ABSTRACT
Patrick Wormald was an extraordinarily generous mentor throughout my early research in Anglo-Saxon law. He served as the outside reader of my Harvard dissertation, a (semi-) anonymous referee for my book manuscript on The Beginnings of English Law, and an evaluator for my tenure at Louisiana State University. My debt to him is incalculable: I miss him terribly both as a colleague and as a friend. The following paper augments the fourth chapter of The Beginnings of English Law by including specific comparisons between the royal and ecclesiastical laws of early Kent. I submit it in the hope that Patrick would have enjoyed it, and with a sinking feeling that he actually would have thought: ‘You might have done this in the first place!’1
