Tythings and Hundreds--Shires
Though the Saxons, as they settled down in England, formed "tuns",
which at first had very little to do with one another, that state
of things probably did not last a very long time. In fighting the
Britons they had to act together; and, for the sake of protection
and help, these separate communities had to combine. Somewhat in
this way ten families in a district would form a tything; and the
heads of the villages would, from time to time, meet together to
consult on various matters in which they were interested.
Then larger areas would need to be covered, as the country became
more settled. Ten tythings would make a hundred; and, from time to
time, men from all the places in the hundred would meet together
and hold hundred courts. The meeting-place for the hundred was
always some well-known spot, selected originally because of its
convenient situation--some particular tree was a favourite place;
and, as the folk met there regularly so many times in the year, the
spot was easily kept in mind from one generation to another. At the
meeting criminals were tried, disputes settled, and in the later
times, when monasteries had become common, some sort of record was
often made of the important matters decided upon, and kept with
the documents belonging to the monastery, as being a safe place in
which to keep them. Scraps of these ancient records have been met
with on old parchments which in later times have been used over
again for another purpose.
Most of the English counties are still divided into hundreds. In
those days the hundreds were not all of the same size, because,
owing to the nature of the soil, some tuns were far apart from one
another, and a tything might cover a wide district, and a hundred
a much larger area. If the hundred was small, that would show that
the tuns were pretty close together, and that the district was
populous. If, on the other hand, the tythings and hundreds were
large, that would show that the district was thinly peopled.
We have seen that new settlements were formed by portions of the
family leaving the old home, and making a new tun in the most
suitable place they could find. It would happen, no doubt, in
favourable districts, that new tuns would spring up not very far
from the mother tun; and, in the course of time, there would be a
good many more tuns in the tything than there were originally. The
fact seems to be, that when once the boundaries had been roughly
agreed upon, they were not often altered. From being a combination
of families, or tuns, the tything got to be a district; and it
kept its name of tything long after the number of tuns in it had
increased.
It was much the same with the hundreds. In time they were
represented by certain districts, whose borders were known to the
people living in them. The hundreds all over the country have
not altered their boundaries to any great extent until quite
recently. In Hampshire to-day there are thirty-seven hundreds; in
Hertfordshire there are only eight; and Middlesex has now the same
six hundreds which it had twelve centuries ago when a good part of
the county was forest land.
As to the time when the hundreds became grouped into shires we
cannot speak definitely; the change was brought about gradually
and quite naturally. It is not at all likely that all the various
kingdoms in England came together on some particular occasion and
said: "Now we'll divide all our kingdoms into shires". But the
hundreds did become grouped into shires, doubtless because it was
necessary that they might act together in matters which concerned
all.
[Illustration: _Ploughing. From an old Saxon Calendar in the
British Museum_]
There is nothing like a threatened danger from without to draw men
together. We have seen this in a most remarkable way during the
Great War. In the tun, no doubt, the villagers fell out with each
other; however fairly the strips of land were shared somebody was
sure to get what he did not like, and to grumble about it. Some
of his fellow-villagers would take his side, and say it was a
shame; and others would take the opposite side. But if the cattle
belonging to the tun over the hills, or on the other side of the
marsh, had been seen on the wrong side of the mark, or boundary
which separated the lands of the two tuns, the dispute about the
strips in the field would be forgotten, and away the people would
go in a body towards the offending tun "to see about it".
In much the same way, when the boundaries of a tything or hundred
were invaded by another tything or hundred, the differences between
the tuns would be dropped, in order to preserve the rights which
they had in common.
There was strife among the Saxon kingdoms which lasted for many
years, especially between the three great rivals, Wessex, Mercia,
and Northumbria. The lesser kingdoms were under the dominion,
sometimes of one, sometimes of another of these rivals. All this
fighting and settling down put more and more power into the hands
of the kings. Instead of each village fighting for itself, and
leaving all the others to fight for themselves, it was found to
be a much safer and wiser policy to join together for common
protection. Now if people join together, whether in peace or war,
to win a football match or to take a city, somebody must be in
authority to give the necessary orders. Hence the power of the
king, and the officers acting under him, grew up _by custom_, until
the overlordship of the king was so firmly established that no one
dared call it in question.
Apparently from the smaller Saxon kingdoms we get our older shires.
Whether the overlord happened to be the King of Mercia, or the King
of Wessex, the under-king continued to rule over his old kingdom,
or share. When, at length, in the ninth century, the King of
Wessex was acknowledged as the overlord or King of England, Wessex
and Mercia, and a part of Northumbria, were gradually divided
into _shares_, or shires, over each of which the King of England
appointed a reeve to look after his interests--the shire-reeve or
sheriff. The King of England still appoints the high sheriff of
each county. An eorlderman, who, in the case of the older shires,
was at first no doubt a descendant of the old under-king, looked
after the business of the shire itself.
Amongst the older shires we have Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Essex,
Middlesex; while the newer ones were all named after some important
central town, which in each case gave its name to the shire; such
are Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. You can easily pick these out
from a list of the counties of England at the present time.