Why does Britain have counties but no counts?

[BrainGlutton]

In Europe, a “county” originally was the fief of a count. But the rank of count has never existed in the British peerage – they use the Anglo-Saxon title of “earl.” (There are “countesses,” but only for lack of a feminine form of the Anglo-Saxon title.) So why does Britain call its local political-administrative units “counties”?

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

For whatever reason English nobles corresponding in rank to Continental counts are called Earls, which was the older Anglo Saxon term. Their wives however are called Countesses. (And so are countesses in their own right, if any).

[Alive_At_Both_Ends]

It’s a holdover from the Norman invasion. The administrative subdivisions of England were originally called “shires” as the names of many of them still make clear. But after the Normans took over, they renamed them “counties” by analogy with counties in Normandy.

Scottish, Welsh and Irish counties were created later, along the same lines.

[GorillaMan]

Two paragraphs from Wikipedia are enough to show that previous posters have pretty much given the answer:

The United Kingdom is divided into a number of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. There are also ceremonial counties and traditional counties which have no administrative function but exist as geographic areas. The metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties had replaced in 1974 a system of administrative counties which were introduced in 1889.

Most non-metropolitan counties in England are run by county councils and divided into non-metropolitan districts, each with its own council.

Good luck understanding that! County - Wikipedia
It had actually never occured to me that the words were related. And as Alive At Both Ends hints, ‘the shires’ is still a fairly common term, at least in political context, when meaning ‘rural areas of England’.

[Monty]

Could you expand a tad on ceremonial counties?

[GorillaMan]

@Monty

Could you expand a tad on ceremonial counties?

I wouldn’t have a clue, but again, Wikipedia is the best option. Ceremonial counties of England - Wikipedia

[glee]

It’s worse than you think.

Before I moved up here to Rutland (about 16 years ago), it was the smallest county in England.
Then it became part of Leicestershire.
Then it went independent again.

So far so good.

However Rutland is not a county now. Instead it’s a ‘unitary authority’. :eek:

‘In addition in some English counties with small populations, such as Rutland, Herefordshire and the Isle of Wight, the entire county is a unitary authority.’

Unitary authority

Thus the council is not a county council any more, just a district council.
However they want to keep their status.
So now I send my local taxes to Rutland County Council District Council.

[RealityChuck]

@Spectre of Pithecanthropus

For whatever reason English nobles corresponding in rank to Continental counts are called Earls, which was the older Anglo Saxon term. Their wives however are called Countesses. (And so are countesses in their own right, if any).

And it’s believed the reason that they use the Anglo-Saxon term (since they were happy to use countess for the wife of an Earl) was due to issues with another old Anglo-Saxon word that is both very close to “count” and is, even today, very taboo.

[Lumpy]

@RealityChuck

And it’s believed the reason that they use the Anglo-Saxon term (since they were happy to use countess for the wife of an Earl) was due to issues with another old Anglo-Saxon word that is both very close to “count” and is, even today, very taboo.

Yes, the gentry is full of gents and the country is full of … counts.

[ouryL]

@Alive At Both Ends

It’s a holdover from the Norman invasion. The administrative subdivisions of England were originally called “shires” as the names of many of them still make clear. But after the Normans took over, they renamed them “counties” by analogy with counties in Normandy.

Scottish, Welsh and Irish counties were created later, along the same lines.

So Shires had Sheriffs?

[GorillaMan]

@ouryL

So Shires had Sheriffs?

Yes - originally Shire Reeves.

Modern meaning of Sheriff in England & Wales and Scotland.

[Polycarp]

@GorillaMan

Yes - originally Shire Reeves.

Modern meaning of Sheriff in England & Wales and Scotland.

The Counties of Ontario, Canada, still have Reeves, though what they do in their official positions is something I don’t know.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

Aren’t English counties considered large subdivisions, almost like provinces? In other words, it seems like most of the larger counties are quite a bit bigger than the domain of an Earl would have been in the past. Many counties seem to have ducal titles associated with them, like Bedfordshire (?), Lancaster, and Cornwall.

[GorillaMan]

Lancaster is the city - Lancashire is the county. And Bedfordshire comes from the county town of Bedford.

The names of many counties have histories which reflect the local history. Cornwall is a very independent place, and the name has the same origins as the Cornish Kernow. Anglo-Saxon kingdoms provide the names of Essex, Northumberland, and Middlesex (which doesn’t exist any longer). Suffolk and Norfolk are also Anglo-Saxon names.

[Chronos]

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the term “earldom” used… Why wouldn’t this name be used in Britain, instead of “county”?

[BobT]

Canadian reeves are basically mayors except they are in charge of smaller cities.

[GorillaMan]

Re. Earldoms:

Some shires were grouped together into larger units known as earldoms, headed by an ealdorman or earl. Under Edward the Confessor earldoms like Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria — names that represented earlier independent kingdoms — were much larger than any shire.

Earls originally functioned essentially as royal governors. Though the title of Earl was nominally equal to continental count, unlike them earls were not de facto rulers in their own right.

After the Norman Conquest William the Conqueror tried to rule England using the traditional system but eventually modified it to his own liking. Shire became the largest secular subdivision in England and earldoms disappeared. The Normans did create new earls like those of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire but they were associated with only a single shire at most. There was no administrative layer larger than the shire any more and shires became “counties”. Earls no longer aided in tax collection or made decisions in country courts and their numbers were small.

Earl

[Bytegeist]

@GorillaMan

The names of many counties have histories which reflect the local history.

Some shires were grouped together into larger units known as earldoms, headed by an ealdorman or earl. Under Edward the Confessor earldoms like Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria — names that represented earlier independent kingdoms — were much larger than any shire.

Behold — East Anglia.

I’m curious. Was there ever a West Anglia? Or any other type of Anglia? Seems like you could ditch the “East” part now.

[GorillaMan]

There were other tribes of Angles, but no distinct kingdom to compare with East Anglia, and they merged into Mercia.

[Polycarp]

@Spectre of Pithecanthropus

Aren’t English counties considered large subdivisions, almost like provinces? In other words, it seems like most of the larger counties are quite a bit bigger than the domain of an Earl would have been in the past. Many counties seem to have ducal titles associated with them, like Bedfordshire (?), Lancaster, and Cornwall.

An English county is older and more important politically than a typical U.S. or Canadian county. “Bigger” is an artifact of scale; I believe typical counties in each country are of nearly the same size, barring oddball situations that are exceptions to that principle.

Originally, shire and earl were in a one-on-one relationship, at least post Conquest. (I do not want to figure out what the Mercia that Leofric, Godwin, and Harold were Earls of was, in relation to the earlier kingdom and later counties in the area. The Earl held that county as a fief from the King, and in turn was the suzerain of his own retainers.

The title of Duke was first used in England (other than the claims of English monarchs to be Duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine in France) in 1337, as a special honor for members of the royal family; the first non-royal duke created was a favorite of Richard II in 1397.

So effectively there is a historical relationship (no longer with any special meaning) between an earldom and the county after which it is named. A shire that shares a name with a dukedom is simply the result of the earl or one of his ancestors having been “promoted,” or the later creation of a duchy “in abeyance” for an extra royal family member. (Note: as with all things British, there are two exceptions to this rule: the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are a large number of specific non-contiguous parcels of land in London and elsewhere (including quite a bit of Cornish land but almost nothing in Lancashire) from which much of the income of the Queen and Prince Charles respectively are derived.)