of them do die, then the same heir masculine shall be the heir, and not the heir feminine, though she be of the younger son.’[1]
In the manor of Liddington-cum-Caldecot, in Rutland, the junior inheritance custom that prevailed was that the land descended to the youngest son, and if no son, to the daughters in parcenary.[2]
At Kimbolton the custom in regard to succession was division among the sons, the whole estate being kept together under one, as the nominal head. This was a family or tribal arrangement, the parage or parcenery tenure. The Domesday account tells us that the manor was held by six socmen—Alwold and his five brothers[3]—and the entry probably points to descendants of Northmen of some tribe who had retained a custom of their forefathers. Two of the hamlets at Kimbolton bore the names of Wormedik and Akermanni, as shown by the Hundred Rolls, both apparently of northern origin.
The chief districts in the midland counties where partible inheritance prevailed were the soke of Rothley in Leicestershire, and the soke of Oswaldbeck[4] in Nottinghamshire. The continuance of the custom to modern time shows that it must have been of immemorial usage to have satisfied the courts of the twelfth century, when primogeniture had become the general law. Oswaldbeck soke comprised the area of country in the north-east of Nottingham between the river Idle and the Trent. The soke was a separate administration, and apparently was bounded on the south by places now called East and West Markham. It comprised the old Domesday manors of Sutton, Lound, Madressi, Crophill, Laneham, Ascham, Bolun, Bertun, Waterlege, Leverton, North Muskham, and Scrobi. Most of these old manors can still be identified, but the district contains at the present time
