COUNTY, the Norman equivalent of the old English "shire" (q.v.), which has survived as its synonym, though occasionally also applied to divisions smaller than counties, e.g., Norhamshire, Hexamshire and Hallamshire.
In the period preceding the Norman Conquest two officers ap pear at the head of the county organization. These are the ealdor man and the scirgerefa or sheriff (q.v.). The shires of Wessex appear each to have had an ealdorman, whose duties were to command its military forces, to preside over the county assembly (scirgemot), to carry out the laws and to execute justice. The ealdorman gave away to the earl, probably under Danish in fluence, in the first half of the I 1 th century, and it is probable that the office of sheriff came into existence in the reign of Canute (1017-35), when the great earldoms were formed and it was no longer possible for the earl to perform his various administra tive duties in person in a group of counties. After the Norman Conquest the earl was occasionally appointed sheriff of his county, but in general his only official connection with it was to receive the third penny of its pleas, and the earldom ceased to be an office and became merely a title. In the 12th century the office of coroner (q.v.) was created, two or more of them being chosen in the county court as vacancies occurred. In the same century verderers were first chosen in the same manner for the purpose of holding inquisitions on vert and venison in those counties which contained royal forests. The county was from an early period regarded as a community, and approached the king as a corporate body, while in later times petitions were presented through the knights of the shire. It was also an organic whole for the purpose of the conservation of the peace. The assessment of taxation by commissioners appointed by the county court developed in the i3th century into the representation of the county by two knights of the shire elected by the county court to serve in parliament, and this representation continued unaltered save for a short period during the Protectorate, until 1832, when many of the counties received a much larger representation, which was still further increased by later Acts.
The royal control over the county was strengthened from the 14th century onward by the appointment of justices of the peace (q.v.). This system was further developed under the Tudors, while in the middle of the 16th century the military functions of the sheriff were handed over to a new officer, the lord-lieutenant, who is now more prominently associated with the headship of the county than is the sheriff. The lord-lieutenant now usually holds the older office of custos rotulorum (q.v.). The justices of the peace are appointed upon his nomination, and until lately he ap pointed the clerk of the peace. The latter appointment is now made by the joint committee of quarter sessions and county council. The Tudor system of local government received little alteration until the establishment of county councils by the Local Government Act of 1888 handed over to an elected body many of the functions previously exercised by the nominated justices of the peace. For the purposes of this Act the ridings of Yorkshire, the divisions of Lincolnshire, east and west Sussex, east and west Suffolk, the soke of Peterborough, London, the Isle of Ely and the Isle of Wight are counties, making 62 administrative counties of England and Wales. Between 1373 and 1692 the Crown granted to certain cities and boroughs the privilege of being counties of themselves. There were in 1835 eighteen of these counties corporate, Bristol, Chester, Coventry, Gloucester, Lincoln, Norwich, Nottingham, York and Carmarthen, each of which had two sheriffs, and Canterbury, Exeter, Hull, Lichfield, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Poole, Southampton, Worcester and Haverfordwest, each of which had one sheriff. All these boroughs, with the exception of Carmarthen, Lichfield, Poole and Haver fordwest, which remain counties of themselves, and 47 others, were created county boroughs by the Local Government Act 1888, and are entirely dissociated from the control of a county council. The City of London is also a county of itself, whose two sheriffs are also sheriffs of Middlesex, while for the purposes of the Act of 1888 the house-covered district which extends for many miles round the City constitutes a county.