" The borough,
then, was simply several townships packed tightly together; a hundred
smaller in extent and thicker in population than other hundreds.[4]
[Footnote 4: Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, vol. v. p. 466. For a
description of the _hundred_, see above, pp. 75-80.]
[Sidenote: The borough as a hundred.]
From this compact and composite character of the borough came several
important results. We have seen that the hundred was the smallest area
for the administration of justice. The township was in many respects
self-governing, but it did not have its court, any more than the New
England township of the present day has its court. The lowest court
was that of the hundred, but as the borough was equivalent to a
hundred it soon came to have its own court. And although much
obscurity still surrounds the early history of municipal government in
England, it is probable that this court was a representative board,
like any other hundred court, and that the relation of the borough to
its constituent townships resembled the relation of the modern city to
its constituent wards.
[Sidenote: The borough as a county.]
But now as certain boroughs grew larger and annexed outlying
townships, or acquired adjacent territory which presently became
covered with streets and houses, their constitution became still more
complex.
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