User:DogOfDoom/sandbox

=Durham History=

Liberty of the Haliwerfolc
The territory was originally the Liberty of Durham under the control of the Bishop of Durham. The liberty was also known variously as the "Liberty of St Cuthbert's Land", "The lands of St. Cuthbert between Tyne and Tees" or "The Liberty of Haliwerfolc".

The bishops' special jurisdiction was based on claims that King Ecgfrith of Northumbria had granted a substantial territory to St Cuthbert on his election to the see of Lindisfarne in 684. In about 883, a cathedral housing the saint's remains was established at Chester-le-Street and Guthfrith, King of York granted the community of St Cuthbert the area between the Tyne and the Wear. In 995 the see was moved again to Durham. At some point during this era the community gradually to expand south and acquired most of the lands between the Tees and Wear, with the exception of parts of the north bank of the Tees which remained under the rule of the Earls of Northumbria.

The Vikings Kings of York recognised the Community of St Cuthbert as client rulers north of the Tees but did not attempt to extend their rule north of the river. Scandinavian settlement and cultural influence penetrated only a short distance north of the Tees whose valley formed a hybrid Anglo-Scandinavian zone. In the 10th century the West Saxon kings conquered the Viking Kingdom and York and incorporated it as a shire into the new unified Kingdom of England. The West Saxon shire system terminated at the Tees, leaving the Liberty of Durham and the Earldom of Northumberland as largely independent border provinces between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, however, the West Saxon kings recognised an enlarged Earldom of Northumbria encompassing both the Earldom Proper and the Liberty of Durham.

The Liberty of Durham enjoyed the "highest liberty in private hands" during the Middle Ages. In England, "liberty" usually meant a territorial area that was, in some sense, free from royal jurisdiction. Most of these territorial liberties extended as far back as the Anglo-Saxon period. St Cuthbert became politically important in defining the identity of the people living in the semi-autonomous region. Within this area the saint became a powerful symbol of the autonomy the region enjoyed. The inhabitants of the Palatinate became known as the haliwerfolc, which roughly translates as "people of the saint", and Cuthbert gained a reputation as being fiercely protective of his domain.

Norman Era
Durham city was captured by a Norman army in 1069. There was a rebellion against the new Norman earl Robert de Comines, who was killed. However, County Durham largely missed the Harrying of the North that was designed to subjugate such rebellions. The best remains of the Norman period are to be found in Durham Cathedral and in the castle, also in some few parish churches, as at Pittington and Norton in Stockton. Of the Early English period are the eastern portion of the cathedral, the churches of Darlington, Hartlepool, and St Andrew, Auckland, Sedgefield, and portions of a few other churches

Following the Norman invasion, the administrative machinery of government was only slowly extended north of the Tees. In the twelfth century the county of Northumberland was formed; both the Earldom of Northumberland proper and Liberty of Durham were considered to be within its bounds even when the liberty had an exchequer. Originally, the wapentake of Sadberge on the north bank of the Tees remained an integral part of the Earldom of Northumberland until it was purchased by bishop Hugh de Puiset in 1189 and gradually incorporated into the County Palatine; it retained separate assizes until 1586.

The authority of the sheriff of Northumberland and his officials was disputed by the bishops. The crown still regarded the Durham as falling within Northumberland until the late thirteenth century. Matters came to a head in 1293 when the bishop and his steward failed to attend proceedings of quo warranto held by the justices of Northumberland. The bishop's case was heard in Parliament, where he stated that Durham lay outside the bounds of any English shire and that "from time immemorial it had been widely known that the sheriff of Northumberland was not sheriff of Durham nor entered within that liberty as sheriff... nor made there proclamations or attachments".

The bishop's arguments appear to have been accepted, as by the fourteenth century Durham was accepted as a liberty which received royal mandates direct. In effect it was a private shire, with the bishop appointing his own sheriff. An assembly represented the whole palatine, and dealt chiefly with fiscal questions. The bishop's council, consisting of the clergy, the sheriff and the barons, regulated the judicial affairs, and later produced the Chancery and the courts of Admiralty and Marshalsea. The term palatinus is also applied to the bishop in 1293, and from the 13th century onwards the bishops frequently claimed the same rights in their lands as the king enjoyed in his kingdom. The area eventually became known as the "County Palatine of Durham".

The prior of Durham ranked first among the bishop's barons. He had his own court, and almost exclusive jurisdiction over his men. There were ten palatinate barons in the 12th century, the most important being the Hyltons of Hylton Castle, the Bulmers of Brancepeth, the Conyers of Sockburne, the Hansards of Evenwood, and the Lumleys of Lumley Castle.

Grammar

 * Modals can and will have uncontracted negative forms cannet and winnet.
 * Negative of auxilliary de (do) is dinnet or dinn't (in contrast with Geordie which favours divn't).
 * Second person pronouns are ya (unemphatic), ye (emphatic) and yous or yese (plural).
 * us for unemphatic first person object pronoun.
 * me is used for the first person singular possessive.
 * The indefinite article may be used with the numeral 'one'.
 * First person plural possessive is our (compare Tyneside wor). As in other Northumbrian dialects it may be used to denote kin and sexual partners.

Vocabulary

 * alarn - alone
 * an arl - as well, also (compare Scots an aw)
 * an't - aren't
 * aye - yes
 * clarts - mud
 * clivver - clever
 * dinnar - dunno
 * fower - four
 * fyace, pyat - face
 * gan - go
 * garn - going
 * gie's - give me
 * git - very
 * grar - grow
 * knar - know
 * leet - light
 * mair - more
 * mak - make
 * marra - friend, acquiantance
 * nak - hurt
 * neet - night
 * neen - none
 * nivver - never
 * pund - pound
 * reet - right
 * rund - round
 * snar - snow
 * watter - water
 * whe - who
 * whese - whose
 * wesh - wash
 * ya - you (unemphatic)
 * ye - you (emphatic)
 * yese - you (plural)
 * yem - home
 * yisterda - yesterday