[1. County] and Shire. The Name Hertfordshire. Its Origin and Meaning.
The only true and right way of learning geography (which in its widest sense comprehends almost everything connected with the earth) is to become acquainted with the geography—or, strictly speaking, the topography—and history of the district in which we live. Modern England is split up into a number of main divisions known as counties, and in some instances also as shires; the word shire, when it is used, being added at the end of the county name. Thus we have the county of Essex or the county of Hertford; but whereas in the former case the word shire is never added, it may be in the case of the latter. We then have either the county of Hertford, or Hertfordshire, as the full designation of the territorial unit in which we dwell. In official documents our area is always mentioned under the title of the “County of Hertford”; but imperfectly educated persons when filling in such documents frequently write the “County of Hertfordshire.” This is wrong and superfluous; shire being equivalent to county.
The word county signifies an area of which a count or earl is the titular head. Here it may be incidentally mentioned that the title “Earl” is of Saxon origin, which it was attempted to replace after the Conquest by the Norman-French “Count”; the attempt being successful only in the case of an Earl’s consort, who is still known as “Countess.” It also obtained in the case of “County,” which is thus practically equivalent to “Earldom.”
It now remains to enquire why some counties are also known as shires, while others are not thus designated. In Anglo-Saxon times England, in place of being one great kingdom, was split up into a number of petty kingdoms, each ruled by a separate sovereign. Essex was then a kingdom by itself, situated in the east of the country; while Wessex was a western kingdom, and Mercia a sovereignty more in the heart of the country. Essex and Sussex, being small kingdoms, were constituted counties by themselves when the country came under a single dominion, and their names have consequently remained without addition or alteration from Anglo-Saxon times to our own day. The larger kingdoms, such as Wessex and Mercia, were, on the other hand, split up into shares, or shires,—i.e. that which is shorn or cut off—and their names have disappeared except as items in history. Hertfordshire, then, is in great part a share of the ancient kingdom of Mercia, of which, indeed, it seems to have formed a centre, as the Mercian kings spent at least a portion of their time at Berghamstedt (Berkhampstead). It is however only the larger western portion of the county that belonged to Mercia, a smaller area on the eastern side originally being included in the kingdom of Essex.
As to the meaning of the name Hertford, there has been some difference of opinion among archaeologists. In that extremely ancient chronicle, “Domesday Book,” the name, it appears, is spelt Herudsford, which is interpreted as meaning “the red ford.” The more general and obvious interpretation is, however, that of “hart’s-ford,” from the Anglo-Saxon heort, a hart, or stag; and this explanation is supported by the occurrence in other parts of the country of such names as Oxford, Horseford, Gatford (= goat’s-ford), Fairford (= sheep’s-ford), and Swinford. Writing on this subject in a paper on Hertfordshire place-names published in 1859, the Rev. Henry Hall, after alluding to the custom of naming fords after animals, concluded as follows:—“At all events, the custom is so prevalent, and the word hart so common for Anglo-Saxon localities, as Hart’s-bath, Hartlepool (the Hart’s pool), Hartly—that though several other derivations have been given for the capital of the county, none seems so simple, or so satisfactory, as that which interprets it to mean the hart’s ford.”
This interpretation has been adopted by that division of His Majesty’s local forces formerly known as the Hartfordshire Militia. Possibly it is supported by the title of a neighbouring village, Hertingfordbury, that is to say, the stronghold near Hertingford,—the ford at the hart’s meadow. Whether or not it has anything to do with the matter, it may be worthy of mention that red-deer antlers occur in considerable abundance buried in the peat of Walthamstow, lower down the Lea valley, in Essex.