested analogy between the _terra Salica_ of the Salic laws and the _folk-land_ of Anglo-Saxon documents could be proved, the family character of the holdings in both cases would receive confirmation. At the same time the frequent concurrence of relatives in Anglo-Saxon dispositions of land and the common form of deprecation of future interference on their part would at least be consistent with the supposition. [Sidenote: But feudal principles would tend towards single succession outwardly.] That as time went on the growing force of feudal principles would demand single succession to landed estates whenever they could be regarded as benefices is what might be expected. And it is worth noting that under later feudal custom, by a kind of compromise, what was really a family holding was often artificially moulded for practical purposes into a single holding with apparent single succession. [Sidenote: A single holding may cover internal family divisions.]