Hundred (county subdivision)

A hundred is a geographic division formerly used in England, Wales, Denmark, South Australia, some parts of the United States, Germany (Southern Schleswig), Sweden, Finland and Norway, which historically was used to divide a larger region into smaller administrative divisions. Alternative names include wapentake, herred (Danish, Norwegian bokmål), herad (Norwegian nynorsk), härad (Swedish), Harde (German) and kihlakunta (Finnish).

The name "hundred" is derived from the number one hundred. It may once have referred to an area liable to provide for a hundred men under arms, or containing roughly a hundred homesteads, or to a small parcel (thus loosely a hundredth) of a territory. It was a traditional Germanic system described as early as AD 98 by Tacitus (the centeni). Similar systems were used in the traditional administrative regimes of China and Japan.

England

In England a hundred was the division of a shire for administrative, military and judicial purposes under the common law.^[1] Originally, when introduced by the Saxons between 613 and 1017, a hundred had enough land to sustain approximately one hundred households headed by a hundred-man or hundred eolder. He was responsible for administration, justice, and supplying military troops, as well as leading its forces. The office was not hereditary, but by the 10th century the office was selected from among a few outstanding families. Within each hundred there was a meeting place where the men of the hundred discussed local issues, and judicial trials were enacted. The role of the hundred court was described in the Dooms (laws) of King Edgar. The name of the hundred was normally that of its meeting-place.^[2] In England, specifically, it has been suggested that 'hundred' referred to the amount of land sufficient to sustain one hundred families, defined as the land covered by one hundred "hides".

Hundreds were further divided. Larger or more populous hundreds were split into divisions (or in Sussex, half hundreds). All hundreds were divided into tithings, which contained ten households. Below that, the basic unit of land was called the hide, which was enough land to support one family and varied in size from 60 to 120 old acres, or 15 to 30 modern acres (6 to 12 ha) depending on the quality and fertility of the land. Compare with township.

Above the hundred was the shire under the control of a shire-reeve (or sheriff). Hundred boundaries were independent of both parish and county boundaries, although often aligned, meaning that a hundred could be split between counties (usually only a fraction), or a parish could be split between hundreds.

The system of hundreds was not as stable as the system of counties being established at the time, and lists frequently differ on how many hundreds a county has. The Domesday Book contained a radically different set of hundreds than that which would later become established, in many parts of the country. The number of hundreds in each county varied wildly. Leicestershire had six (up from four at Domesday), whereas Devon, nearly three times larger, had thirty-two.

Over time, the principal functions of the hundred became the administration of law and the keeping of the peace. By the twelfth century the hundred court was held twelve times a year. This was later increased to being held fortnightly, although an ordinance of 1234 reduced the frequency to once every three weeks. In some hundreds, courts were held at a fixed place; while in others, courts moved with each sitting to a different location. The main duties of the hundred court were the maintenance of the frankpledge system. Where the hundred was under the jurisdiction of the crown, the chief magistrate was a sheriff. However, many hundreds were in private hands, with the lordship of the hundred being attached to the principal manor of the area and becoming hereditary. Where a hundred was under a lord, a steward was appointed in place of a sheriff.^[3]

Hundreds of Cornwall in the early 19th century.

The importance of the hundred courts declined from the seventeenth century, and most of the powers were extinguished with the establishment of county courts in 1867.^[4] The remaining duty of the inhabitants of a hundred to make good damages caused by riot was ended in 1886, when the cost was transferred to the county police rate.^[5] Although hundreds had no administrative or legal role after this date, they have never been formally abolished.

Groupings of hundreds were used to define parliamentary constituencies from 1832 to 1885. On the redistribution of seats in 1885 a different county subdivision, the petty sessional division was used.

By the 19th century several different single-purpose subdivisions of counties, such as poor law unions, sanitary districts, and highway districts sprang up, filling the administrative role previously played by hundreds.

Several ancient hundred names give their name to modern local government districts.

Chiltern Hundreds

The Chiltern Hundreds are notable as a legal fiction, owing to a quirk of British Parliamentary law. A Crown Steward was appointed to maintain law and order in the area, but the position's duties ceased to be required in the 16th century, and the holder ceased to gain any benefits during the 17th century. The position has since been used as a procedural device to allow resignation from the House of Commons.

