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| Lodroun Hundred | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lodroun Hundred |
| Settlement type | Hundred |
| Country | Kingdom of Wessex |
| Region | Southwestern England |
| Coordinates | 51.2°N, 1.5°W |
| Established | Anglo-Saxon period (c. 9th century) |
| Abolished | 19th century (administrative functions) |
Lodroun Hundred
Lodroun Hundred was an Anglo-Saxon administrative division in southwestern England tied to the shire system and later provincial reorganization. It functioned as a unit for taxation, military muster, and legal assemblies across medieval and early modern periods, connecting local communities to institutions such as the Hundred court, the shire moot, the Exchequer, the Manorial court, and the Hundredal system. The hundred interfaced with regional powers including the County Palatine of Wessex and later the English Crown.
The origins of Lodroun Hundred trace to early Anglo-Saxon consolidation when leaders like Alfred the Great and administrative reforms under King Ine of Wessex standardized hundreds as units for the fyrd levy and the collection of the geld. Domesday-era records similar to the Domesday Book show Lodroun Hundred assessed alongside hundreds such as Blackheath Hundred and Williton Hundred; entries reference landholders drawn from families allied to the House of Wessex and to Norman magnates installed after the Norman Conquest of England. In the high medieval period Lodroun's court rolls reflect interactions with ecclesiastical landlords like the Bishop of Winchester and monastic houses such as Muchelney Abbey and Glastonbury Abbey. Tudor reforms under Henry VIII and the fiscal centralization of Elizabeth I shifted many hundredal fiscal roles to the Exchequer and to emerging county institutions, while the Civil War era (involving factions like the Royalists and the Parliamentarians) temporarily altered muster practices. By the 19th century reforms initiated by Sir Robert Peel and later statutes such as the Local Government Act 1888 and the Local Government Act 1894 effectively rendered hundredal administration obsolete.
Lodroun Hundred occupied a patchwork of parishes and manors bounded by natural features and adjacent divisions like River Avon, Somerset Levels, and neighboring hundreds including Taunton Hundred and Bridgwater Hundred. Its topography ranged from lowland marshes near the Parrett and Brue to rolling chalk and limestone ridges contiguous with the Quantock Hills and approaches toward the Mendip Hills. Parish boundaries referenced landmarks such as St. Michael's Mount-style hillocks and Roman roads connected to Fosse Way-linked routes. Cartographic depictions by surveyors like John Norden and mapmakers such as Christopher Saxton included Lodroun's limits in atlases used by crown administrators and local gentry.
Lodroun Hundred was administered through regular meetings of the hundred court presided over by a bailiff or hundredman appointed by magnates like the Earl of Somerset or by ecclesiastical patrons including the Abbess of Shaftesbury. Court business recorded petty assizes, oath swearing by jurors drawn from tenants of manors linked to families such as the de Montacute and Peverel lineages. Fiscal duties included collection of levies for the fyrd and remittances to the Sheriff of Somerset. Over time responsibilities transferred to county offices like the High Sheriff and to justices associated with the Quarter Sessions and later the Petty Sessions, reflecting legal evolution toward centralized authority.
The economic base of Lodroun Hundred combined arable agriculture in fields employing open-field techniques cited in manorial accounts alongside pastoralism centered on sheep flocks of importance to the wool trade that linked local clothiers to merchants in towns such as Bath and Bridgwater. Water meadows fed by drainage works tied to innovations from estates of families like the Berkeleys supported cattle and dairy production marketed at fairs in Yeovil and Taunton. Woodland coppicing supplied timber for shipyards connected to ports like Bristol and to industries such as the ironworking enterprises near Exeter and ties to the pre-industrial workshops patronized by guilds in towns like Wells.
Settlements within Lodroun Hundred ranged from nucleated villages centered on parish churches—patronized by clerics from dioceses such as Salisbury and Bath and Wells—to scattered hamlets and manor complexes held by landowners like the FitzGeralds and Courtenays. Population trends mirrored national patterns: growth in the high medieval centuries followed by contraction in the crisis years around the Black Death and recovery linked to agricultural commercialization. Market towns within reach such as Sherborne and Gloucester influenced migration and trade, while estate maps and hearth tax returns enumerate household counts and social hierarchies from yeomen to tenant farmers and cottars.
Lodroun Hundred's legal functions included convening the hundred court to adjudicate disputes over land tenure, debt, and minor criminal offenses, employing procedures akin to those in the Assize of Clarendon and later common law practices emerging from the King's Bench and the Common Pleas. Hundred jurors presented frankpledge rosters and performed tithing duties in coordination with parish constables and manorial officers. Appeals and serious criminal prosecutions migrated toward royal courts and the circuit of judges known as the justices in eyre and itinerant judges, reducing the hundred court's jurisdiction well before statutory reforms of the 19th century.
Although administrative functions ceased, Lodroun Hundred's imprint survives in cadastral records, place-names preserved on Ordnance Survey mapping, and archival documents housed alongside collections from institutions like the National Archives and county record offices associated with Somerset Archives and Local Studies. Historians of medieval administration and local historians reference Lodroun when tracing the evolution from Anglo-Saxon territorial organization through Norman feudal structures to modern county governance reshaped by statutes such as the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. Its manorial and court records remain valuable sources for genealogists tracing families including the de Clare, Mortimer, and Bohun houses.
Category:Hundreds of England Category:History of Somerset