The present administration and administrative divisions of Hertfordshire, like those of other English counties, have been gradually evolved and developed from those of our Saxon forefathers; each alteration in the form of local government and of local administrative boundaries being based on the previously existing system. By the Saxons each county was divided into a number of main divisions known as hundreds, or wapentakes, each governed by a hundreder, or centenary (the equivalent of the Old German _Zentgrafen_), and each having a name of its own. Hertfordshire is now divided into eight hundreds, the names of which, commencing on the western side of the county, are as follows: Dacorum (including Tring), Cassio (with the important towns of St Albans, Watford, and Rickmansworth), Hertford, Braughing, Broadwater (occupying nearly the centre), Hitchin and Pirton (on the north-west corner), Odsey (in the extreme north), and Edwinstree (on the north-east). Originally they were more numerous, Cassio, for instance, being much smaller than at present, while the Hitchin division was reckoned only as a half-hundred. The origin of the names of most of the hundreds are self-apparent; but that of Cassio (originally Kayso) appears to be unknown, while that of Dacorum has some connection with the Danes, perhaps referring to a Danish settlement. One of the most remarkable facts connected with the hundreds of Hertfordshire is that three of them do not lie within what farmers call a ring-fence. Dacorum, for instance, has two outlying areas in the south-eastern corner of Cassio, and a third wedged in between Cassio on the west, Broadwater on the north, and an outlying portion of Cassio on the east. Broadwater, again, has a small outlier on the Middlesex border of the south-eastern “peninsula” of Cassio; while Cassio itself, inclusive of the one already mentioned, has no less than eight of these curious outliers, one situated in the extreme north in the hundred of Odsey. Each hundred originally had its own court, or “hundred-mote,” which met monthly; and it was divided, as at present, into townships, or parishes. The parish, in turn, had its own council, or _gemot_, where every freeman had a right to appear. This assembly or council made its own local by-laws, to enforce which it had a reeve, a bailiff, and a tithingman, with the powers of a constable. The reeve was chairman of the township _gemot_, and could summon that assembly at pleasure.