Other terms

A wapentake is a term derived from the Old Norse vápnatak,^[6] the rough equivalent of an Anglo-Saxon hundred. The word denotes an administrative meeting place, typically a crossroads or a ford in a river. The origin of the word is not known. Folk etymology has it that voting would be denoted or conducted by the show of weapons, or alternately voting was done only by citizens, who were the only ones who could possess weapons, an idea perhaps suggested by references in The Germania of Tacitus or current practice in the Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden. According to other authorities^[7] weapons were not flourished at a Norse þing and "weapon taking" or vopnatak was the end of an assembly, when one was allowed to take weapons up again, providing another possible origin of the wapentake.

The Danelaw counties of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland and Lincolnshire were divided into wapentakes, just as most of the remainder of England was divided into hundreds.

In Yorkshire, a Norse wapentake usually replaced several Anglo-Saxon hundreds. This process was complete by 1086 in the North and West Ridings, but continued in the East Riding until the mid 12th century.

In some counties, such as Leicestershire, the wapentakes recorded at the time of the Domesday Book evolved into hundreds later on. In others, such as Lincolnshire, the term remained in use.^[8] Although no longer part of local government, the structure of Wappentakes is largely preserved in Rural Deaneries (See, for example Beltisloe or Loveden).

The term ward was used in a similar manner in the four northern counties of Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland and Westmorland.

Lathes in Kent and rapes in Sussex consisted of several hundreds, and filled some roles usually associated with hundreds.

In Wales the hundred replaced traditional units such as the cantref (or cantred) or commote. Irish counties were divided into baronies.

Scandinavia

Map of medieval Denmark, showing herreder and sysler. The entire country was divided into herreder, shown outlined in red. Coloured areas show Jutland's syssel divisions. Zealand's four ecclesiastic sysler are not included.

The term hundare (hundred) was used in Svealand and present-day Finland. Eventually that division was superseded by introducing the härad or Herred, which was the name in the rest of Scandinavia. This word was either derived from Proto-Norse *harja-raiðō (warband) or Proto-Germanic *harja-raiða (war equipment, cf. Wapentake).^[9] Similar to skipreide, a part of the coast where the inhabitants were responsible for equipping and manning a war ship.

Hundreds were not organized in Norrland, the northern sparsely populated part of Sweden. Today the hundreds serve no administrative role in Sweden.

It is not entirely clear when hundreds were organised in the western part of Finland. The name of the province of Satakunta, roughly meaning hundred, hints at influences from the times before the Northern Crusades, Christianization, and incorporation into Sweden.

United States

Counties in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were divided into hundreds in the seventeenth century, in imitation of the English system. They survive in Delaware (see List of Delaware Counties and Hundreds), and were used as tax reporting and voting districts until the 1960s, but now serve no administrative role, their only official legal use being in real-estate title descriptions.^[10]

The hundred was also used as a division of the county in Maryland. Carroll County, Maryland, was composed in 1836 by taking the following hundreds from Baltimore County: North Hundred, Pipe Creek Hundred, Delaware Upper Hundred, Delaware Lower Hundred and from Frederick County: Pipe Creek Hundred, Westminster Hundred, Unity Hundred, Burnt House Hundred, Piney Creek Hundred, and Taneytown Hundred.

Some plantations in early colonial Virginia used the term hundred in their names, such as Martin's Hundred, Flowerdew Hundred, and West and Shirley Hundred.^[11]

While debating what became the Land Ordinance of 1785, Thomas Jefferson's committee wanted to divide the public lands in the west into “hundreds of ten geographical miles square, each mile containing 6086 and 4-10ths of a foot”^[12] The legislation instead introduced the six-mile square township of the Public Land Survey System.

Australia

In South Australia land titles still record which hundred a parcel of land is located in. Similar to the notion of the South Australian counties listed on the system of titles, hundreds are not generally used when referring to a district and are little known by the general population. Cumberland County (Sydney) was also divided into hundreds in the nineteenth century, although these were later repealed. A hundred is traditionally one hundred square miles.^[13]

See also

• List of hundreds of England and Wales
• Hundred Rolls
• List of hundreds of Sweden
• Moot Mound The meeting place of an Anglo-Saxon Hundred.
• Attundaland
• Chiltern Hundreds
• Fjärdhundraland
• Leidang
• Roslagen
• Tiundaland
• Feudal measurement
• Cantref
• Henry de Bracton

References