LEICESTERSHIRE, a midland county of England, bounded north by Nottinghamshire, east by Lincolnshire and Rutland, south-east by Northamptonshire, south-west by Warwickshire, and north-west by Derbyshire, also touching Staffordshire on the west. The area is 823.6 sq. miles.
The main topographical feature of Leicestershire is the broad valley of the Soar, running south to north and separating the Charnwood forest from the uplands of the east. The river also divides the county geologically, the Jurassic forming the higher land of the east, and the Triassic the plain of the west with masses of older rocks protruding in places forming higher land. North west of Leicester is the Charnwood forest, composed of pre Cambrian volcanic ashes, grits and slates into which igneous rocks of granitic and dioritic composition were intruded in later pre Cambrian times. These emerge from the Trias plain of Keuper Marls and form a series of barren ridges which contrast with the deep fertile valleys of red marl between them. There are in trusions of igneous rocks south-west of Leicester at Sapscot, Croft, etc. West of the Charnwood forest are the outcrops of the Carboniferous limestones and coal measures of the Leicester coal field which represents the southward projection of the Pennine system below the Trias. These are faulted in places. The region was heavily glaciated in the Pleistocene and the older beds have been covered with boulder clay, whilst the gravel and sand beds in the valleys, which have yielded remains of mammoths, repre sent a late phase of the Ice age.
Even in Roman times there is little evidence of settlement apart from Leicester itself, and Venonae at the crossing of the Fosse way and Watling street. Leicester (Ratae) also was a cross roads on the Fosse way. There are a few minor settlements along these two routes, on Watling street, which runs along the south western boundary, and Fosse way, traversing the county north wards through Leicester to Lincoln.
The district which is now Leicestershire was reached in the 6th century by Anglian invaders who, making their way across the Trent, penetrated as as Leicester, the fall of which may be dated at about 556. In 679 the district formed the kingdom of the Middle Angles within the kingdom of Mercia, and on the sub division of the Mercian see in that year was formed into a separate bishopric having its see at Leicester. In the 9th century the district was subjugated by the Danes, and Leicester became one of the five Danish boroughs. It was recovered by Aethelflaed in 918, but the Northmen regained their supremacy shortly after, and the prevalence of Scandinavian place-names in the county bears evidence of the extent of their settlement. Leicestershire was a shire in the loth century, and at the time of the Domesday survey was divided into the four wapentakes of Guthlaxton, Framland, Goscote and Gartree. The Leicestershire survey of the 12th century shows an additional grouping of the vills into small hundreds, which have completely disappeared. In the reign of Edward I. the divisions appear as hundreds, and in the reign of Edward III. the additional hundred of Sparkenhoe was formed out of Guthlaxton. Before the 17th century Goscote was divided into East and West Goscote. Until 1566 Leicestershire and War wickshire had a common sheriff, the shire-court for the former being held at Leicester. Leicestershire constituted an archdea conry within the diocese of Lincoln from 1092 until its trans ference to Peterborough in 1837. In 1143 the Benedictine monks founded an abbey near Leicester; a nunnery was founded at Gracedieu in 124o, and an Augustinian priory in Charnwood in the 12th century.