still it remaineth a city. A borough is now understood to be a town, either corporate or not, that fendeth burgeffes to parliament. Other towns there are, to the number, fir Edward Coke fays h, of 8803, which are neither cities nor city, not perhaps because it had been a bishop's fee, but because, in the letters patent erecting it into a bishoprick, king Henry declared, volumus itaque et per præfentes ordinamus quod ecclefia cathedralis et fedes epifcopalis, ac quod tota villa nostra Westmonafterii fit civitas, ipfamque civitatem Westmonafterii vocari et nominari volumus et decernimus. There was a fimilar claufe in favour of the other five new created cities, viz. Chester, Peterborough, Oxford, Gloucester, and Bristol. The charter for Chester is in Gibf. Cod. 1449; and that for Oxford in Rym. Foed. 14 tom. 754. Lord Coke feems anxious to rank Cambridge among the cities, because he finds it called civitas in an antient record, which he " thought it good to mention in re"membrance of his love and duty, alma matri academia Canta"brigia." (Co. Litt. 109.) The late learned Vinerian profeffor of Oxford has produced a decifive authority that cities and bishops' fees had not originally any neceffary connection with each other.It is that of Ingulphus, who relates that at the great council affembled 1072, to settle the claim of precedence between the two archbishops, it was decreed that bishops' fees fhould be transferred from towns to cities. (1 Woodd. 302.) In Wil. Malm. Scrip. Ang. p. 14. it is conceffum eft epifcopis de villis tranfire in civitates. The accidental coincidence of the fame (or nearly the fame) number of bishops and cities would naturally produce the fuppofition that they were connected together as a neceffary cause and effect. It is certainly (as Mr. Wooddefon obferves) a strong confirmation of this authority, that the fame distinction is not paid to bishops' fees in Ireland. — Mr. Hargrave in his notes to Co. Litt. 110. proves, that, although Westminster is a city, and has fent citizens to parliament fince the time of Ed. VI., it never was incorporated; and this is a striking inftance in contradiction to the learned opinion there referred to, viz. that the king could not. grant within time of memory to any place the right of fending. members to parliament without firft creating that place a corporation. L2 boroughs; boroughs; fome of which have the privileges of markets, and others not; but both are equally towns in law. To several of these towns there are small appendages belonging, called [115] hamlets, which are taken notice of in the ftatute of Exeter, which makes frequent mention of entire vills, demi-vills, and hamlets. Entire vills fir Henry Spelman conjectures to have confifted of ten freemen or frank-pledges, demi-vills of five, and hamlets of lefs than five. These little collections of houses are fometimes under the fame administration as the town itself, fometimes governed by feparate officers; in which laft cafe they are, to fome purposes in law, looked upon as diftinct 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 feveral 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, fo ten tithings compofed a fuperior divifion, called a hundred, as confifting 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 difufe. In fome of the more northern counties thefe hundreds are called wapentakes'. (22) THE fubdivifions of hundreds into tithings feems to be most peculiarly the invention of Alfred: the inftitution of hun1 Seld. in Fortefc. ċ. 24. i 14 Edw. I. * Gloff. 274. (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 fo, viz. because the people at a public meeting confirmed their union with the governor by touching his weapon or lance. dreds dreds themselves he rather introduced than invented. For they seem to have obtained in Denmark; and we find that in France a regulation of this fort was made about two hundred years before; fet on foot by Clotharius and Childebert, with a view of obliging each district to answer for the robberies committed in its own divifion. Thefe divifions 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 or comes". And [ 116 ] indeed fomething like this inftitution of hundreds may be traced back as far as the antient Germans, from whom were derived both the Franks who became mafters of Gaul, and the Saxons who settled in England: for both the thing and the name, as a territorial assemblage of perfons, from which afterwards the territory itself might probably receive it's denomination, were well known to that warlike people. "Centeni ex