Names denoting Land- Divisions. 



85 



in Wilts was, perhaps, some 200 years before Alfred's time. Up to 

 the close of the eleventh century, the date of the Exeter Domesday, 

 Ihere is no such Hundred as Malmesbury. In the year 1340, as 

 we learn from the Inquisitiones Nonarum, what is now the town of 

 Malmesbury was situated in two hundreds, the dividing line running' 

 plough it. The church of St. Mary, together with Brokenborough 

 and Charlton, was in the Hundred of Cheggelewe ; the church of 

 St. Paul, together with Rodbourn and Corston, was in the Hundred 

 of Sterchelee. If the town of Malmesbury existed at the time 

 when the Hundreds were formed, is it likely that it would have been 

 parted between two Hundreds, especially when we bear in mind that 

 the lordship of both, as well as of all the neighbouring estates, be- 

 longed from an early period to the Abbot of Malmesbury ? In fact, 

 is it not almost certain that had it so existed it would have given 

 its name (as it did in after times) to the hundred, like Bradford, 

 Westbury, Calne, Warminster, &c. ? Now, Malmesbury is mentioned 

 as a town by Ba?da, who calls it " Maildulfi urbs," under the date of 

 A.D. 705. If therefore there be any force in the facts on which I 

 have been dwelling, they would furnish, to say the least, a strong 

 probability that the Wiltshire Hundreds were formed before the 

 town of Malmesbury was built, and so -perhaps some 200 years 

 before Alfred the Great was born. As far as they go they would 

 give some confirmation to the opinion advanced by Hutch ins and 

 others, that their first institution is, with far more likelihood, to be 

 attributed to Ine, the friend and kinsman of Aldhelm, who was king 

 of Wessex, A.D. 690—726. 



48. The word shire, as in Wilt-shire, signifies simply a share 

 or division (Anglo-Saxon Scyr) . This word enters into the compo- 

 sition of many names of places that are upon the borders of the 

 county, and these are interesting as showing for how long a time 

 the limits of the county have remained unchanged. A comparison 

 of the entries in the Domesday record for Wiltshire and the neigh- 

 bouring counties leads us also to the same conclusion. Thus on the 

 north-west border of Wilts you have Sher-ston, originally Scyr-stdn 

 (shire-stone). At another part of the boundary you have Sher-rell 

 farm, which seems to derive its name from a rill or small stream 



