What was a century called before it was called "century"?

The term century in the more common connotation that refers to a period of 100 years is relatively recent:

• The Modern English meaning is attested from 1650s, short for century of years (1620s). (Etymonline)

• From Middle English centuria ‎ (a) A division of the Roman army: a century; (b) a Roman land measure. (Middle English Dictionary)

It appears that the Middle English term was used only to refer to a Roman army company consisting of approximately 100 men and to a land measure, and I can find no evidence it was used to refer to a cycle of 100 years.

What term or expression was used to refer to a period of 100 years or to a specific century, the 11th or the 12th for instance in Middle English and/or in Shakespeare's times?

A century is equivalent to hundred years and the origin of hundred dates back to Old English

hundred
From Old English hundred, from Proto-Germanic * hundaradą, from * hundą (from Proto-Indo-European *ḱm̥tóm) + * radą ‎(“count”). Compare West Frisian hûndert, Dutch honderd, Low German hunnert, hunnerd, German Hundert, Danish hundred.

Old English
From Proto-Germanic *hundaradą ‎(“telling of 100”), from *hundą (< Proto-Indo-European *ḱm̥tóm) + *radą ‎(“count”). Cognate with Old Frisian hundred, Old Saxon hunderod, Middle Dutch hondert (Dutch honderd), Old High German hundert (German Hundert), Old Norse hundrað ‎(“120; 100”) (Swedish hundra ‎(“100”)).

hunnert
Numeral
hunnert ‎(plural hunnerts)

1. Eye dialect spelling of hundred.

year
From Middle English yeer, yere, from Old English ġēr, ġēar ‎(“year”),

Wiktionary

From On the interaction between constructional & lexical change Copular, Passive and related Constructions in Old and Middle English

• Ær ðam ðe Romeburh getimbred wære eahta < hund > wintra, mid ...
  translated
  before that that Rome built were eight hundred winters with ...

• þa beoð on lenge hundteontiges fotmæla lange & fiftiges. Hy beoð
  Modern English
  who are in length hundred:GEN feet:GEN long and fifty:GEN they are

• greate swa stænene sweras micle.
  Modern English
  great as stone pillars great

It appears in early Modern English, before the concept of century (i.e. 100 years) was adopted, phrases had to be employed. In A Christian directorie guiding men to their salvation, printed in 1585 the following phrases are used:

“... complained in their Talmud, that ther seemed to them in thos dayes, seven hundred & fourtiene years past, since Christ by the scriptures, should have appeared;...”

“... thou hast to remember (loving brother) that for the space of three hundred years together after Christs departure out of this world; he sent almost continual temptations, that is to say continual tribulatios affliction ...”

_{Many thanks to @V0ight who posted the relevant link}

Today, we might express the first date as the 8th century / 714 A.D,
while the second, as being the 4th century / 333 A.D (or CE)

Lastly, the works of William Shakespeare contain eight citations for “hundred years”

1. No, I'll nor sell nor give him: lend you him I will
   For half a hundred years. Summon the town.

2. Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet
   Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
   For our advantage on the bitter cross.

3. Was not devised for the realm of France:
   Nor did the French possess the Salique land
   Until four hundred one and twenty years
   After defunction of King Pharamond,

4. Who died within the year of our redemption
   Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
   Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
   Beyond the river Sala, in the year
   Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
   King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,

5. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years.

6. As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
   Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
   Of all my buried ancestors are packed:

7. Traitors, away! he rests not in this tomb:
   This monument five hundred years hath stood,
   Which I have sumptuously re-edified:
   Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors
   Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls:

The Latin word for "century" was "saeculum". Is that old enough?

From: Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary

The OED has a reference for "secle" in an English text from about 1533. That makes it more than a century earlier than the earliest reference for "century".