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The word "earl" derives from Middle English "erl" meaning warrior, nobleman, equivalent to the jarl in Old Norse. It remains unclear whether there exists connection by etymology to the Anglo-Saxon term "Ealdorman" which translates literally as "Elder", "Senior", and refers to a chief counselor of the realm. That term survives in modern English as " Alderman", a councilman or representative in local government or a local church governing body. "Earl" replaced the Norman French-derived "count" due to the latter's resemblance to the unflattering word " cunt".
After the Norman Conquest the largest secular subdivision in England was the shire. This had not been the case in Anglo-Saxon England when some shires were grouped together into larger units known as earldoms, headed by a ealdormen or earl. Under Edward the ConfessorSt Edward the Confessor Rank 21st Ruled June 8, 1042- January 4/ 5, 1066 Predecessor Harthacanute Date of Birth 1004 Place of Birth Islip, Oxfordshire, England Wife Edith of Wessex Buried Westminster Abbey Date of Death January 4/ 5, 1066 Parents Ethelred (an Anglo-Saxon king), earldoms like Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria -- names that represent earlier independent kingdoms -- were much larger than any shire. These earldoms disappeared soon after the conquest. The Normans did appoint earls, however, they were associated with only a single shire, at most. There was no administrative layer larger than the shire after the Norman Conquest.
Earls originally functioned essentially as royal governors. The English kings found it dangerous to give additional powerSociologists usually define power as the ability to impose one's will on others, even if those others resist in some way. By power is meant that opportunity existing within a social relationship which permits one to carry out one's own will even against r to already powerful aristocratAristocracy is a form of government in which rulership is in the hands of an "upper class" known as aristocrats . The Greek origins of the word aristocracy imply the meaning of "rule by the best". This inevitably means those with the power to hold wealth,s, and so gradually sheriffSheriff is both a political and a legal office held under English common law, Scots law or American common law, or the person who holds such office. Modern usage United States In the United States a sheriff is generally the highest elected law-enforcements assumed the governing role. The details of this transition remain obscure, since earls in more peripheral areas (such as the Scottish and Welsh marchesMark or march (or various plural forms of these words) are derived from the Germanic word marko ("boundary") and refer to an area along a border, e. the borderland between England and Scotland; it seems that during Carolingian rule, the word spread throug and CornwallCornwall ( Cornish: Kernow is the part of Great Britain's south-west peninsula that is west of the River Tamar. It is generally regarded as a county of, and a part of England, although advocates of Cornish independence regard it as a separate nation, and) retained some viceregal powers long after other earls had lost them. The loosening of central authority during the AnarchyThe Anarchy in English history commonly names the period of civil war and unsettled government that occurred during the reign ( 1135 1154) of King Stephen of England. Stephen was a favourite nephew of King Henry I of England (reigned 1100 1135), whose onl also complicates any smooth description of the changeover.
A loose connection between earls and shires remained for a long time after authority had moved over to the sheriffs. An official defining characteristic of an earl consisted of the receipt of the "third penny" of the revenues of justice of a shire. Thus every earl had an association with some shire, and very often a new creation of an earldom would take place in favor of the county where the new earl already had large estates and local influence.
Also, due to the this association of earls and shires, the medieval practice could remain somewhat loose regarding the precise name used: no confusion could arise by calling someone earl of a shire, earl of the county town of the shire, or earl of some other prominent place in the shire; these all implied the same. Thus we find the "earl of Shrewsbury" (Shropshire), "earl of Arundel" or "earl of Chichester" (Sussex), "earl of Winchester" (Hampshire), etc. In a few cases the earl was traditionally addressed by his family name, e.g. the "earl Warenne" (in this case the practice may have arisen because these earls had little or no property in Surrey, their official county).
As this last case illustrates, an earl did not always have an intimate association with "his" county. Another example comes from the earls of Oxford, whose property largely lay in Essex. They became earls of Oxford because earls of Essex and of the other nearby shires already existed.
Eventually the connection between an earl and a shire disappeared, so that in the present day a number of earldoms take their names from towns, mountains, or simply surnames. Nevertheless, some consider that the earldoms named for counties (or county towns) retain more prestige.