Many – perhaps most – disputes in Anglo-Saxon England would have been settled between the parties without bothersome recourse to law, on the sensible basis that ‘agreement trumps law, and love trumps judgment’. Some were not. Courts were necessary to hear cases and make determinations, but also to mediate, or broker compromise. Over time the Anglo-Saxons developed a sophisticated network of assemblies, the hierarchy extending perhaps from manor and village courts, certainly through burh (or borough), hundred, and shire courts to the royal court – the witanagemot – where the king alone or with his ealdormen gave the final judgment in person.

Shires were largely mapped out before the Norman Conquest as Wessex, where they originated, imposed its authority on more and more of England. By the year 1000 there were thirty-two shires. Some such as Kent and Sussex were ancient kingdoms, others new creations. Many of the latter grew up around, and took their name from, burhs, fortified strategic points in which permanent markets found security. This network of territorial units, created by the kings, was placed under royal officials: ealdormen, and their deputies in each shire called ‘shire-reeves’ or sheriffs. It has been said that ‘if the courts were the backbone of government, the king's reeves were the spinal cord’. Each shire, at least from the tenth century when the smaller unit was first attested, was subdivided into hundreds, so-called because each one contained roughly a hundred homesteads, or provided a hundred fighting men, or comprised a hundred hides (enough land to support a hundred families).