from the Goths, and were reintroduced into England by them. Some of the oldest English ironworks were those of the ancient Andredsweald forest district of Sussex and Kent. Among Anglo-Saxon relics there are well-known Kentish types, many examples of which have been found also in the Isle of Wight, South Hampshire, and other parts of England, in or near to which settlements of Goths can be traced.
The early laws of Kent appear to afford evidence of the survival in that State in the sixth century of descendants of some of the settlers introduced into Britain from the Continent before the end of the later Roman occupation. Such settlers in various parts of the Empire were known as Læti. In Kent these people were called Lætas. This is a fact of interest and importance, for these Lætas of Kent in King Æthelbert’s time were probably descendants of some of the Burgundians, Alamans, Vandals, or others, who were settled in Britain by Probus and some of his successors, as already mentioned. Their number and influence in Kent must have been considerable, as special provision was accorded to them in one of the laws of Æthelbert—viz., that which says, ‘If anyone slay a Læt of the highest class let him pay 80 shillings, if he slay one of the second class let him pay 60 shillings, and if of the third, let him pay 40 shillings.’[1] In considering, therefore, the possibility of the survival elsewhere in England of any descendants of the tribes introduced into Britain by the Roman Emperors, the evidence that in Kent some descendants of these people survived increases the probability that in other parts of the country, such as along the so-called Saxon shore, similar descendants of the barbaric settlers of the time of the Empire who had not been absorbed in the Celtic population may also have survived until the same period. In connection with the early settlement of Kent, this reference to the Lætas in the Laws of Æthelbert is of more historical value than the story of Hengist and Horsa. In the early history of
- ↑ Laws of Æthelbert, 26.
