A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



The two principal features noticeable in this list are the frequency with which the names 

 of the hundreds alter between the time of Domesday and the thirteenth century, and 

 the increase in their number by subdivision. The change of name was no doubt usually due 

 to the selection of a fresh meeting-place for the hundred court more suited to changed con- 

 ditions of population and other circumstances. A certain laxity of nomenclature is also 

 noticeable even in Domesday in the case of the hundred afterwards known as Manhood — 

 ' Westringes ' manor being entered under ' Sumerlege ' hundred and ' Sumerlege ' manor 

 Tinder ' Westringes ' hundred. The increase in the number of the hundreds was no doubt 

 due in part to the growth of population rendering the larger districts inconvenient for ad- 

 ministration, but still more to the creation of privileged districts in the hands of lords enjoying 

 special franchises. Thus besides the abbot of Battle's hundreds of Alciston and Battle, the 

 archbishop's hundreds of Loxfield, Ringmer, Aldwick and Patching, and the Bishop of Chich- 

 ester's hundreds of Preston and Bishopstone, there were the Cinque Port liberties of Hastings 

 (with a detached portion in Bexhill), Rye and Winchelsea, the Bishop of London's liberty of 

 Lodsworth, and the Hospitallers' liberty of St. John in Midhurst and adjoining parishes. 



The modern hundreds were for the most part reduced to their present form in, or before, 

 the sixteenth century, but besides these here given others enjoyed a temporary existence ; thus 

 in 1249 the hundred of Bykenaker is mentioned in the Placita Coron^,^ but no clue is given to 

 its whereabouts or contents. The half-hundred of Milton (in Longbridge) occurs throughout 

 the thirteenth century, and that of Hailsham occasionally in the later half of the sixteenth 

 century, at which time a number of other so-called half-hundreds make desultory appearances. 



The Sussex hundreds are for the most part compact and self-contained, but in a few in- 

 stances, e.g. Rotherbridge and Bury, they possess small outlying members at some distance 

 from the main body of the hundred, and that of Burbeach is divided into two portions, the 

 northern being separated from the southern by the hundreds of Windham and Tipnoak. 

 The modern hundred of Danehill-Horsted is, however, singularly discrete, its several portions 

 lying in Horsted-Keynes, Selmeston, Tarring-Neville and Hellingly. 



The detailed consideration of parochial boundaries and characteristics must be reserved 

 for the topographical section, but attention may be called here to the general distribution of 

 parishes throughout the county. In the case of Surrey Mr. Maiden has pointed out' that 

 the parishes near the Downs tend to run in strips which include a portion of down-land, a 

 considerable extent of greensand and a portion of clay. This tendency is also to be observed 



» Sometimes called a half-hundred. 



a Ass 

 538 



R. 909. 



F.C.H. Surrey, 



