SHIRE, a Saxon word signifying a division: but a county, comitatus, is plainly derived from comes, the "count of the Franks;" that is, the earl, or alderman (as the Saxons called him) of the shire, to whom the government of it was intrusted. This he usually exercised by his deputy, still called in Latin vice-comes, and in English the sheriff, shrieve, or shire-reeve, signifying the "officer of the shire;" upon whom, by process of time, the civil administration of it is now totally devolved. In some counties there is an intermediate division between the shire and the hundred; as lathes in Kent, and rapes in Sussex, each of them containing about three or four hundreds a-piece. These had formerly their lath-reeves and rape-reeves, acting in subordination to the shire-reeve. Where a county is divided into three of these intermediate jurisdictions, they are called trithings, which were anciently governed by a trithing-reeve. These trithings still subsist in the large county of York, where, by an easy corruption, they are denominated ridings; the north, the east; and the west riding.