2δ4 THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND. [book ɪ.
have impressed somewhat of a solemn and sacred
character upon the whole institution1.
Much of what has been observed respecting the
tithing, applies also to the hundred. This, it has
been seen, was originally a collection of ten tithings,
and was presided over by a hundredes ealdor2, or
hundred-man, who exercised a jurisdiction over his
circuit and its inhabitants. From the concurrent
practice of later periods we may conclude that his
court was holden monthly for the hearing of such
civil and lighter criminal causes as could not be
settled in the tithing, or interested more tithings
than one3. It is not probable that the higher
criminal causes could at any period be pursued
in the hundred4, but that they were necessarily
reserved for the consideration of the folcmot or
* In what may be called the Act of Constitution of Orcy’s Gyld at
Abbotsbury, this feature is very prominent. I have therefore appended
the instrument in an Appendix to this chapter, although as a voluntary
gyld it differs in some respect from those heretofore under consider-
ation. The trade-guilds of the Middle Ages paid also especial attention
to the religious communion of their members.,
2 The word Borseholder renders it probable that the capitalis, tyn-
manna heafod, yldesta, etc, bore among the Saxons the name of Borges-
ealdor, princeps plegii.
3 This again we learn from the law attributed to Eadweard the Con-
fessor. “ Cum autem ɪnaiores causae insurgebant (that is greater than
those which'concerned the tithing), referebant eas ad alios maiores ius-
ticiarios, quos sapientes Supradicti super eos Constituerant, scilicet super
decern decanos, quos possumus vocare Centenarios, quia super centum
fritSborgos iudicabant.” § xxix,
4 I find no instance of a hundredes man having the blut-bann or ius
gladii-, but in the time of Eadgar, he seems to have had power to ad-
minister the single and threefold ordeal ; whether only in the case of
serfs does not appear. Inst. Hundr. Thorpe, i. 260.
CH. κ∙]
THE TITHINQ AND HUNDRED.
255
shire-court, which met three times in the year. In
the later legislation, trial of capital offences was re-
served for the scyremot, and the words of Tacitus1
seem to .imply that this was the case in his time
also : perhaps even such causes as involved the
penalties of outlawry may have been beyond the ju-
risdiction of the hundred. It is however less as a
court of justice than as part of a system for the main-
tenance of peace, that we are to contemplate .the
hundred. It may be securely affirmed that where
the tithing alone could not be made responsible, or
more tithings than one were involved in a similar
difficulty as to crimes committed by their members,
resort was had to the responsibility of the collective
hundred,—a principle which, it is well-known, sub-
sists even to this day.
At a comparatively late period, we occasionally
find a consolidation of hundreds into one body, for
judicial purposes, presided over by the ealdorman
of the shire, or his geréfa, and forming a subsidiary
court to the shiremoot : and after immunities, or
private jurisdictions, had become rapidly extended,
it is certain that such consolidations were not un-
usual, in the hands of great civil or ecclesiastical
authorities, and that they, by means of their officers
or geréfan, held plea in several hundreds at once ;
they thus substituted their own power for that of
the ealdorman or the sheriff, in the last instance,
throughout the district comprehended by their im-
munity ; either replacing the old hundred-men by
“ Licet apud concilium accusare quoque et discrimen capitis inten-
dere.” Germ. ɪii.