THE HUNDRED AND THE SHIRE 73 



south of the Thames represent tribal settlements. Wiltshire, 

 Dorset, and Somerset represent the districts of the Wilsaeta, 

 the settlers on the Wiley, the Dorsaeta, the settlers on the 

 Dor, and the Sumersaeta, the settlers round Somerton. 



Sussex, alone of all the English counties, preserves the 

 boundaries it had when it was an independent kingdom. Kent 

 is formed by the union of two kingdoms whose capitals were 

 at Canterbury and Rochester respectively, and whose boun- 

 daries coincide with the boundaries of the old dioceses of 

 Canterbury and Rochester. 



The extreme northern counties are omitted from Domesday 

 Book. Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and West- 

 moreland are entirely wanting. The district which is the 

 modern Lancashire is never mentioned under that name ; its 

 southern portions are valued in a sort of appendix to Cheshire 

 dealing with "the lands between the Mersey and Ribble," 

 and some of the northern portions Preston, Furness are 

 valued in Yorkshire. Rutland is another anomaly ; it does 

 not appear as a shire, but rather as a district attached to 

 Northamptonshire. Of the six wapentakes contained in the 

 modern county, two only are described by Domesday Book 

 as belonging to Rutland ; two others are entered under 

 Northants, and two others in Lincoln. The four western 

 counties Gloucester, Hereford, Salop., and Cheshire all 

 contained lands which are now parts of Wales or Monmouth ; 

 but with these exceptions, and with the exception of a few 

 detached portions which have been transferred from one county 

 to another, the English shires have practically the same 

 boundaries to-day as they had in 1086. 



Domesday Book shows that in the same way as it was 

 possible for vills to be moved from one hundred to another, 

 so it was possible for a great man to move vills from one 

 shire to another ; thus several vills of Worcestershire were 

 enrolled in the Hereford Domesday. William fitz Osbern, 

 Earl of Hereford, had annexed these vills to Hereford merely 



