14 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



serious crimes that were committed in the village was 

 dealt with by the ' hundred,' a larger unit than the 

 tun, being, it is thought, in origin a group of one 

 hundred families. The hundreds or ' wapentakes,' as 

 these were called in parts of East Anglia, held moots 

 or courts, which met from time to time to administer 

 justice. At this court leading landholders of the 

 district attended, and all or almost all judicial business 

 that arose in the hundred went first to it. 



Whilst dealing with local government it is also 

 interesting to note that there was, in Anglo-Saxon 

 times, a shire or county moot. The shire moot, which 

 was in its character more aristocratic than the tun and 

 hundred moots, met twice a year and dealt with county 

 business and legal questions relating to such matters 

 as land titles. Moreover, taxes imposed on the shire 

 were there divided amongst the hundreds, which in 

 their turn divided up the amounts placed upon them 

 amongst the tuns. The tuns were then bound to 

 collect and remit to the hundred the shares that were 

 imposed upon them, and the hundreds in their turn 

 remitted the funds so collected to the shire. 



It is important to realize clearly that the country- 

 side was in those days already divided in accordance 

 with two different systems, out of which 

 s P ran g divisions which have lasted until 

 modern times. Of these two systems, the 

 typical features were: (i) the tun or township, the 

 democratic village community, a unit somewhat of 

 the nature of a parish, and (2) the estates, large and small, 

 supervised by an eorl, a thegn, or a dignitary of the 

 Church, or in some cases by the king himself, a form 

 of organization represented later on by the manors 



