Whether the mark system prevailed to any great extent or not, (and this is a somewhat uncertain point,) practically it was the township which formed the lowest part of the general organization. The hundred was a collection of townships, the shire a collection of hundreds. The chief officer of the township, the town reeve, was elected by the freeholders of the township, and with four of their number represented that township in the Court of the Hundred, of which the township was a subordinate division. Townships established upon the lands of lords also had their reeve, but probably he was appointed by the lord. Their constitution was the same, but the proprietor of the soil took the duties and privileges which in a free township belonged to the freeholders. Such townships formed manors. It was from the township also that the burghs or towns arose. The Saxons had a natural dislike for town life, and we must not look for the arrangements of the borough to the remnants of Roman civilization. But when the village grew very large the same constitution as existed in the township was employed, the freeholders within the limits of the borough forming the municipal body. Such boroughs may also frequently have arisen from an agglomeration of townships. They would then be analogous to the hundred. The existence of two or three parishes in most boroughs leads to the same conclusion; for, ecclesiastically, the limits of the township and the parish were the same. Such towns, growing up naturally round the dwellings of wealthy men or of the king, would generally be either on folcland, and as such, dependent upon the crown, or upon the land of some lord on whom they would then depend. When the national system became organized, there would thus be the Court of the Township, with its counterpart in the dependent Township of the Manor Court. Above that, the Hundred Court, presided over by the Hundred-man, while the township were represented by their Reeve and four members. And above that there was the Shire Court or Gemot. The shires were not, properly speaking, part of the original organization. They seem to be in most cases the old sub-kingdoms. The Court, therefore, of the Shire represented the National Court. Over these sub-kingdoms or shires was appointed a royal officer, shire-reeve or sheriff, representative of the king for judicial and fiscal purposes. There is no proof that he was an elective officer. Beside the sheriff, who represented the central authority, was the Ealdorman, who had the command of the military force of the shire and the third of the fines levied. He was the representative of the old sub-king. He was a national officer, appointed by the king and by the central assembly of the nation, the Witana-Gemot. He sat with the sheriff in the Shire Court, but it would seem that the sheriff was the official whose presence constituted the court. In all the courts it was a principle that the suitors of the court, those, that is, who