Talk:Historic counties of England/Archive 4

message: Seeing as we have a mention of Hexhamshire, shouldn't we include Winchcombeshire: not sure whether to put it under Midlands or Southern England (it had something to do with Mercia, not Wessex).
Lozleader 10:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Winchcombeshire 

message: Although Cornwall is not normally reckoned to be a County Palatine, the Duchy of Cornwall has always enjoyed all the rights and priviledges of being such. Is there a neat way to indicate this on the list or is this something for a short paragraph underneath? AulaTPN 08:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cornwall 

message: I'm busy trying to work up the History of Cheshire into something more in accordance with wikipedia's standards for good articles. In the light of this, I want to raise the following point: One sees in various places on wikipedia the mention that Cheshire's northern boundary used to be roughly the River Ribble in Lancashire, but my own reading of the subject shows the evidence is rather thin on verifying this fact. As far as I can see, the Victoria History of the County of Cheshire, Vol 1 (which also refers to the relevant parts of the Lancashire books in the series) expresses uncertainty about this of sufficient degree to make the degree of certainty of the various statements on wikipedia, along with the map on the article itself, inaccurate. This, in turn, leads to the claims themselves becoming inaccurate. Since the Victoria History series is a highly regarded source of well-researched and verified information, I think it needs to be given close attention. The best section that summarizes the situation as verified by the Victoria History of the County of Chester, Vol 1 is this, on page 252:
Certainly there were links between Cheshire and south Lancashire before 1000, when Wulfric Spot held lands in both territories.[ref given] Wulfric's estates remained grouped together after his death, when they were left to his brother Aelfhelm, and indeed there still seems to have been some kind of connexion in 1086, when south Lancashire was surveyed together with Cheshire by the Domesday commissioners. Nevertheless, the two territories do seem to have been distinguished from one another in some way and it is not certain that the shire-moot and the reeves referred to in the south Lancashire section of Domesday were the Cheshire ones.[ref given and my emphasis]
In the light of this, I would suggest that the entries and the map that baldly claim that Cheshire possessed the lands between the Mersey and the Ribble are misleading, and should be altered accordingly.  DDStretch  (talk) 15:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Extent of [[Cheshire]] at the time of the [[Domesday Book]]

message: Please note that I am close to completing an article which will address these concerns mentioned above:
1) List/table showing which went on to become administrative and non-metropolitan counties and which did not (and how the ancient subdivisions were used as the basis for some admin counties) 
2) Expanded references 
3) Section detailing role of the ancient counties - still needs work.
It will also include a list of e.g. County emblems, official County flowers and (where applicable) County flags.
I invite anyone with an interest in this subject to contact me, in which case I'll be pleased to send a draft of the article in the hope that it can be improved further before posting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony Bennett (talk • contribs) 09:14, 12 August 2007
:I have an interest in this subject, but believe the article is more than adequate, and I'd object to much of your plans. On your points:
:1) List/table is not required - it's coverered within the prose already.
:2) References are of a high quality on this article. Material from CountyWatch or it's affliates are not reliable sources.
:3) Some of the role of the ancient counties could be elaborated on perhaps, though we shouldn't get over-detailed about specific Counts etc. Perhaps something on the Hundreds and Wapentakes might be useful.
:4) I wholly object to the inclusion of County emblems and county flowers, as for the most part, these are contemporary vexological devices assigned unofficially and thus would be an anachronism. Jza84 20:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Article on historic counties

message: As i mentioned on this page some time ago, I've now added material to correct the misleading account of the northern border of Cheshire at the time of the Domesday book. I've left it with two outstanding issues: the first one is the status of the small map that says it depicts the state of the counties at the time of the Domesday Survey. In the light of the authoritative sources I've referenced, it is misleading. I've stated that in a footnote, but I wonder whether the map ought to be re-drawn. The second issue is concerned with the format for referencing. I've noticed that the references and full details of these that I have given are a bit more complete than the ones currently given (for example, I give the ISBN number and the place and publishers, as well as formatti9ng them slightly differently.) I've left them as they are, placing them in a separate bibliography section, as this use is one I've used before, and seems more suited to a situation where one is referencing multiple times, the same sources but with different page numbers for some of them. Would people object at all if I slowly made all non-website references conform to this method (placing them in a bibliography section, allowing them to be noted in a shorthand way in the notes section), or should I fit them in with what has been done before? A compromise might be to include the publishers and ISBN numbers on all the books so far referenced, but to merge mine in with the rest.  I'm happy to go either way, and will work to whatever consensus agrees upon here.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Corrected Misleading information about [[Cheshire]]&mdash;Done

