THE HUNDRED AND THE SHIRE 71 



of the hundred of Clavering. 1 The Earl of the county was 

 entitled to the third penny of the pleas, and, when that office 

 was vacant, as in Essex in 1086, the King took the whole. 

 He had evidently granted the profits of these two hundreds 

 to Swegen. 



Next in size to the hundred was the wapentake, an area 

 that is found under that name only in the districts that came 

 under Danish influence. Canon Taylor has shown that the 

 wapentake in Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and the east 

 riding of Yorkshire, was composed of three hundreds, and 

 from the forged charter attributed to Edgar, and authorizing 

 the formation of the triple hundred of Oswaldslaw, suggests 

 that three hundreds were associated for the supply of a ship 

 to the fleet. 2 Conveyances of land were produced to the 

 court of the wapentake in the same way as they were pro- 

 duced at the hundred-moot, 3 and the evidence of the wapen- 

 take is quoted in the same way as the evidence of the 

 hundred. 4 



In the same way as the hundred was an aggregation of 

 vills, so a shire was an aggregation of hundreds. Warwick- 

 shire was an aggregation of twelve hundreds, Worcester of 

 twelve, Wilts of forty-one, and Middlesex of five and a half 

 or six. Every one has noticed that all the counties north of 

 the Thames, which are mentioned in Domesday Book, bear 

 the same name as one of the towns within their borders, and 

 it is possible that these shires are of a military origin. The 

 pre-Conquest conveyances of land show that the land was 

 universally (except in a few instances by the favour of the 

 King) subject to the trinoda necessitas the threefold burden 

 of the repair of the boroughs, the repair of the bridges, and 

 military service. In order that these obligations could be 

 performed by the landowners, they must have known what 

 borough it was their duty to repair ; and the lands that were 



1 D. B., II. 46 b. 2 D. s., i. 76. 



3 id., I. 376 b 2. 4 D. B., I. 375 *. 



