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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 21, 2016 18:01:59 GMT
I usually think of the town in the Fens
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Sept 21, 2016 18:17:03 GMT
I usually think of the town in the Fens Not my part of the country but yes, you're quite right that there is further scope for confusion there. We really are far too unoriginal and repetitive when it comes to place names in this country.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 21, 2016 18:54:49 GMT
I'm not sure you'd need to add -shire, given that sæt is used perfectly normally as a county name - think of Dorset and Somerset, where Dorchester and Somerton seem to take their names from the local subdivision, whereas in most other cases the shires are named after whichever town was the most important military staging post in the early 10th century. Mercia would become March, incidentally, as it's the exact same word. Out of interest, how did you Wychshire compare with the vanished county of Winchcombeshire? You're right about "shire", I was just following the slightly old-fashioned practice that you find on old maps, where, e.g. Devon and Dorset become Devonshire and Dorsetshire respectively. But it is not redundant - "shire" seems to mean a division, a shearing off as it were, whereas "saete" means dwellers/occupants and has the same root as "settler" - I suspect you knew that! So Dorsetshire is "the government division of the dwellers in the land of the Durotriges". And, that is indeed the point about "March". It slightly niggles me that of all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, historians have given Mercia a Latinised name (presumably most of the sources are in Latin, unlike the AS Chronicle for Wessex) which just doesn't sound authentic to me. Too late now. But Tolkein would have got the point ("The Mark of the Rohirrim" being I imagine the old Brummy's tribute to his childhood home, along with the landscape of The Shire.) Charters attested by the rulers of the Hwicce seem to coincide with the diocese of Worcester, thus covering Worcs, Glos east of the Severn and Leadon, and some bits of Warks along the Avon. It'd be a big county, as would Magonsaete (most of Herefordshire and Shropshire!) There's also a charter for Bath which is outside the diocese entirely, though not that far away; nothing in Wychwood, though, oddly. Winchcombeshire would have been entirely within the Hwicce territory on that basis, but the evidence for it post-dates the Hwicce as an entity. It seems to have been an Alfredian shire arising on the standard burghal-town-plus-hinterland basis, like all the other midland shires, but was apparently abolished by the notorious Edric Streona in Aethelred the Unready's reign ("he tore up shires like paper" much like the 1974 reforms) as part of a land-grab. But it has been suggested that there are traces of it having an earlier existence as the heartland of the Hwicce, directly controlled by the family who later became kings of the Hwicce. So in my scheme I had it as a separate small shire - if you're going to use the Tribal hidage as your starting point you end up with gloriously inconsistent sizes of counties - as you probably know, there'd be some especially tiny ones in your neck of the woods. (David Hill, "An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England" presents the evidence graphically, you'll get a longer discussion is Barbara Yorke "Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England", Steven Basset (ed) "The Origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms" and Carolyn Heighway "Anglo-Saxon Gloucestershire.") I'm personally not too convinced by 'March' as the modern form. It's year since I did Old English and I paid little enough attention then, so I'm not an entirely reliable source (and I can't be bothered to try to find the relevant textbooks right now), but I think Mercia's name was rendered in Old English as Mierce, whereas the normalised (i. e. late West Saxon) form for the same word is mearce. That's not a big difference in phonology (compare Old Norse mörk and I presume the Old High German is mark or something similar), but it does show that there were differences between the dialects of the south and Midlands. Exactly how much is debatable - I have heard it argued by somebody who, unlike me, actually knows something about this, that the dialect divisions in Old English mostly reflect the fact that they're recorded at different time periods ( Kentish mostly 7th century, Northumbrian mostly 8th century, bugger all Mercian at any point but what there is mostly 9th century and West Saxon mostly 10th century onwards.) Even so, we're dealing with relatively large distances in a pre-modern society so you'd be surprised if there were not dialectal variations. The only medieval vernacular language I'm aware of without apparent dialects is medieval Irish, and that probably reflects the fact that it was a literary language which didn't necessarily correspond to how it was spoken day to day. I'm getting way way off topic from my original tangent, but my point is that I think if you're doing an alternative history I think you should emphasise the smaller changes and one way to do that would be to modernise it to something subtly differerent from 'March'. Attestations for the kings of Hwicce are a little difficult, as sometimes weaker kings (and they were major minors, the 8th century equivalent of the Green Party, say) would attest charters of their stronger overlords outside the borders. Also, it's not always possible to distinguish between Hwicce- and Mercia-focused aristocrats - there's a decent argument that Offa's family drew their powerbase from Hwicce, for example. As for Winchcombeshire, the argument for it being eliminated by Eadric Streona is a little weak, as he does tend to get blamed for everything, like most fallen majordomos. It stops being mentioned long before him and it may just be because it stopped being useful and was got rid of. It has to be remembered that the shire was basically a military unit and from about 930 onwards southern Worcestershire was not a locus of conflict nor likely to become so, so there was no reason to keep such a small shire. Particularly since Worcestershire needed to be built up, on the basis that that was where the Archbishops of York were drawing their revenues from (all the archbishops were also bishops of Winchester for decades afterwards) and Yorkshire was consistently a locus of conflict.