message: W. L. Warren, The Myth of Norman Administrative Efficiency: The Prothero Lecture, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Ser., Vol. 34. (1984), pp. 113-132. 
Rutland is, according to Warren, "a striking example of Norman administrative bumbling" and  a "by-product of tenth century history". 
He states that the territories liberated from the Danes were shired "in the English fashion by hundreds and hides" as Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. When the Five Boroughs submitted four of them became Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire "though retaining their subdivision into wapentakes
and their Danish form of assessment".
The fifth of the "five boroughs" - Stamford -  had only three wapentakes. Warren reckons that Stamford was
constituted a royal soke: a "special jurisdiction" under direct royal control. 
He goes on to note there were a number of similar sokes in eastern England, including the Soke of Peterborough and the Liberty of Bury St Edmunds (which eventually became West Suffolk). 
He reckons that the status of Stamford as a soke was a temporary expediency for strategic reasons. Prior to the conquest the area had been divided: 
*Stamford was in Lincolnshire, 
*the southern wapentake had passed to Northamptonshire (and had been converted into a "double hundred" reassessed in hides).
*The two other wapentakes were "reckoned as part of" Nottinghamshire "to make up a deficiency in its assessment" and were still divided ino caracutes.
The Domesday Book recorded this situation.
By the time of the pipe roll of 1130 the Notinghamshire and Northamptonshire portions (assessed in hides and caracutes respectively) were considered a single district of Roteland under the control of royal forest officers. The sheriffs of Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire were seemingly still nominally in charge but were exempted from collecting geld in Roteland. This situation persisted until the 13th century. In the reign of King John when Rutland was removed from Northants and Notts and given its own sheriff. In a footnote he adds the caveat that "the evidence for the status of Rutland at the end of the twelfth century is equivocal", and that it was described as a comitatus in a royal charter of 1204,.
Warren attributes the creation of the territory of "Roteland" to William I's appropriation of royal estates in the area, which were supposed to pass to Westminster Abbey on the death of Queen Edith in 1075. As the area was good hunting land, he took it for a royal forest.
He concludes by asking: Why, we may ask, did the government persist for so long with an administrative fiction? The answer is that Domesday Book did not recognise the separate entity of Rutland but recorded it as divided between Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire, and for a century after its completion Domesday Book was sacrosanct: it was the administrators' bible.
He cites the following works which might be worth sniffing out:
*C. Phythian Adarns, Rutland reconsidered, in Mercian Studies, ed. A. Dornier (Leicester, 1977), 63-84
*F.M. Stenton, Rutland: introduction to the Domesday Survey, Victoria County History of Rutland, i. pp. 121 - 136.
Lozleader (talk) 20:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In short, am I right in thinking are you saying that Rutland ought to be omitted as a Domesday county? If this is the case, ought the map currently being used be ammended for the discrepencies of Cheshire and Rutland? All this is good wholesome scholarly research! -- Jza84 · (talk) 20:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it looks that way. Lozleader (talk) 20:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly does! I'll see what I can do for the map (though can't promise anything :-) ) -- Jza84 · (talk) 20:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK I've just given the map a blast in Adobe Photoshop. You may have to refresh your browsers to see the changes. I've changed the northern boundary of Cheshire and amalgamated Rutland with Northamptonshire - let me know if that's what the intention was, or if I can fix this further. -- Jza84 · (talk) 20:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rutland again 

