Forms: 3 triting, 3–4, 8–9 trithing, 7 -e, 8 triding; 4 thrythyng, 7–8 thrithing: see also RIDING sb. [Late OE. *þriðing, *þriding, ad. ON. þriðjung-r ‘thirding,’ third part. The form thrithing was still known to the 17th-c. legal writers; but trithing is also found in early times, and in modern legal and historical works. The form *þriding or *thriding lost its initial after east, west, and north, as in 13th-c. Northredyng, now North Riding.]
1. = RIDING sb. Now only Hist. Also in comb. Trithing-reeve = trithinger: see below.
[a. 1150. Law Edw. Conf., c. 31. Erant etiam alie potestates super wapentagiis, quas trehingas uocabant, scilicet super terciam partem prouincie. Et qui super ipsam dominabantur, uocabantur þrehinggrefes [v.r. trehingreues], ad quos deferebantur cause que non poterant diffiniri in wapentagiis.]
c. 1290. Fleta, II. lxi. § 23. Sciendum [est] quod aliæ potestates erant super wapentakia, quæ tritinga dicebantur, eo quod erat tertia pars provinciæ; qui vero super eos dominabantur, trithingreves vocabantur, quibus differebantur causæ quæ non wapentakiis poterint diffiniri in Schiram.
1295–6. Trithing [see RIDING sb. 1].
1313–4. Eyre of Kent (1910), I. 32. De wapentagiis & Trithingis positis ad firmam.
1333. York Memo. Bk. (Surtees), I. 144. Artificiariorum in tribus trithingis infra comitatum Ebor.
1593. Norden, Spec. Brit., M’sex, I. 7. Yorkeshire … is diuided into Rydings, which may be also called ðriþingas, all which parts conteine in them certain hundreds in euerie of which was conteined ten teoþunges, of us called Tithings, conteining ten men, whereof it was also called tienmentale, a colledge or corporation of ten men.
1701. Cowell’s Interpr., Thrithing-Reve, the third part of a County, or three or more Hundreds or Wapentachs, were called a Triding or Trithing; such sort of Portions are the Laths in Kent, the Rapes in Sussex, and the Ridings in Yorkshire. And those who govern’d these Trithings, were thereupon called Trithing-Reves, before whom were brought all Causes that could not be determined in the Wapentakes, or Hundreds.
1747. Carte, Hist. Eng., I. 309. Some mention another subdivision of counties into three portions called thence trithings (corruptly ridings).
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. Introd. iv. 116. Where a county is divided into three of these intermediate jurisdictions, they are called trithings, which were antiently governed by a trithing-reeve.
1874. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. v. 100, note. In the trithing he sees the threefold division of the land allotted to the Norse odallers.
2. Division into three parts, tripartition. rare–1.
1879. Haigh, in Yorks. Arch. Jrnl., V. 205. The distinct trithing of two of the divisions [in a dial] is evidence of knowledge of the complete Hindu system.
Hence † Trithinger, thrithinger, the governor of a trithing.
1314–5. Rolls of Parlt., I. 291/2. Viscountes, Thrythyngers, & autres Baillifs [de Counte de Nicole].
