A cantred was a subdivision of a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the Anglo-Norman

Lordship of Ireland The Lordship of Ireland (), sometimes referred to retrospectively as Anglo-Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of England (styled as "Lord of Ireland") and controlled by loyal Anglo-Norman Lords between 1177 and 1542. T ...

between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, analogous to the

cantref A cantref ( ; ; plural cantrefi or cantrefs; also rendered as ''cantred'') was a Wales in the Early Middle Ages, medieval Welsh land division, particularly important in the administration of Welsh law. Description Land in medieval Wales was divid ...

of Wales or the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

of England. In

County Dublin County Dublin ( or ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland, and holds its capital city, Dublin. It is located on the island's east coast, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Until 1994, County Dubli ...

the equivalent unit was termed a serjeanty, while in

County Meath County Meath ( ; or simply , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is bordered by County Dublin to the southeast, County ...

and environs it was a barony. The area of a cantred usually corresponded to that of an earlier ("thirty hundreds") of

Gaelic Ireland Gaelic Ireland () was the Gaelic political and social order, and associated culture, that existed in Ireland from the late Prehistory of Ireland, prehistoric era until the 17th century. It comprised the whole island before Anglo-Norman invasi ...

, and sometimes to that of a rural deanery in the medieval Irish church. Paul Mac Cotter has "demonstrated the existence of 151 certain cantreds and indicated the probable existence of a further 34." Cantreds were replaced by baronies from the sixteenth century.

Functions

In the Anglo-Norman shires and liberties, the cantred was originally a unit of

subinfeudation In English law, subinfeudation is the practice by which tenants, holding land under the king or other superior lord, carved out new and distinct tenures in their turn by sub-letting or alienating a part of their lands. The tenants were termed ...

; a

magnate The term magnate, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them ...

who received a grant from the

King of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the form of government used by the United Kingdom by which a hereditary monarch reigns as the head of state, with their powers Constitutional monarchy, regula ...

as Lord of Ireland would typically grant a cantred or half-cantred to a

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

mesne lord A mesne lord () was a lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a higher lord. Owing to ''Quia Emptores'', the concept of a mesne lordship technically still exists today: the partitionin ...

, who would hold the chief manor and grant sub-manors to his tenants. Church land within a cantred was excluded from grants. Unlike a

knight's fee In feudal Anglo-Norman England and Ireland, a knight's fee was a unit measure of land deemed sufficient to support a knight. It would not only provide sustenance for himself, his family, and servants, but also the means to furnish himself and h ...

, there was no military service in the

feudal duties Feudal duties were the set of reciprocal financial, military and legal obligations among the warrior nobility in a feudal system. Translated into English by Philip Grierson as ''Feudalism'', 1st ed., London, 1952. These duties developed in bot ...

of a cantred. The cantred was used for administrative purposes, with the

serjeanty Under feudalism in France and England during the Middle Ages, tenure by serjeanty () was a form of tenure in return for a specified duty other than standard knight-service. Etymology The word comes from the French noun , itself from the Latin ...

for law enforcement, the eyre for law courts, and collection of

scutage Scutage was a medieval English tax levied on holders of a knight's fee under the feudal land tenure of knight-service. Under feudalism the king, through his vassals, provided land to knights for their support. The knights owed the king militar ...

and other taxes organised by cantred.

Supersession

Cantreds declined in the fourteenth century as Ango-Norman power retreated to the Pale. They had fallen into disuse by the sixteenth-century Tudor reconquest of Ireland, when the

barony Barony may refer to: * Barony, the peerage, office of, or territory held by a baron * Barony, the title and land held in fealty by a feudal baron * Barony (county division), a type of administrative or geographical division in parts of the British ...

became the subunit of the county. In the east and south, baronies often had the names of older cantreds, though the boundaries often diverged. In the west and north, the new baronies generally had the extent of a former trícha cét, but a different name.

References

* * * Former subdivisions of Ireland Feudalism in the British Isles Hundreds (county division) Lordship of Ireland {{Ireland-geo-stub