GLASTONBURY TWELVE HIDES HUNDRED
The jurisdiction which emerged in the 13th century as
the Twelve Hides of Glastonbury had its origin in privileges granted to the abbots of Glastonbury in a succession of charters, in some cases of dubious form if not
legality, by Anglo-Saxon kings of Wessex. A grant from
Centwine (676–85) of six hides at Glastingai and a
similar grant from Baldred, a contemporary sub-king,
and representing West Pennard, may together have
made up the twelve hides which was the assessment of
Glastonbury in 1066, and which already represented a
privileged core estate. (fn. 1)
That estate, which never paid geld, was focussed upon
six dryland sites (five bedrock islands and a promontory) rising out of the surrounding wetland. In 1086 it
was described as a 'vill' (villa), to which the 'islands' of
Meare, Panborough (in Wedmore), and 'Andersey'
(Ederisage, now Nyland in Cheddar), (fn. 2) were expressly
said to have been attached, and which almost certainly
also then included Beckery, Godney, and Marchey. (fn. 3)
Glastonbury and its six 'islands' were all named in Henry
I's charter of 1121. (fn. 4) In 1311 the tithings of East Street,
Havyatt Within, Havyatt Without, Northload, and
Panborough, the vill of Glastonbury, and Northwood or
Norwood park presented separately at the hundred
court, (fn. 5) in 1314 there were no presentments from Northwood, (fn. 6) and in 1325 tenants from Meare and Nyland and
the tithings of East Street, Havyatt Within, Havyatt
Without, Northload, and Panborough were answerable
at the twice-yearly sheriffs court. (fn. 7) By the early 16th
century the tithings were listed as Baltonsborough,
(West) Bradley, Edgarley, East Street, Meare, Northload,
Panborough, West Pennard, Westholme, and (North)
Wootton. (fn. 8) Subsequent pre-Reformation definitions of
the Twelve Hides included an incursion into Pilton. (fn. 9) By
1569 Glastonbury town was included and some of the
internal divisions had been modified as East Street was
absorbed into West Pennard, Panborough was joined
with Northload, and (North) Wootton with Westholme. (fn. 10) By the mid 18th century the hundred comprised
a western division of Meare, Northload, and Panborough, and the Glastonbury division of Baltonsborough, (West) Bradley, East Street, Edgarley, North
Wootton, West Pennard, and Westholme and Holt. (fn. 11)
Northwood tithing occurred in 1743, (fn. 12) and as Norwood
was included in 1826–30 with all the other tithings
except Panborough, which was presumably part of
Meare since one of the Meare constables was a
Panborough tenant. (fn. 13) In 1841 the hundred comprised
Baltonsborough, West Bradley, Glastonbury, Meare,
Nyland, West Pennard, and North Wootton. (fn. 14)
Successive abbots of Glastonbury were owners of the
hundred until the dissolution of the house in 1539 when
the jurisdiction presumably passed to the Crown. In
1547 Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset, acquired the
hundred, rights, and liberties of the Twelve Hides,
formerly belonging to the abbey. (fn. 15) After Seymour's
attainder in 1552 the hundred reverted to the Crown,
and no specific reference to its ownership has been
found until 1701 when the liberty of the Twelve Hides
was part of a description of the Cambell share of
Glastonbury manor. (fn. 16) Some years later the two owners of
the manor, Peter Berry and the Hon. George Hamilton,
exercised their rights as lords of the hundred in alternate
years. (fn. 17) Henry Hunt, eventual successor to George
Hamilton, (fn. 18) seems to have exercised sole jurisdiction
1826–30, (fn. 19) and he was followed by successive lords of
Glastonbury manor, in 1998 Mrs. G. H. Harland of
Butleigh. (fn. 20)
FIG. 4. Glastonbury Twelve Hides Hundred, c. 1840
The forged grant of Ine, created in or before the early
12th century, quoted Centwine as giving to the abbot
and monks 'immunity from all secular and ecclesiastical
services' but William of Malmesbury's gloss spoke of
'every immunity of a royal dignity from ancient times. . .
