The Ridings, Wapentakes, and Hundreds. – The shire of York, being too large to be administered as a whole, was divided into third parts or Thridings, corrupted afterwards into Ridings. The meaning of the name was well known down to the time of the Norman conquest, one of the Ridings, the North, being spoken of as a Riding, or Thriding, in Domesday Book.
The word wapentake is of Anglian origin, and means a district in which the people were organized to take arms, when summoned to do so by their King or their local chiefs. The names of most of the Yorkshire wapentakes are older than the Danish invasion, and most of them are derived from Anglian or English roots. The wapentakes or hundreds were more numerous before the Norman conquest than they are now; but the greater part of the names of the ancient wapentakes are still preserved, either in those of the modern wapentakes, or in those of the lieutenancy divisions, which were formed, though in a very much later age, for the purpose of organizing the military forces of the crown in each of the three lord-lieutenancies of the county. We shall give the modern names of the wapentakes of the three Ridings; the names of all the Yorkshire wapentakes, as written in the Domesday Survey, A.D. 1084-86; and those of the modern lieutenancy divisions, made in a much later age, but for the same purpose. Even the ancient names, though now gone out of use, throw light on the early organization of the county for civil and military purposes.
Source: Yorkshire Past and Present; Thomas Baines circa 1868-73.
