68 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



' of which contains three of the Domesday hundreds. Domes- 

 day Book speaks of the soke of nineteen hundreds in Oxford- 

 shire ; to these Mr. Corbett adds three, making a total of 

 twenty-two ; to-day there are only twelve. Our record mentions 

 two hundreds of Gadre, and the Pipe Roll for 1162 mentions 

 a hundred of Keneworth ; but all traces of these hundreds has 

 now disappeared. Some of the Oxfordshire hundreds have 

 been aggregated. The Pipe Roll for 1172 speaks of the three 

 hundreds of Wootton, and the Domesday assessments of the 

 vills in the present hundred of Wootton amount to about 360 

 hides, or three long hundreds of 1 20 hides each. Similarly, the 

 modern hundreds of Bampton, Bullingdon, and Ploughley are 

 each composed of two Domesday hundreds of 120 hides 

 apiece. 



Every hundred had its appointed moot-stow or meeting- 

 place, from which it usually took its name. The situation of 

 this moot-stow in a village will account for a hundred bearing 

 the name of a village within its borders ; these moots were 

 often held in the open air, frequently at well-known barrows. 

 The termination " law " indicates that the moot was held at a 

 barrow ; and it would seem that the original meeting-place of 

 the hundred of Oswaldslaw was at such a barrow, as " Oswald's 

 hlaw" is mentioned as one of the boundaries of Wolverton, 

 near Worcester. 1 Sometimes the old " hlaw " is softened into 

 the modern " ley ; " the modern hundred of Ploughley (Oxon.) 

 appears as Pockedelaw in the Hundred Rolls of 1279. Some- 

 times the hundred met in one of the old fortified camps, of 

 which the remains are so plentiful to-day, such as Salmannes- 

 berie and Begberie, in Gloucestershire ; and other hundred- 

 moots gathered at a well-known stone, such as Witestone, 

 also in Gloucestershire. Domesday Book tells that the two 

 hundreds of Ely met at Wickford. 2 



The existence of a common meeting-place will account for 

 the existence of detached portions of a hundred in places 



1 D. J3. and B., 268 n 3. 2 D. B., I. 191 b 2. 