confirmed for the church of Glastonbury by the kings of
the Britons as well as the kings of the English and the
Normans'. Thus was claimed sole legal jurisdiction, both
secular and ecclesiastical. (fn. 21) The ecclesiastical exemption
from subordination to the bishop was early in the 12th
century defined as for Glastonbury itself and for seven of
its churches, namely East Brent, Butleigh, Middlezoy,
Moorlinch, Pilton, Shapwick, and Street. (fn. 22) The group
changed in 1191 to Glastonbury, Butleigh, Meare,
Middlezoy, Moorlinch, Shapwick, and Street and their
chapels. (fn. 23) About 1170 the ecclesiastical exemption had
led to the creation of a monastic archdeaconry, at first
exercised by the abbot and later by an appointed
monk-archdeacon. (fn. 24) After the Dissolution and under the
name of the Glastonbury Jurisdiction, the area was
administered initially as a discrete unit (fn. 25) and later as a
rural deanery within the archdeaconry of Wells,
retaining the name until the early 1990s. (fn. 26)
Secular exemption granted in the names of Centwine
and Ine were defined in 944 when King Edmund gave
rights, dues, and forfeitures in all abbey lands including
hundred-socn and hamsocn, declaring that 'only the
abbot may hold pleas in Glastonbury itself, with the
same plenary jurisdiction as the king's own court'; and
King Edgar's confirmation of those privileges emphasised the position of the exempt churches and the subordination of the bishop. (fn. 27) A charter of Henry I attempted a
jurisdictional definition: the vill of Glastonbury and its
lands were to be 'freer' (liberior), and neither the king
himself nor any royal justiciar, sheriff, forester, nor
bailiff was to hear pleas there. (fn. 28) That definition was
confirmed to the abbey in 1227 (fn. 29) but Walter Giffard,
bishop of Bath and Wells 1264–6 and chancellor of
England 1265–7, was able for a short time to intervene
between Crown and abbot in legal and fiscal processes
and take half the proceeds of fines, and amercements
from more serious cases. He was also able to extend the
claim formerly made by Jocelin of Wells to feudal sovereignty over the abbey. (fn. 30) In 1275 the abbot recovered his
feudal independence and in 1278 Edward I withdrew his
own claim to hold courts within the abbot's liberty. (fn. 31) In
1287 the abbot refused to allow the king's justices to
deliver Glastonbury gaol. (fn. 32) In 1355 Edward III, in recognition that Glastonbury abbey was 'held for certain as
the fount and origin of all the religion of England',
confirmed its right to be 'more free than others'. (fn. 33)
The Twelve Hides seem to have been administered
like other secular hundreds from the mid 16th century
onwards (fn. 34) but remained outside the jurisdiction of the
county court in the later 16th century. (fn. 35)
By the later 13th century a hundred court was being
held in the abbot's name twice a year, at Hockday and
Michaelmas, (fn. 36) which in 1325 was described as for all free
tenants in the Twelve Hides and for tenants of Meare
and Nyland. Court rolls survive for 1311–12, (fn. 37) 1314, (fn. 38)
1364–5, 1377–8, and 1417–18. (fn. 39) Business included
unlawful brewing, baking, and ale-selling, a mill not in
use, watercourses in need of scouring, breach of the
peace, and trespass on the highway. A sheriff and
justices, all appointed by the abbot, also held fourweekly sessions known as county courts for the same
area, (fn. 40) and rolls survive for 1321–2, 1323, 1327–35,
1369–70, 1377–8, and 1417–18. (fn. 41) Business concerned
cases of debt and disputed possession of land. In addition, the abbots' justices delivered the gaol and three
sessions are recorded for 1321–2 and one in 1328 when
two justices sat on each occasion. (fn. 42) In practice the
Michaelmas hundred sessions were presided over by the
abbey steward, a layman, and the foreign cellarer, a
senior monk; the steward acted as judge in the county
court and the abbey bailiff as prosecutor or clerk as
