"Rutlandshire": did it exist?

[crowboy97]

Pigot and Co's National Commercial Directory 1828-29 refers to Rutlandshire as does Pigot's 1841.

However White's 1846 Directory refers to "Leicestershire and the Small County of Rutland".

Slater's Directories of 1850 and 1858 refer to Rutlandshire.

An old map(Badeslade and Toms) 1741 refers to Rutland Shire (two words).

Crowboy

[antiquary]

In answer to the original question, the etymology of the county name of Rutland is generally accepted as deriving from 'Rota's land', and the earliest forms do not have the suffix '-shire'. Although an area known as Rutland is first attested pre-Conquest as dowry land of Mercian queens, Rutland as a county emerges somewhat later. Rutland came to be regarded as a 'shire county' and is frequently referred to in post-medieval sources as 'Rutlandshire'. You can safely regard the two names as synonymous, but the preferred usage is 'Rutland'. For the origins of the county, see Charles Phythian-Adams in Rutland Record no 1 (1980), 5-12 (published by Rutland Local History & Record Society)..

[ScouseBoy]

Perhaps  it is like  other counties such as Devon,   or Westmorland and Cumberland  which seldom or never  had "shire"    attached  to them?

They do talk about "shire"    counties don't they?

[HughC]

Thank you, antiquary.  I think that confirms my suspicion, that the "-shire" is unetymological here.

As a possible answer to another question posed in this thread, I've just found in a book:
>>
Mon is a mysterious name closely connected with Man.  Some scholars think that both these island names come in some way from Manannan, the ancient Celtic god of the sea.
<<

Seems very likely, and the Romans took over a local name.  And of course Caernarfon is the castle facing Mon, whose initial letter aspirates (one of the features of Celtic languages that makes them so hard to learn!).

[KGarrad]

Mona, for the Isle of Man comes from the Latinised version of the name of the island.

In Manx, the island is Ellan Vannin; Vannin being the genitive case of Mannin with initial consonant mutation.
The Old Irish form of the name is Manau or Mano. Old Welsh records named it as Manaw.
The name is probably cognate with the Welsh name of the island of Anglesey, Ynys Môn, usually derived from a Celtic word for 'mountain' (reflected in Welsh mynydd).

The name was at least secondarily associated with that of Manannán mac Lir in Irish mythology (corresponding to Welsh Manawydan fab Llŷr).

[HughC]

You're evidently well informed, KGarrad.  I did rather suspect that Môn and Man are basically the same name.

The nearest I can find in Irish is mín, a mountain pasture, which of course is not the same as the mountain itself but at least related to it.  And could they be from the same Indoeuropean root as Latin mons?

We seem to have strayed rather from Rutland, but it's just as interesting. 

[KGarrad]

You're evidently well informed, KGarrad.

It's what happens when you live on the Isle of Man!

[Rena]

There was an explanation about the smallest English county shire of Rutland on TV a while back where it was explained that historically it was given to a queen so that she could be independent of her husband.  It only covers 151 square miles

I've surfed and found the date:  "Rutland was bequeathed to the Anglo-Saxon Queen's, this tradition started with Emma, mother of Edward the Confessor, who was granted 'Roteland' on her marriage to King Ethelred in AD 1002."

 http://www.discover-rutland.co.uk/discover-rutland/curiosities-of-rutland

[dcbnwh]

Most of the old maps on this site are of Rutlandshire.

http://www.antique-prints-maps.com/acatalog/Rutland_antique_maps.html

David