Note 136 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES

I think, therefore, that we fairly may hold the Anglicus numerus, or long hundred, to have specially prevailed in the 'Danish' districts, which were also assessed, we shall find, in sums of six and twelve. But what was the boundary of this Danish district? It was not the border between Mercia and Wessex, for Mercia was itself divided between the 'six' and the 'five' systems.136 Of the two adjacent Mercian shires, for instance, of Leicester and Warwick (afterwards united under one sheriff), we find the latter decimal and the former duodecimal. The military service of Warwick and Leicester was arranged on the same method, yet Leicester sent twelve 'burgesses' to the fyrd where Warwick sent ten. But, it may be urged, the two shires were divided by the Watling Street, the boundary (under the peace of Wedmore) of Danelaw. Was then the Danelaw the district within which the systems prevailed? No, for the Danelaw, under this treaty, included all Cambridgeshire and other hidated districts. The answer, therefore, which I propound is this: The district in which men measured by carucates, and counted by twelves and sixes, was not the district which the Danes conquered, but the district which the Danes settled, the district of 'the Five Boroughs'.