sion method of England (shire or county) is given further expression in the written history of the organization or as it were constitution of England itself.
According to the OED, "Most of the English counties were divided into hundreds; but in some counties [with Danish majorities, the part of the Danelaw] wapentakes and in others wards appear as divisions of a similar kind. The origin of the division of hundreds, which appears already in Old English times, is exceedingly obscure, and very diverse opinions have been given as to its origin."4 One traditional history ties the organizational unit to English feudal custom:
It has been regarded as denoting simply a hundred hides
[i.e., enough land to support one free man's extended family
household] of land; as a district which furnished a hundred
warriors to the host; as representing the original
settlement of the hundred warriors; or as composed of a
hundred hides, each of which furnished a single warrior.5
The connection between manpower and land power and the extension of that connection into the authority of powerful, landed men that was standard practice in the feudal period resulted in the institutionalization of governance entities that would inevitably reflect the roles that powerful men filled. Additionally, the implication is that what became the titled baroncy of England that has persisted into the modern period had its origins in the institutions that grew out of feudatory praxis.
There are the very ancient courts of the shire and the
hundred; these we may call popular courts, or still better,
communal courts they are courts which in time past have
been constituted by the free men of the district; they are
courts which are now constituted by the freeholders of the
district: but a good many of the hundred courts have fallen
The significance of the f...