A hundred in Anglo-Saxon England was an administrative unit of local government, which may have had its roots in an older institution perhaps corresponding to a unit of taxation or a group of households. The Normans found the judicial, administrative, and police aspects of the hundred to be a useful unit of government to leverage to their advantage.

For example, if a Norman was found murdered in a hundred by an unknown person, then that hundred would have to pay a heavy murder fine. The idea of making the entire hundred liable for undetected crimes was expanded upon for the next 500 years, including the Statute of Winchester (1285) which imposed such liability for undetected robberies.

The Assize of Clarendon (1166) required that every hundred produce 12 of the most lawful men that would swear to present any man suspected of a serious crime to the relevant authority, along with an oral account of how the prisoner was captured.

The hundred court, often simply shortened to ‘hundred,’ was a court of first instance which was headed by a hundred man or the reeve. Traditionally, the hundred court met once every four weeks where it transacted its business – hunting down thieves and executing judgment on them, as well as ensuring that each member of the hundred was ‘in borh’ in what was later referred to as the ‘view of frankpledge.’

The sheriffs frequently brought the hundreds under their control and by the time of Edward I, more than half of the hundreds were under private control.

(Plucknett, Concise History 87-90; Baker, Introduction to English Legal History, 7)

-- JimParks - 04 Sep 2014