quite so general, but in the central and north parts of the county it may still be found, although perhaps less strongly marked now than half a century ago. The darker complexion among some of the Hampshire people, as among those of Wiltshire and Dorset, may be due in part to their descent from people of darker hues, who were among the original Gewissas. The Goths were of a fair type, as has been already described in the chapter on Kent. The inhabitants of the Isle of Wight, although now a very mixed population, still show occasional conformities to the original Jutish type, and this may be observed in the face of the monumental effigy of one of the D’Orseys, an old Isle of Wight family, in the church at Newport. It may be seen among the people of the Meon district, and may be noticed among people who may be met in the streets of Winchester at the present time.
From what has already been said, it will be seen that the Kentish custom of partible inheritance can be traced to a primitive Gothic source, and the custom of junior right to a primitive Wendish or Slavonic source. As Hampshire was settled by colonists of various races, united under the common name of Gewissas, the people of the various tribes may be expected to have brought into this county some of their peculiar customs, as Goths did into Kent, and tribal Frisians and Wends probably did into Sussex. It will be desirable, therefore, to consider in some detail the various primitive customs of succession and land tenure which actually prevailed in Hampshire. No instance of exactly the same custom of partible inheritance that prevailed in Kent can be cited in this county, but a large number of cases can be quoted of land being held by parage or parcenary tenure, a custom in its nature very like gavelkind. The survival of this parage or parcenary custom was mainly in the old Jutish parts of the county—viz., in the Isle of Wight and the New Forest district. The manors in which this custom prevailed were each considered as one manor for the purpose of taxation, but were held jointly by more than
