The Hundred

The Hundred was an administrative area which originated in the system devised by Alfred the Great to defend Wessex against the Danes. The idea was that certain towns were designated as defensive strongpoints called Burghs with ramparts and outer wall with an inner enclosure into which people could withdraw with their livestock in case of invasion. The size of the Burgh depended on the number of Hundreds which were allocated to it. Details are given in the ‘Burghal Hideage’ In the case of Berkshire the Burghs were Wallingford and Windsor. A Hundred was technically 100 hides but they used the Roman legionary counting system with a century equally 80 and with the prime century a double hundred with 160 hides. In Wallingford’s case the double hundred was Reading but this was later split back into two separate hundreds named Reading and Theale. The distinction being that Reading Hundred included those parishes over which the Abbot of Reading held the patronage and Theale Hundred included the rest.

Individual parishes were assessed according to size and economic power in multiples of 5 Hides. This meant that the area had to supply a knight and four men at arms for the defence of the Burgh if required. As most parishes were held by several owners it was left to them to decide how they split up the responsibility, so by the time of Domesday, the responsibilities had become very complex and the Domesday survey complicated it even more by grouping assessments by landowner rather than by parish and hundred. The situation was complicated even more by the ability of land holders to be assessed on their tenements inside towns rather than on their rural manors. In the case of Tilehurst this wiped out all the assessments and Tilehurst fails to appear in Domesday, despite being one of the largest parishes in the County.

In later mediaeval times the Hundred was used as a subdivision of the county for the purpose of enforcing the King’s justice. Courts were held at both a County (Shire) level and a Hundred level to check that local barons were not exceeding their authority in their manorial courts. The area covered by these courts were later to form the basis for the establishment of Parish unions and sanitary districts and with a few minor changes became the Rural District Councils which operated until 1974 when they were all replaced by the new District Councils.

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