[6] Spinneys are plantations of trees growing closely together. [Illustration: THE VILLAGE GREEN, EXTON, RUTLAND [See page 26]] CHAPTER IX Tythings and Hundreds--Shires Though the Saxons, as they settled down in England, formed "tuns", which at first had very little to do with one another, that state of things probably did not last a very long time. In fighting the Britons they had to act together; and, for the sake of protection and help, these separate communities had to combine. Somewhat in this way ten families in a district would form a tything; and the heads of the villages would, from time to time, meet together to consult on various matters in which they were interested. Then larger areas would need to be covered, as the country became more settled. Ten tythings would make a hundred; and, from time to time, men from all the places in the hundred would meet together and hold hundred courts. The meeting-place for the hundred was always some well-known spot, selected originally because of its convenient situation--some particular tree was a favourite place; and, as the folk met there regularly so many times in the year, the spot was easily kept in mind from one generation to another. At the meeting criminals were tried, disputes settled, and in the later times, when monasteries had become common, some sort of record was often made of the important matters decided upon, and kept with the documents belonging to the monastery, as being a safe place in which to keep them. Scraps of these ancient records have been met with on old parchments which in later times have been used over again for another purpose. Most of the English counties are still divided into hundreds. In those days the hundreds were not all of the same size, because, owing to the nature of the soil, some tuns were far apart from one another, and a tything might cover a wide district, and a hundred a much larger area. If the hundred was small, that would show that the tuns were pretty close together, and that the district was populous. If, on the other hand, the tythings and hundreds were large, that would show that the district was thinly peopled. We have seen that new settlements were formed by portions of the family leaving the old home, and making a new tun in the most suitable place they could find. It would happen, no doubt, in favourable districts, that new tuns would spring up not very far from the mother tun; and, in the course of time, there would be a good many more tuns in the tything than there were originally. The fact seems to be, that when once the boundaries had been roughly agreed upon, they were not often altered. From being a combination of families, or tuns, the tything got to be a district; and it kept its name of tything long after the number of tuns in it had increased.