The Government of the County in England

Abstract

T *HE ORIGIN of English counties or shires is hidden in mists of Middle Ages. Bishop Stubbs stated that the constitutional machinery of shire represents either national organization of several divisions created by West Saxon conquest; or that of early settlements which united in Mercian Kingdom as it advanced westwards; or rearrangement by West Saxon Dynasty of whole of England on principles already at work in its own 1 Whatever their early history, by time of Norman Conquest whole of England was divided into counties or shires. The principal officers of shire as it existed in eleventh century were bishop, ealdorman and shirereeve or sheriff. Of these, only sheriff continued for long to play any part in secular government, as agent and representative of central authority.2 The sheriff was both administrative officer, comparable in some ways with prefet of modern France, and presiding officer of county court or sheriff's court, where administrative and financial business of county was conducted by assembled suitors bishops and barons, landowners, and representatives of minor divisions or hundreds. In course of time right and duty of attending this court came to be restricted to freeholders, and it was they who, until middle of nineteenth century, continued to elect knights of shire to represent county in Parliament, and at great open air assemblies or county meetings to express common opinions of county on public affairs.3