enrolled in some tithing or decennary. One of the principal inhabitants of the tithing is annually appointed to preside over the rest, being called the tithing-man, the headborough, (words which speak their own etymology,) and in some countries the borsholder, or borough's-calder, being supposed the discreetest man in the borough, town, or tithing d. TITHINGS, towns, or vills, (20), are of the same signification in law; and are said to have had, each of them, originally a church and celebration of divine service, sacraments, and burials: though that seems to be rather an ecclesiastical, than a civil distinction. The word town or vill is indeed, by the alteration of times and language, now become a generical term, comprehending under it the several species of cities, boroughs, and common towns. A city is a town incorporated, which is or hath been the see of a bishop: and though the bishoprick be dissolved, as at Westminster (21), e Mirr. c. 1. sec. 3. d Finch. L. 8. e 1 Inst. 115. (20) In the 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 12., which provides, that when a parish is so large that it cannot have the benefit of the overseers and provision for the poor appointed by the 43 Eliz. c. 2., two overseers may be appointed for every township or village in such parish. In this statute the words township and village have always been thought synonimous But it has been held that wherever there is a constable, there is a township. (1 T. R. 376.) Parishes in some counties, as in part of Bedfordshire, are divided into tithings. (2 Luders, 511). (21) Westminster was one of the new bishopricks created by Henry VIII. out of the revenues of the dissolved monasteries. (2 Burn. E. L. 78.) Thomas Thirlby was the only bishop that ever filled that see: (Godw. Com. de Præs. 570.) he surrendered the bishoprick to Ed. VI. 30 March 1550, and on the same day it was dissolved and added again to the bishoprick of London. (Rym. Foed. 15 tom. p. 222.) Queen Mary afterwards filled the church with Bene. dictine monks, and Eliz. by authority of parliament, turned it into a collegiate church subject to a dean; but it retained the name of yet still it remaineth a cityf. A borough is now understood to be a town, either corporate or not, that sendeth burgesses to parliament 8. Other towns there are, to the number sir Edward Coke saysh of 8803, which are neither cities nor boroughs; some of which have the privileges of markets, and others not; but both are equally towns in law. To seveg Litt. sec. 164. f Co. Litt. 109. h 1 Inst. 116. city, not perhaps because it had been a bishop's see, but because, in the letters patent erecting it into a bishoprick, king Henry declared, volumus itaque et per præsentes ordinamus quod ecclesia cathedralis et sedes episcopalis, ac quod tota villa nostra Westmonasterii sit civitas, ipsamque civitatem Westmonasterii vocari et nominari volumus et decernimus. There was a similar clause in favour of the other five new created cities, viz. Chester, Peterborough, Oxford, Gloucester, and Bristol. The charter for Chester is in Gibs. Cod. 1449; and that for Oxford in Rym. Foed. 14 tom. 754. Lord Coke seems anxious to rank Cambridge among the cities, because he finds it called civitas in an ancient record, which he "thought it good to mention in remembrance of his love and duty, “almæ matri_academiæ Cantabrigiæ." (Co. Litt. 109.) The late learned Vinerian professor of Oxford has produced a decisive authority that cities and bishops' sees had not originally any necessary connection with each other. It is that of Ingulphus, who relates that at the great council assembled in 1072, to settle the claim of precedence between the two archbishops, it was decreed that bishops' sees should be transferred from towns to cities. (1 Woodd. 302.) In Wil. Malm. Scrip. Ang. p. 214. it is concessum est episcopis de villis transire in civitates. The accidental coincidence of the same (or nearly the same) number of bishops and cities would naturally produce the supposition that they were connected together as a necessary cause and effect. It is certainly (as Mr. Wooddeson observes) a strong confirmation of this authority, that the same distinction is not paid to bishops' sees in Ireland. Mr. Hargrave in his notes to Co. Litt. 110. proves, that, although Westminster is a city, and has sent citizens to parliament since the time of Ed. VI. it never was incorporated; and this is a striking instance in contradiction to the learned opinions there referred to, viz. that the king could not grant within time of memory to any place the right of sending members to parliament without first creating that place a corporation. ral of these towns there are small appendages belonging, called hamlets; which are taken notice of in the statute of Exeteri, which makes frequent mention of entire vills, demi-vills, and hamlets. Entire vills sir Henry Spelmank conjectures to have consisted of ten freemen, or frankpledges, demi-vills of five, and hamlets of less than five. These little collections of houses are sometimes under the same administration as the town itself, sometimes governed by separate officers; in which last case they are, to some purposes in law, looked upon as distinct townships. These towns, as