message: In fact, now I am attending to this issue, another problem with the map occurs to me: the area in the north east and far north west was not even surveyed at the time, and so it seems misleading to denote Northumberland separately, and the rest as part of some "Greater Yorkshire". Although we cannot use wikipedia as a source for itself, the following paragraph from Domesday Book (its in the first section) accurately describes what my memory tells me was the case:
if this is the case, the entire northern part of the map could well be potentially misleading as a county is included which was not a "Domesday book" county, and northern parts of what is now England are included when, at the time, they were part of Scotland. I suspect if we agree upon this, the map needs some more radical editing, and some means of indicating potentially "unshired" areas is required.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for the edit conflict!... It seems there are lots, and lots of issues. But what strikes me as a possible solution is a map for Great Domesday, and another for Little Domesday? OR... something we could do, but I'm reluctant to say really, is remove the map altogether as original research. Certainly there are lots of ammendments here, like the Wales-Cheshire boundary which is an intresting one you pointed out. -- Jza84 · (talk) 00:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I really think at the moment we should simply remove the map as WP:OR because it is clearly an original synthesis of material from different sources. As we have seen, it isn't even totally accurate, because it relies on supposition. If we remove the map, we could then have separate maps of Little Domesday and Greater Domesday "overlaid" on a standard map of Great Britain. It would also need some explanation in the main text, I suggest. We need to attend to correcting the existing text as well. It just illustrates how oversimplified and inaccurate some of the facts stated in the Historic Counties movement can become, I think.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with these suggestions. -- Jza84 · (talk) 02:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made a tentative start at clarifying the text concerning the scope of the survey in the north of the country. If no one else objects, I will be prepared to remove the map, and we can take it on from there. Should we have a new map pre-prepared, so that we can "slot in" the new maps as soon as the old map is removed? It might lessen the potential problems of people thinking we were mucking around if we did that.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nothern England in Domesday 

message: What is the correct way to describle the governance of a hundred? Hundred court, Hundred meeting?  MRSC • Talk 16:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure the system was uniform, but Salfordshire had a pan-hundred court at Salford (hense the name). I'm not sure about the rest, but this may be an indicator. -- Jza84 · (talk) 17:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I've seen a few references to Hundred court. I think I'll go with that unless there was an alternative arrangement. Thanks. MRSC • Talk 19:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hundred court is the term used in material discussing the governance of Cheshire, although a local term (probably arising from Cheshire Palatine status) was sometimes used, they claim:  tourn.   Sources I've used are the Victoria History (Vol 1) for Cheshire, and Dorothy J Clayton's  (1990) book: The administration of the county palatine of Chester 1442-85.  A few more sources to give confidence, I  hope.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Hundred governance

message: Ancient counties seems like it might be a better term.  I agree that we should be careful to understand that administrative boundaries aren't the be all and end all here. There are all kinds of geographical regions which are not administrative units, no? john k (talk) 23:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm currently reading Hackwood, F. W., (1920), "The story of the shire". There is no mention of "historic counties" and one mention of "ancient counties". As others have noted Youngs, F. A. (1991), Guide to the local administrative units of England also uses "ancient" as does http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk which is based on that source. I think the move is uncontroversial given it reflects source material. MRSC (talk) 11:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the move.  Although "historic counties" may well be the term that is most frequently used in general parlance (see previous discussions), I think "ancient counties" wins out by virtue of the fact that it is less ambiguous and seems to have the weight of the most authoritative technical sources behind it.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:32, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There is some overlap, I see "historic boundaries" used in some sources and I have retained that in this article. MRSC (talk) 13:08, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

text: I know this after the fact, but would agree with the move, adding the additional point that the census reports of 1891/1901 (from memory) use the term.Lozleader (talk) 13:02, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Ancient (revisited)

message: Hackwood, F. W., (1920) gives the William of Malmesbury (c. 1080–c. 1143) list of counties:
*Nine counties under West Saxon law: Kent, Sussex, Surrey, " Hantshire," Berkshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, and Devonshire
*Eight were under Mercian law: Oxford, Warwick, Hereford, Gloucester, Shropshire, Stafford, Worcester, and Cheshire 
*Fifteen under Danish law: Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertford, Cambridge, Bedford, Buckingham, Huntingdon, " Northamton," Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, and Yorkshire
MRSC (talk) 17:04, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: William of Malmesbury