necessary. (fn. 43) The twice-yearly courts, also known as law
hundreds or tourns, continued in the early 16th
century (fn. 44) and in addition the abbey justices met three
times a year, around Michaelmas, Epiphany, and Corpus
Christi, to levy fines for infringements of trading regulations in the town presented by the town's portmoot. (fn. 45)
There is a roll recording proceedings at courts leet for
the hundred in December 1557 and April 1558, nearly
twenty years after the abbey had been dissolved, when
business concerned the non-attendance of posts, fines of
brewers and millers, and a single case of breach of the
peace. (fn. 46) Nine presentments from Meare tithing to the
twice-yearly hundred court leet survive for the period
1721–74. Business concerned the appointment of
tithingmen and constables for the tithing and the
presentment of faulty causeways and gutters. Reference
was made in 1774 to the monthly courts within the
hundred. (fn. 47) Business in the later 18th and the 19th
century comprised pound breach and repair of bridges
and stiles. (fn. 48)
In the later 13th century the abbot employed a keeper
of liberties, familiarly known as the sheriff of the Twelve
Hides. He also had both a steward and a marshal. (fn. 49) By
1325 there were two coroners. (fn. 50) A group of justices, of
whom only John FitzJames was named in 1502–3,
presided at courts within the hundred, and a bailiff of the
vill accounted for income to the abbey's receiver of
casuals. (fn. 51) In the mid 13th century a tenant acted as
summoner of Northload tithing and of the men of
Bleadney, Clewer, Marchey, and Panborough, collector
of fines and amercements levied on them, and their
advocate as necessary to preserve the peace. (fn. 52) A tenant in
the early 14th century made judicialia for all convicted
felons in the Twelve Hides, and four other tenants, in
succession to 30 in 1189, kept the abbot's prisons. (fn. 53) In
1189 a tenant served as bedel and another kept the
stocks. (fn. 54)
In 1546 the Crown appointed one man to be both
bailiff and sheriff of the Twelve Hides (fn. 55) and the duke of
Somerset in the following year was empowered to
appoint a sheriff and escheator, the latter to be called
coroner. (fn. 56) In 1550 the duke was granted both the Twelve
Hides liberty and the offices of bailiff and sheriff within
it. (fn. 57) A Crown appointee was sheriff and bailiff of the
Twelve Hides liberty from 1568. (fn. 58)
In 1557–8 the leet court, distinct from the Glastonbury manor court, (fn. 59) governed within the vill through
four constables and a jury, and outside the vill through a
jury alone. (fn. 60) In 1572 there were three constables for the
hundred and a total of thirteen tithingmen were to be
sent from Edgarley, Holt, Meare, Northload and
Panborough, (West) Pennard, and (North) Wootton. (fn. 61)
In the earlier 17th century there were two constables and
in the 18th century each of the hundred's two divisions
generally appointed a head constable at the court leet
at Glastonbury. (fn. 62) Two constables continued to be
appointed in the earlier 19th century when each tithing
also chose a tithingman; and five places, Baltonsborough, (West) Bradley, Meare, West Pennard, and
Westholme and Holt also appointed haywards. In 1826
the court's jurisdiction had become confused with
Glastonbury manor and parish. (fn. 63)
FIG. 5. Meare, the road to the moors, c. 1930
By 1325 the abbey had a hall where the sheriff and
justices held tourns, sessions, and county courts above a
gaol. (fn. 64) It stood on the south side of High Street and was
replaced by a slightly smaller building by Abbot Richard
Bere (abbot 1495–1525). (fn. 65) In 1598 the name shire hall
was still in use as an alternative to town hall. (fn. 66) The
hundred court was kept there in the 1630s (fn. 67) but in 1738
it met in the Golden Lion, in the 1780s and 1826 at the
White Hart inn, and from 1827 to 1830 at the Crown. (fn. 68)
A tumbrel for the punishment of a disturber of the
peace was in use in 1558. (fn. 69)