Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/257

 in the blacke booke of [the Exchequer of] Ireland, did contain xxx. Villatas terrse, which some call, quarters of land, and every Villata can maintaine 400 cowes in pasture, and the 400. cowes to be divided into 4. heards, so as none of them shall come neere other: every Villata containing 18. plowlands, as is there set downe: And by that which I have read of a borough it signifieth a free towne, which had a principall officer, called a head-borough, to become ruler, and undertake for all the dwellers under him, having, for the same, franchises and priviledges graunted them by the King, whereof it was called a free borough, and of the lawyers franci-plegium.

Iren. Both that which you said, Eudoxus, is true, and yet that which I say not untrue; for that which you spake of deviding the countrey into hundreds, was a devision of the lands of the realme, but this which I tell, was of the people, which were thus devided by the pole: so that hundreth in this sense signifieth a 100. pledges, which were under the command and assurance of their alderman, the which (as I suppose) was also called a wapentake, so named of touching the weapon or speare of their alderman, and swearing to follow him faithfully, and serve their Prince truly. But others thinke that a wapentake was 10. hundreds or boroughs: Likewise a borogh, as I here use it, and as the old lawes still use, is not a borough towne, as they now call it, that is a