SCÍRGERÉFA OR SHERIFF.—The Scírgeréfa is, as his name denotes, the person who stands at the head of the shire, _pagus_ or county: he is also called Scírman or Scírigman[367]. He is properly speaking the holder of the county-court, scírgemót or folcmót, and probably at first was its elected chief. But as this geréfa was at first the people’s officer, he seems to have shared the fate of the people, and to have sunk in the scale as the royal authority gradually rose: during the whole of our historical period we find him exercising only a concurrent jurisdiction, shared in and controlled by the ealdorman on the one hand and the bishop on the other. The latter interruption may very probably have existed from the very earliest periods, and the heathen priest have enjoyed the rights which the Christian prelate maintained: but the intervention of the ealdorman appears to be consistent only with the establishment of a central power, exercised in different districts by means of resident superintendents, or occasional commissioners especially charged with the defence of the royal interests. In the Anglosaxon legislation even of the eighth century, the ealdorman is certainly head of the shire[368]; but there is, as far as I know, no evidence of his sitting in judgment in the folcmót without the sheriff, while there is evidence that the sheriff sat without the ealdorman. Usually the court was held under the presidency of the ealdorman and bishop, and of the scírgeréfa, who from his later title of vicecomes, vicedominus, was probably looked upon as the ealdorman’s deputy,—a strange revolution of ideas. The shiremoot at Ægelnóðes stán in the days of Cnut was attended by Æðelstán, bishop of Hereford, Ranig the ealdorman, Eádwine his son, Leófwine and Ðurcytel the white, Tofig the king’s _missus_ or messenger, and Bryning the scírgeréfa[369]. But in a celebrated trial of title to land at Wouldham in Kent, where archbishop Dunstán himself was a party concerned, the case seems to have been disposed of by Wulfsige the shireman or sheriff alone[370]. The bishop of Rochester, being in some sort a party to the suit, could probably not take his place as a judge, and the ealdorman is not mentioned at all. Again in an important trial of title to land at Snodland in Kent, there is no mention whatever of the ealdorman: the king’s writ was sent to the archbishop; and the sheriff Leófríc and the thanes of East and West Kent met to try the cause at Canterbury[371]. It may then be concluded that the presence of the sheriff was necessary in any case, while that of the ealdorman might be dispensed with[372]. By the provisions of our later kings it appears that the scírgemót or sheriff’s court for the county was to be holden twice in the year, and before this were brought all the most important causes, and such as exceeded the competence of the hundred[373]. ----- Footnote 367: