l LUNDS UNIVERSITETS ARSSKRIFT. N. F. Avd. 1. Bd 30. Nr 1. ,~ ,j .11 . i ~ .l i THE jl; ENGLISH HUNDRED-NAMES BY oL 0 f S. AND ER SON , LUND PHINTED BY HAKAN DHLSSON I 934 The English Hundred-Names xvn It does not fall within the scope of the present study to enter on the details of the theories advanced; there are points that are still controversial, and some aspects of the question may repay further study. It is hoped that the etymological investigation of the hundred-names undertaken in the following pages will, Introduction. when completed, furnish a starting-point for the discussion of some of the problems connected with the origin of the hundred. 1. Scope and Aim. Terminology Discussed. The following chapters will be devoted to the discussion of some The local divisions known as hundreds though now practi­ aspects of the system as actually in existence, which have some cally obsolete played an important part in judicial administration bearing on the questions discussed in the etymological part, and in the Middle Ages. The hundredal system as a wbole is first to some general remarks on hundred-names and the like as shown in detail in Domesday - with the exception of some embodied in the material now collected. counties and smaller areas -- but is known to have existed about THE HUNDRED. a hundred and fifty years earlier. The hundred is mentioned in the laws of Edmund (940-6),' but no earlier evidence for its The hundred, it is generally admitted, is in theory at least a existence has been found. The question of its origin has given rise district assessed at 100 (or 120) hides.' Evidence of this is given to much controversy. The older view 2 that would associate the Eng­ by Round,2 Chadwick 3 and Maitland! In practice this is not lish hundred with similar institutions on the Continent 'and in always discernible; the hundreds of many counties are rated at a Scandinavia seems now to be generally abandoned. According lower (or higher) figure. In many cases there is evidence for to the view that now holds the field the hundred dates from the assuming that a previously higher assessment may have been 10th century only, though it may have been preceded by some reduced,o but tbe discussion of the variations in the number of older division, possibly one with a popular basis." But Chadwick' hides from hundred to hundred and from county to county involves gives evidence for thinking that the West Saxon hundred consisted many technicalities that need not be entere'd upon here. originally of a district annexed to a royal estate. This view has In Domesday and in 12th and 13th century records certain hundreds are distinguished as 'double hundreds', 'hundreds and a recently been further developed by Miss Cam.o Corbett 6 assumes that the hundredal system was extended to the counties between half' or 'half hundreds'. Such hundreds are to be found only in the Thames and the Welland and to East Anglia and Essex in the , By the time of Domesday the hide was a unit of assessment, but reign of .fEthelstan. Liebermann 7 was inclined to assign the originally it must have denoted a family holding. OE hIgid, hId is con­ hundredal organisation as a whole to this reign. nected with hiwan, hiwscipe 'family, household', it is rendered teTra unius tamilice by Bede, and in charters teTra unius manentis, teTra unius casati, 1 Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen II 516. teTra unius tributarii; mansa; cf. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond 2 Cf. e. g. Stubbs, Constitutional History I 96 ff.; Vinogradoff, The 358 f. The older view of the origin of the hundred was that a hundred Growth of the Manor 144 f. originally ,consisted of a hundred householders or warriors. The view 3 V. Round, Feudal England 97 f.; Liebermann op. cit. s. v. hundred. expressed in more recent works is that the hundred is a district, on which , Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions 233ff., 239-62. an assessment of a hundred hides has been imposed. , ERR 47, 353---76 (1932). 2 Op. cit. 49 f. • Cambridge Medieval History m 366 (1924): as regards East Anglia, • Op. cit. 240 ff. cf. also Douglas, Medieval East Anglia 58 (1927); EHR 43, 380 (1928); 4 Op. cit. 451-60. Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds CLlI et passim 5 Cf. e. g. Round op. cit. 49 ff., VRNp I 260; lIIaitland op. cit. 457 ff.; (1932). Tait, VHSa I, 281 f.; The Domesday Survey of Cheshire (Chetham Society 7 Op. cit. 518, 10c f. N. S. 75) 16 ff. 2* XVIll O. S. Anderson The English Hundred·Names XIX certain counties, as far as my material goes chiefly in the east of A term that also seems, at least occasionally, to denote a com­ England. In the opinion of Miss Cam,' 'though double or half­ bination of hundreds is the 'ship-soke' (OE scipsocn, scipfyllefJ), hundreds may occasiona.lly indicate the fusion of two or the divi­ for which cr. BCS 1135. BT s. v. scipfyllep quote the passage from sion of one, in many cases the terminology undoubtedly is due this charter relating to the ship-soke, and also refer to ASC s. a. to the imposition of two hundred, or a hundred and fifty, or fifty 1008 where it is apparently stated that from every three hundred 1 hides upon a district'. Cases of double hundreds 2 where this may hides one ship should be furni~hed to the national fleet. The word hold good are Babergh Sf, Na.ssaborough Np and Normancross 3 also occurs in the Leges Henrici,' and three of the four War­ Hu, but it does not seem impossible either that at least the two first­ wickshire hundreds (Knightlow, Kington and Hemlingford, below mentioned might be due to the combination of two earlier hundreds. p. 132 Cf.) were so termed in the 12th century. BT explain the ship­ There is no record of such a procedure in these cases, it is true, soke as a combination of three hundreds, ,and a similar view is but there are some later instances of 'double .hundreds', undoubt­ held by Dr Round, who makes the further suggestion that if the edly created out of two single ones (Blackbourn Sf, Sutton, service were. due at the rate of one man from every five hides, Fawsley Np) which might be quoted as parallels. Cases of 'hund­ three hundreds would supply 60 men, which seems to have been reds and a half" might seem more directly to support the view the normal crew of one of Alfred's warships" One of the War­ that such hundreds merely reflect differences of assessment, but wickshire ship-sokes, that of Knighllow, actually consisted of three it is perha.ps worth noticing that such hundreds always (i. e. as hundreds (Brinklow, Marton and Stoneleigh), but the other two far as my material goes) occur in groups of two or together with do not seem to conform to the rule; Kington consisted of four a half-hundred: Mitford and Forehoe; Freebridge and Clackclose hundreds, and in Hemlingford only one hundred has been traced. NI; Samford and Cosford (half-hundred) Sf; Guilsborough and The Domesday hidage of these hundreds does not seem to sup­ Nobottle Grove; Wymersley and Higham Ferrers Np. This might port the view that a shipsoke consisted of 300 hides (three lend some colour to a theory of division and combination. In one hundreds),' but it is perhaps worth noticing that the County case (Plomesgate Sf) a hundred formed in the l2th century Hidage 5 assigns 1200 hides to Warwickshire, which would be just through the combination of a hundred with a half-hundred is four blocks of three hundreds each. Blocks of three hundreds are sometimes actually termed a hundredum et dimidium. Examples also met with in Buekinghamshire.6 of half-hundreds that adjoin are Diss and Earsham Nf, Lothing­ The employment of the hide as a unit of asseS8ment is seen land and Mutford Sf. In one or two cases, however, hundreds formed at a late period are termed half-hundreds merely on Sudbume hdT' 1160 P). - When in Abbot Samson's Kalendarium all the leets of Babergh hd are termed ferthings (cf. Douglas, Feudal Documents account of their small areas (Exning and Thredling Sf). - A from t.he Abbey of Bury St Edmunds p. CLXVI) one may perhaps su­ division of hundreds in four parts known as ferthings occurs in spect a generalisation; it is perhaps worth noticing that one of the leets East Anglia.,~ and a unique Thredling in Sf (below p. 91). (the last in the list) seems actually to have been the fourth part of (one of) the (two) hundred(s). - Round, Feudal England 101, points out that • ERR 47, 374 f. Sudbury was also a quarter of Thingoe hd, and mentions the parallels of 2 OE two. hundred; Latin duo hundreda. Hunlihgdon and Wisbecb. • The remaining Huntingdonshire hundreds, though in reality double 1 Cf. also the note to the passage in Earle-Plummer's edition. hundreds, are not expressly so termed. 2 VI, 1: Ipsi uero comitatus in centurias et sipessocna distinguntur; • OE oper healt hundl'ed; Latin hundredum et dimidillm. cf. Liebermann op. cif.. s. v. Schiff. • Examples are: Ludham terding (Stenlon, ERR 37, 226 and note 3), 3 VHWo I 248; also Vinogradoff, English Society in the 11th Cen· a fourth part of Rapping hd Nf; (in) Ferdingam de Ealdham (Aldham, Cos­ tury 31. ford hd Sf), terting de Almeham (the fourth part of Wangford hd, which • Cf.