Hundred (country Subdivision) - England and Wales

England and Wales

See also: List of hundreds of England and Wales

Hundred
Also known as	Wapentake
	Ward
Category	County subdivision
Location	England and Wales
Found in	Shires
Possible status	Royal Manor
Government	Hundred Court
Subdivisions	Divisions
	Half hundreds
	Tithings
	Parishes

In England and Wales a hundred was the division of a shire for administrative, military and judicial purposes under the common law and, until the introduction of districts by the Local Government Act 1894, hundreds were the only widely used administrative unit intermediate between the parish and the county in size.

Originally, when introduced by the Saxons between 613 and 1017, a hundred had enough land to sustain approximately 100 households, defined as the land covered by one hundred "hides", and was 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 holder 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 held. 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.

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 the hide, which was originally enough land to support one family but later became a unit of assessment to taxation and indicated the profitability of the land with no necessary relationship to its area. 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, 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 had. In many parts of the country, Domesday Book contained a radically different set of hundreds from that which later became established. The numbers of hundreds in each county varied wildly. Leicestershire had six (up from four at Domesday), whereas Devon, nearly three times larger, had 32.