74 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



as rent-paying members of his great lordship, although in all 

 probability he had not detached them from the jurisdiction of 

 the shire-moot of Worcester. 1 



Domesday Book shows us the shire or county as the 

 largest administrative unit. Like the hundred-moot, the 

 shire-moot was a court for the registration of transfers of land, 

 but no rule has come down to show which transfers should be 

 produced at the shire-moot and which at the hundred-moot. 

 It also dealt with disputed titles. Reference has been made 

 to the suit of the Abbey of Worcester against the Abbey of 

 Evesham, which was decided at a special shire-moot a short 

 time before our record was compiled ; and the suit of Lanfranc, 

 Archbishop of Canterbury, against Odo, Bishop of Bayeux 

 and Earl of Kent, before the shire-moot of Kent, at Pinnenden 

 Heath, is well known. Occasionally there was a moot of more 

 shires than one for the trial of important cases. The Bishop 

 of Worcester founded his claim to certain property in Warwick- 

 shire on the verdict of four shires at a moot at which Queen 

 Matilda presided. 2 Presumably the shire-moot was usually 

 held in the shire town, but the shire-moot of Kent was held 

 at Pinnenden Heath, and the suitors were not compelled to 

 go further than to the heath ; but each defaulter paid a fine 

 of I oar. to the King. 3 The men of Archinfield paid a fine 

 to the King of 2s. } or an ox, if they made default in attending 

 the shire- or hundred-moots. 4 



The chief official of the shire was the sheriff, the shire 

 reeve (Lat vicecomes}. It was he who headed its fyrd. It 

 was the Sheriff of Herefordshire who led the citizens and the 

 men of Archinfield when they raided Wales ; it was he who 

 usually presided at the shire-moot ; it was he who saw that 

 the services due to the King were properly rendered, and 

 collected the King's rents and revenue from the whole county. 

 In later years it was invariably the custom for the sheriff to 



1 V. C. H., Wore., I. 239. 2 D. B., I. 238 b i. 



3 D. B., I. I a 2. 4 Id., I. 179 a 2. 



