Trying to understand the administrative district of the 'Hitchin Hundred'. A 'hundred' appears to equate to either the area which provided the host with 100 warriors or which measured 100 'hides'. A 'hide' has been defined as being between 40 and 120 acres. According to the Victorian County Histories, the 'Hitchin Hundred' comprised the parishes of Hitchin (including Preston, Walsworth and Langley), Pirton, Kings Walden, Ippollitts, Offley, Lilley, Ickleford and Kimpton. Helpfully, the VCH includes the acreage of most of these parishes which totals 20,447. The acreage of Hitchin township is not mentioned nor that of Kings Walden. If one estimates Hitchin Town as 1,500 acres and Kings Walden as 3,000, the total acreage of the 'Hitchin Hundred' is approximately 25,000. Unless this area provided 100 warriors, the other definition just doesn't compute (ie 25,000 divided by 100 = 250 and therefore a 'hide' in this county was around 250 acres). Probably, I'm missing or misunderstanding something. Can someone help, please? Philip Wray _________________________________________________________________ Add your Gmail and Yahoo! Mail email accounts into Hotmail - it's easy http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/186394592/direct/01/

Philip wrote:- > A 'hundred' appears to equate to either the area which provided the host > with 100 warriors or which measured 100 'hides'. A 'hide' has been defined > as being between 40 and 120 acres. A quick dip into Wikipedia suggests that a Hundred was the area of land which would support a hundred households or "hides". No doubt the actual area varied throughout the country. I didn't pursue it further. FWIW Mike -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 284 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message