fingulis pagis funt, idque ipfum inter fuos vocantur ; " et quod primo numerus fuit, jam nomen et honor eft.” An indefinite number of these hundreds make up a county or fhire. Shire is a Saxon word fignifying a divifion; 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 fhire, to whom the government of it was intrusted. This he usually exercised by his deputy, ftill called in Latin vice-comes, and in English, the sheriff, shrieve, or fhire-reeve, fignifying the officer of the fhire; upon whom, by process of time, the civil administration of it is now totally devolved. In fome counties there is an intermediate divifion, between the shire and the hundreds, as lathes in Kent, and rapes in Suffex, each of them containing about three or four hundreds apiece. Thefe had formerly their lathe-reeves and rape-reeves, acting in fubordination to the shire-reeve. Where a county is divided into three of thefe intermediate jurisdictions, they are called trithings P, which were an Seld. tit. of honour, 2. 5. 3. . Montefq. Sp. L. 30. 17. • Tacit. de morib. German. 6. L 3 tiently tiently governed by a trithing-reeve. These trithings ftill fubfift in the large county of York, where by an easy corruption they are denominated ridings; the north, the east, and the weft-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, Chefter, Durham, and Lancafter, are called counties palatine. The two former are fuch by prescription, or immemorial custom; or, at least, as old [117] as the Norman conqueft 9: the latter was created by king Edward III. in favour of Henry Plantagenet, first earl and then duke of Lancaster'; whofe heirefs being married to John of Gant the king's fon, the franchise was greatly enlarged and confirmed in parliament, to honour John of Gant himself, whom, on the death of his father-in-law, the king had also created duke of Lancaflert. Counties palatine are fo 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 poteftatem in omnibus, as Bracton expreffes 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 antient law, in all peculiar jurisdictions, offences were faid 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 fheriff's court or tourn, contra pacem vice-comitis *. These palatine privileges (fo fimilar to the regal independent jurifdictions ufurped by the great barons on the continent, during the weak and infant state of the first feodal kingdoms a Seld. tit. hon. 2. 5.8. * Pat. 25 Edw. III. p. 1. m. 18. Seld. ibid. Sandford's gen. hift. 112. 4 Inft. 204. • Cart. 36 Edw. III. n.9. × Seld. in Heng, magn, c, 2. in Europe ) were in all probability originally granted to the counties of Chester and Durham, because they bordered upon inimical countries, Wales and Scotland: in order that the inhabitants, having justice administered at home, might not be obliged to go out of the country, and leave it open to the enemy's incurfions; and that the owners, being encouraged by fo large an authority, might be the more watchful in it's defence. And upon this account alfo there were formerly two other counties palatine, Pembrokeshire and Hexhamshire; the [118] latter now united with Northumberland; but these were abolished by parliament, the former in 27 Hen. VIII., the latter in i4 Eliz. And in 27 Hen. VIII., likewife, the powers before mentioned of owners of counties palatine were abridged; the reason for their continuance in a manner ceafing; though ftill all writs are witneffed in their names, and all forfeitures for treason by the common law accrue to them. z Of these three, the county of Durham is now the only one remaining in the hands of a fubject. For the earldom of Chester, as Camden testifies, was united to the crown by Henry III., and has ever since given title to the king's eldest fon. And the county palatine, or duchy, of Lancaster, was the property of Henry Bolingbroke, the fon of John of Gant, at the time when he wrested the crown from king Richard II., and affumed the title of king Henry IV. But he was too prudent to suffer this to be united to the crown; left if he lost one, he should lose the other alfo. For, as Plowdena and fir Edward Coke observe," he knew he had the "duchy of Lancaster by fure and indefeasible title, but that "his title to the crown was not fo affured: for that after "the decease of Richard II., the right of the crown was in the " heir of Lionel duke of Clarence, fecond fon of Edward III.; "John of Gant, father to this Henry IV., being but the fourth fon." And therefore he procured an act of parliament, in the first year of his reign, ordaining that the duchy b |