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Sept 22, 2016 8:56:02 GMT
The archbishops of York were also bishops of Winchester? Interesting. Any particular reason?
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Post by froome on Sept 22, 2016 10:33:43 GMT
I usually think of the town in the Fens Not my part of the country but yes, you're quite right that there is further scope for confusion there. We really are far too unoriginal and repetitive when it comes to place names in this country.[/b] Yes far too many Nempnett Thrubwells round here. This discussion about old shires is one of the most fascinating I've read on this forum, and is certainly of interest to me, but it is a bit, how should I say this?... er, Off Topic. Could a new thread be started there before it all gets lost in this by-elections thread?
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 22, 2016 16:53:35 GMT
Not my part of the country but yes, you're quite right that there is further scope for confusion there. We really are far too unoriginal and repetitive when it comes to place names in this country.[/b] Yes far too many Nempnett Thrubwells round here. This discussion about old shires is one of the most fascinating I've read on this forum, and is certainly of interest to me, but it is a bit, how should I say this?... er, Off Topic. Could a new thread be started there before it all gets lost in this by-elections thread?[/quote] And all those Sheepy Magnas
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Sept 22, 2016 18:36:05 GMT
Nempnett Thrubwell and Sheepy Magna are new ones to me. I've previously referenced Newton Blossomville on here.
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Post by David Ashforth on Sept 22, 2016 19:19:51 GMT
Nempnett Thrubwell and Sheepy Magna are new ones to me. I've previously referenced Newton Blossomville on here. (I hope finsobruce doesn't mind me beating him to it )
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Post by Old Fashioned Leftie on Sept 22, 2016 22:06:17 GMT
Labour Gain Christchurch (Allerdale)
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Post by Old Fashioned Leftie on Sept 22, 2016 22:10:11 GMT
Christchurch (Allerdale)Result
LAB: 40.7% (+5.8) LDEM: 29.4% (+20.0) CON: 25.9% (-19.3) UKIP: 4.0% (+4.0)
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Sept 22, 2016 22:21:16 GMT
PC gain over Ind in Cilycwm, Carmartheshire.
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Post by nigelashton on Sept 22, 2016 22:23:42 GMT
Ah yes, the same song that has been sung at every Lib Dem Conference Glee Club since 1997.
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Post by nigelashton on Sept 22, 2016 22:26:10 GMT
You're not going to get many Blairites if all your party keep using that hackneyed, stupid, meaningless phrase "illegal war" and sing songs telling Tony Blair to "fuck off and die". I know the LibDem councillor who wrote the song about Owen Smith. He said he's happy for Liberals within any party to join but doesn't welcome Blairites Hi Mike :-)
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Sept 22, 2016 22:29:27 GMT
Labour gain over SNP in Coatbridge North and Glenboig, N Lanarkshire.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 22, 2016 22:30:59 GMT
CARMARTHENSHIRE Cilycwm
Dayfdd Tomos, Plaid Cymru - 201 Thomas Davies, Independent - 151 Maria Carroll, Welsh Labour - 123 Matthew Paul, Independent - 106 Jacqui Thompson, People First – Fighting for the Community - 64 Catherine Nakielny, Welsh Liberal Democrats - 62 Steven Holmes, Welsh Conservative Party -15
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Post by nigelashton on Sept 22, 2016 22:32:13 GMT
Nempnett Thrubwell and Sheepy Magna are new ones to me. I've previously referenced Newton Blossomville on here. I've been to Newton Blossomville, and to Marsh Gibbon (both in the pre-1983 Buckingham constituency, together with the whole of Milton Keynes)
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Post by mrhell on Sept 22, 2016 22:34:11 GMT
Chopwell and Rowlands Gill LAB: 59.1% (-3.7) UKIP: 15.6% (+1.3) LDEM: 12.3% (+7.9) CON: 8.6% (-2.3) GRN: 4.4% (-3.2)
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Sept 22, 2016 22:35:11 GMT
Cilycym, Carmarthenshire
PC 201 (27.8%) Ind Davies 151 (20.9%) Lab 123 (17.0%) Ind Paul 106 (14.5%) PF 64 (8.9%; -28.4) LD 62 (8.6%) Con 15 (2.1%; -17.1)
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Post by Old Fashioned Leftie on Sept 22, 2016 22:36:14 GMT
CARMARTHENSHIRE Cilycwm Dayfdd Tomos, Plaid Cymru - 201 Thomas Davies, Independent - 151 Maria Carroll, Welsh Labour - 123 Matthew Paul, Independent - 106 Jacqui Thompson, People First – Fighting for the Community - 64 Catherine Nakielny, Welsh Liberal Democrats - 62 Steven Holmes, Welsh Conservative Party -15 Conservative vote down from 136 to 15!
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Sept 22, 2016 22:36:47 GMT
Chopwell and Rowlands Gill LAB: 59.1% (-3.7) UKIP: 15.6% (+1.3) LDEM: 12.3% (+7.9) CON: 8.6% (-2.3) GRN: 4.4% (-3.2) In votes: Lab 1066 UKIP 282 LD 221 Con 156 Grn 79
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