POLITICAL HISTORY' Part I — To 1625 RUTLAND, the smallest county of England, has played no con- spicuous part in the political history of the country. Indeed, the chief point of interest in its early history is the question how it became a county at all. There is an element of paradox in its position. In a sense it has a greater individuality than the other midland counties, for alone among them it has a distinct name of its own, all the others having been named from the towns which became the county capitals.'^ The name may be compared with those of Aveland Hundred in Lincolnshire and Framland Hundred in Leicestershire, and the larger districts of Holland and Cleveland ; but no one of these districts became a county, and among the names of the existing counties the only parallels to Rutland are found in the three most northerly counties of England. The original ' Roteland ' was even smaller than the modern county, comprising only the two wapentakes of Alstoe and Martinsley (the latter then including the district which later became the hundred of Oakham Soke),' while the modern East Hundred and Wrangdike Hundred formed the hundred of ' Wiceslei ' in Northamptonshire. This small district might have been expected to retain its name in popular and perhaps in legal use as a division of one of the surrounding counties of Lincoln, Leicester, and Northampton, but not to become a separate county. What special cause brought about its separate status is a question which has not yet been completely solved. In early times the district had no individuality. The Roman occu- pation has already been dealt with. In the earlier period of the Anglo- Saxon settlement it appears to have formed part of the territory of the Middle Angles. Their chief settlement was about Leicester, but they appear to have extended to the south-east as far as Oundle in Northamptonshire.* In the ' This article was originally entrusted to Mr. C. J. B. Gaskoin, M.A., who found himself through the pressure of other engagements unable to do more than collect a considerable amount of material. This has been placed at the disposal of the present writers, who desire to acknowledge the share taken by Mr. Gaskoin in the work. '" The only other exception among the Mercian shires is Shropshire, whose name is cognate with rather than derived from that of Shrewsbury ; Freeman, Norm. Conq. i, 49 n. No plausible suggestion has been made as to the meaning of ' Rote-,' ' Rut-' land. The early guesses were merely fmtastic, and the suggestion made in Leics. and Rut. N. and Q. ii, 73-6, that ' Rote ' represents ' Ratae,' rests on the baseless supposition that the latter was a tribal name. The form ' Rutlandshire ' is quite unhistorical. It frequently occurs, indeed, from the 16th century onwards, and has sometimes appeared in official use, but no inhabitant of the county would dream of using it. ' See the article on ' Domesday Survey,' p. 121. ' See the article on ' Romano-British Rutland.'
- Hist. Ch. York (Rolls Ser.), i, 97 ; Bede, Ecd. Hist, iv, 21 ; v, 19.
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