7 o THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



The hundred was a unit for the purposes of jurisdiction, 

 and there are frequent references in Domesday Book to the 

 court of the hundred. We have seen that the statistics con- 

 tained in our record were collected from the juries of the 

 hundreds, but the most frequent references show that one of 

 its functions was to act as a court for the registration of 

 transfers of land. Again and again entries " that the hundred 

 never saw the King's writ or any person on the King's part to 

 deliver seisin," l are made to show that the party in possession 

 holds by a doubtful title. Mr. Stuart-Moore quotes a case in 

 which a charter was held to be invalid, because it had not been 

 read in the hundred-moot. 2 Considering the character of 

 Domesday Book, it is only natural that the most frequent 

 mention of the evidence of the hundred should be in reference 

 to disputed titles to land. The judgment of the men of the 

 hundred is quoted to prove seisin, 3 and to show in what 

 hundred certain lands lay. 4 These two references show that, 

 although the hundred's man might have presided at the 

 hundred-moot, yet the suitors of the moot were the judges. 

 This is expressly stated in the statistics relating to Kingston, a 

 property of 2 hides in Herefordshire, belonging to St. Mary of 

 Cormeilles ; its inhabitants gelded and worked in Gloucester- 

 shire, " but those who lived there met in this hundred (Bre- 

 messe) to the pleas, that they may do and receive right." 5 



Other business was done at the hundred-moot, which, 

 according to Edgar's laws, met once a month ; but of the 

 nature of that business we have no information in Domesday 

 Book, nor does it tell what business was transacted at the 

 shire-moot. But that the fines inflicted at the hundred-moot 

 and the fees payable thereat were no small sum, is shown by 

 the statements that Swegen of Essex received loos, from the 

 pleas of the hundred of Rochford, 6 and 25^. from the pleas 



1 D. B., I. 35 a 2. 2 D. S., i. 22. 



3 /</., II. 424. D. B., I. 165 b. 



4 /</., I. 182 b 2. 6 Id., II. 45 b. 



