I. 21: Johannes de Grey subtraxit se de secta curie pro villata de Chilton de uno anno et die (corr. et dimidio), unde dominus Rex dampnificatus est in 18 denariis.
Though the institution of the hundredors has found expression in the Hundred Rolls, the name is all but absent from them. The rare instances when it occurs are especially worthy of consideration. I have three times seen a contraction which probably stands for it, but in one case it applies distinctly to the hundred-reeve or to a riding bailiff of the hundred.
I. 197 (Inquest of the hundred of Hirstingstan, Hunts): dicunt etiam quod homines ejusdem soke rescusserunt aueria que El. hundredarius ceperat pro debito domini Regis levando et impedierunt eum ad summoniciones faciendum de assisis et juratis et equum ipsius El. duxerunt ad manerium de Someresham et eum ibi detinuerunt quousque deliberavit omnia averia per ipsum capta.
The case is different in regard to the description of Aston and Cote, Oxfordshire. It is printed on p. 689 of the second volume of the Hundred Rolls, but printed badly. The decisive headings are not given accurately, and I shall put it before the reader in the shape in which it stands in the MS. at the Record Office. The passage is especially interesting because of the peculiar constitution of the manor of Bampton, to which Aston and Cote belong. (See Gomme, Village Community.)
Hundred Rolls, Oxford.
Chancery Series, No. 1, m. 3.
[The Abbot above mentioned was the Abbot of Eynsham.]
The Hundr. in Aston in the margin can hardly admit of any other extension but hundredarius or hundredarii. It seems then, that the term is applied to three tenants named first. The reason for thinking so is, that all these three are assessed at certain rents without any mention of labour services, whereas the three tenants who are next mentioned pay so much as rent and so much more in commutation of labour service, 'pro servitio.' The inference would be, that the names in the beginning apply to people burdened with suit to the hundred and to the shire, and therefore exempted in other respects. Their rents are very unequal, but in any case lower than those of the men immediately following. One very important feature admits of no dispute; the hundredors are described as servi, that is villains, in opposition to the free tenants of the Abbot of Eynsham. We know already from the text that the hundredors, if the name be applied here as in the Ely Surveys, occupied an intermediate position, and in one sense had certainly to rank with the villains, people of base tenure belonging to the townships.