HUNDRED

Under the Saxon organization of England, each county or shire comprised an indefinite number of hundreds, each hundred containing ten titMngs, or groups of ten families of freeholders or frankpledges. The hundred was governed by a high, constable, and had its own court; but its most remarkable feature was the corporate responsibility of the whole for the crimes or defaults of the individual members. The Introduction of this plan of organization into England is commonly ascribed to Alfred, but the idea, as well of the collective liability as of the division, was probably known to the ancient German peoples, as we find the same thing established in the Frankish kingdom under Olothaire, and in Denmark. See 1 BL Comm. 115; 4 BL Comm. 411. Hundred court. In English law. A larger court-baron, being held for all the inhabitants of a particular hundred, instead of a manor. The free suitors are the judges, and the steward the registrar, as in the case of a court-baron. It is not a court of record, and resembles a court-baron in all respects except that in point of territory it is of greater jurisdiction. These courts have long since fallen into desuetude. 3 Bl. Comm. 34, 35 ; 3 Steph. Comm. 394, 395. Hundred gemote. Among the Saxons, a meeting or court of the freeholders of a hundred, which assembled, originally, twelve times a year, and possessed civil and criminal jurisdiction and ecclesiastical powers. 1 Reeve, Eng. Law, 7. Hundred lagh. The law of the hundred, or hundred court; liability to attend the hundred court Spelman. Hundred penny. In old English law. A tax collected from the hundred, by the sheriff or lord of the hundred. Hundred seeta. The performance of suit and service at the hundred court. Hundred setena. In Saxon law. The dwellers or inhabitants of a hundred. Cowell; Blount. Spelman suggests the reading of sceatena from Sax. “scent” a tax.