message: I don't have the book, but I query the statement, referenced to him, that "Counties ending in the suffix "-set" identify areas that were inhabited by settlers."  Is that in fact what he says?  So far as I was aware, the term "saete" referred to the "set" or "tribe" of people who lived within a particular area - "Dorset" being the people who lived in and around Dorchester, etc.  Saying that they were "settlers" implies that they were newly arrived from elsewhere, which I'm not sure was the case.  If he said it, he said it, but did he give any supporting evidence?  Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:44, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's the quote: "Although Wessex disappeared from the map, its divisions retain good Teutonic names. In the names Dorset and Somerset, the terminal 'set' or seat, signifies the habitation of settlers. MRSC (talk) 19:18, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, thanks.  I'll check out other refs some time to see whether that view still holds good.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Dorset in the Cambridge County Geographies series of 1909 reckons that Dorset is derived from "settlements in the area of the Durotriges", i.e. "Saxon" settlements in the area of a "Celtic" tribe. This doesn't seem to be a theory that has much currency now. The Somerset and Wiltshire volumes don't make such a claim for "soetas" or "saetas" in those county names.Lozleader (talk) 20:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This current site says: "Dorset is [literally] the saete, "inhabitants", of Duro- or Doro- country, that territory centred on Dorchester, the Roman-founded castra/ceaster of the indigenous Iron Age Durotriges. Its partner territory is Somerset..."   Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hackwood 

message: A number of other boroughs in the area were constituted counties corporate by royal charter. - Which boroughs does this refer? MRSC (talk) 11:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It is referring to a number of other boroughs in *Southern England* (Bristol, Norwich etc.). Probably a paragraph break or rewording is needed to make it clearer.Lozleader (talk) 14:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: London

message: The county geographies published by the Cambridge University Press in the first two decades of the twentieth century and edited by Francis Henry Hill Guillemard all contain a short chapter entitled "County and Shire. Meaning of the Word." The thesis was that "shire" was related to the verb to shear and represented something that had been shorn from a larger entity. Shires were "shares" of a larger territory. 
This was then used to explain why some counties ended in "shire" while others didn't. Those that approximated to entire kingdoms or tribal territories (eg Kent, Sussex) were not shares of a bigger area and therefore no "shire" suffix. Those that were formed by dividing a kingdom did have the suffix: Staffordshire and Warwickshire being "shares" of Mercia for example. In the case of Somerset/Somersetshire both forms were seen as correct as Somerset as a unit predated Wessex, but it was also a "share" of Wessex when it was divided into shires. 
Not sure if this theory holds water now? Is it worth mentioning? Lozleader (talk) 19:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like the kind of thing that modern scholars would dismiss, although I couldn't say for sure. john k (talk) 19:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, its probably nonsense. Doesn't seem to match the etymologies found in modern dictionaries in any case. Lozleader (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shire/Share 

message: Middlesex, which is labelled 22 in the legend, is labelled 16 in the 2nd picture. Paul Magnussen (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. Thanks for spotting. MRSC (talk) 08:40, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middlesex error 

message: *Durham: end 1836 - Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 c19
*Lancaster: start 1351, end 1875 Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 (36 & 37 Vict c66)
Any others? MRSC (talk) 15:16, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: *Isle of Ely is listed by Webb & Webb under their bit on palatine counties. Ended in 1837: Liberty of Ely Act, 1837 (7 Will 4 & 1 Vict c.53)(I think)Lozleader (talk) 15:43, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

text: Might be worth adding a "major divisions" list to the table to deal with this? Also, if we can track down a decent source that gives origins/start dates for some of the counties, that could go in. MRSC (talk) 07:23, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Have been working on something here for a long time... I have pasted the relevant part of this article there for editting too. There is a distinction to be made between divisions of counties (which possessed all or some of the machinery of a county) and subdivisions (hundreds and the like that were definitely subordinate to the county).Lozleader (talk) 11:26, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Start/end dates for palatines

message: As one who was an inky clerk in the days before postcodes I noticed some glaring omissions that I've rectified by reference to my 1974 Concise Oxford Dictionary plus 'Co. Durham' which I don't think was ever rendered in full. This source omits three that I recall using Mddx for Middlesex, Nflk for Norfolk and Sflk for Suffolk. Can anyone legitimise these? S a g a  C i t y (talk) 18:29, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Sadly, no... but have found some more (Mx for instance!). My COD is even older than yours!Lozleader (talk) 12:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abbreviations