was before hinted, contained each originally but one parish, and one tithing; though many of them now, by the increase of inhabitants, are divided into several parishes and tithings; and, sometimes, where there is but one parish there are two or more vills or tithings. As ten families of freeholders made up a town or tithing, so ten tithings composed a superior division, called a hundred, as consisting of ten times ten families. The hundred is governed by an high constable or bailiff, and formerly there was regularly held in it the hundred court for the trial of causes, though now fallen into disuse. In some of the more northern counties these hundreds are called wapentakes (22). THE subdivision of hundreds into tithings seems to be most peculiarly the invention of Alfred: the institution of hundreds themselves he rather introduced than invented. For they seem to have obtained in Denmark m: and we find that i 14 Edw. I. k Gloss. 274. 1 Seld. in Fortesc. c. 24. (22) Et quod Angli vocant hundredum, comitatus Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, et Northamptonshire, vocant wapentachium (Ll. Edw. c. 33). And it proceeds to explain why they are called so, viz. because the people at a public meeting confirmed their union with the governor by touching his weapon or lance. in France a regulation of this sort was made above two hundred years before; set on foot by Clotharius and Childebert, with a view of obliging each district to answer for the robberies committed in its own division. These divisions were, in that country, as well military as civil: and each contained a hundred freemen, who were subject to an officer called the centenarius; a number of which centenarii were themselves subject to a superior officer called the count [116] or comes". And indeed something like this institution of hundreds may be traced back as far as the ancient Germans, from whom were derived both the Franks who became masters of Gaul, and the Saxons who settled in England: for both the thing and the name, as a territorial assemblage of persons, from which afterwards the territory itself might probably receive its denomination, were well known to that warlike people. "Centeni ex singulis pagis sunt, idque ip 66 sum inter suos vocantur; et quod primo numerus fuit, jam nomen et honor est "." AN indefinite number of these hundreds make up a county or shire. Shire is a Saxon word signifying a division; but a county, comitatus, is plainly derived from comes, the count of the Franks; that is, the earl, or alderman, (as the Saxons called him) of the shire, to whom the government of it was intrusted. This he usually exercised by his deputy, still called in Latin vice-comes, and in English, the sheriff, shrieve, or shire-reeve, signifying the officer of the shire; upon whom by process of time the civil administration of it is now totally devolved. In some counties there is an intermediate division, between the shire and the hundreds, as lathes in Kent, and rapes in Sussex, each of them containing about three or four hundreds apiece. These had formerly their lathe-reeves and rape-reeves, acting in subordination to the shire-reeve. Where a county is divided into three of these intermediate jurisdictions, they are called trithings P, which were an n Montesq. Sp. L. 30. 17. VOL. I. 19 • Tacit. de morib. German. 6. p LL. Edw. c. 34. ciently governed by a trithing-reeve. These trithings still subsist in the large county of York, where by an easy corruption they are denominated ridings; the north, the east, and the west-riding. The number of counties in England and Wales have been different at different times: at present they are forty in England, and twelve in Wales. THREE of these counties, Chester, Durham, and Lancaster, are called counties palatine. The two former are such by prescription, or immemorial custom; or, at least as [117] old as the Norman conquesta: the latter was created by king Edward III. in favour of Henry Plantagenet, first earl and then duke of Lancaster; whose heiress being married to John of Gant the king's son, the franchise was greatly enlarged and confirmed in parliaments, to honour John of Gant himself, whom, on the death of his father-in-law, the king had also created duke of Lancastert. Counties palatine are so called a palatio; because the owners thereof, the earl of Chester, the bishop of Durham, and the duke of Lancaster, had in those counties jura regalia, as fully as the king hath in his palace; regalem potestatem in omnibus, as Bracton expresses it". They might pardon treasons, murders, and felonies; they appointed all judges and justices of the peace; all writs and indictments ran in their names, as in other counties in the king's; and all offences were said to be done against their peace, and not, as in other places, contra pacem domini regis. And indeed by the ancient law, in all peculiar jurisdictions, offences were said to be done against his peace in whose court they were tried: in a court-leet, contra pacem domini; in the court of a corporation, contra pacem ballivorum; in the sheriff's court or tourn, contra pacem vice-comitis *. These palatine privileges (so similar to the regal independent jurisdictions usurped by the great barons on the continent, |