ENCLOSURES : ESSEX AGRICULTURE, 1500-1900. 5
Another writer in an interesting investigation into the field
systems of this country has shown the affinities between western
and eastern Britain in a different connection.4 He points out
that neither of these areas showed the two or three open field
system, with the exception of the western borders of the East
Anglian-Essex tract. Within the western area he also believes
that the enclosures were of early date and resulted from the
prevalence of compact holdings of the Celtic field systems.
The occurrence of early enclosures within the eastern counties
was, he suggests, possibly the result of the persistence of Roman
agricultural practices (akin to those of the Belgic people) over-
laid, to a varying extent, by those of the later Saxon and Danish
peoples.
A historian has recently approached the problem from the
standpoint of settlement types.3 In his interesting work he
points out that an extensive district in eastern England south of
the Thames has, in the main, the hamlet type of settlement. This
settlement type he holds to be the result of the Jutish occu-
pation. He supports his claim by the discovery of the hamlet
settlement type and the Kentish custom of gavelkind, or equal
heir-ship, throughout the "Coln, Mainz Trier triangle" which
he regards as the home of the Jutes—a view supported, to some
extent, by archaeological evidence.6
It may now be recalled that the area of hamlet settlements
found by Jolliffc in south-eastern England, not only extends
far beyond the Jutish archaeological area, but is also very much
larger than the Jutish kingdom. It is therefore reasonable to
envisage the possibility that the hamlet settlements of the area
had developed before the advent of the Jutes and were of
British origin. This theory of the survival of the Celtic "trev"
in certain districts is not new and has been advanced by Maitzen,
Maitland and others, but recently has fallen into disfavour.
Jolliffe, however, has shown that the hamlet in Kent is of some
age.
Let us consider the Celtic hamlet settlements in England.
The later Belgic, or La Tene III, folk seem to have had their
4 English Field Systems. Gray, H. L.
5 Jolliffe, J. E. A. Pre-Feudal England : the Jutes.
6 In a recent paper {Antiquity, 1933) T. D. Kendrick has demonstrated not only the close
relationship between the " Jutish " brooches found in the " Coln triangle " and in Kent, but also
shown that similar brooches were made in Kent by the Romano-British before the Jutish invasion,
and by " sub-Roman " people after that time.