Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
England recently had her annual local election season, in which the composition of a selection of local governments were voted on. The eclectic range of governing categories ranged from district councils to metropolitan mayoralities and from unitary authorities to territorial policing commissions, painting a representative picture of the sheer complexity and peculiarity of local government in England. Luckily I happen to be an expert on the topic of English local government, so I will outline a broad historical and contemporary picture of the system here.
To understand the frankly dull complexity of the modern system we must first look at its genesis and development over the two millennia of organised state government in Britain, starting with the mythological etiology of local governance found in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth and in the Welsh "Mabinogion" epic. Here we find the story of the first King of Britain: Brutus of Troy, who conquers Britain and divides it in into four realms: one for his loyal general Corineus and three for his sons. Each realm was named in honour of its respective lord: to Corineus the tin-enriched land of Cornwall; to his first son Prince Locrinus the largest realm of Loegria, roughly equating to England with her capital at "New Troy" (later London); to his second son Prince Albanactus the land of Albany, north of the Humber estuary; and finally to his third son Kamber the land of Cambria (Cymru) west of the River Severn and generally equating to Wales. These four realms stayed generally intact, so the mythology of mediaeval manuscripts says, for several hundreds of years; sometimes in union together, sometimes as independent and warring kingdoms. Geoffrey provides a full recount of the era in his "Historia Regum Britanniae" which you can read online. During this time Loegria remained the most important realm, with it becoming customary that the Duke of Cornwall be made the Loegrian King's first son and thus heir to the high throne of Britain, which is still the case today. Famous figures from this era are "King Lear" and "King Cymbeline", both of Shakespearean fame. Overtime the people of Britain divided down into separate warring tribes, and new peoples arrived from across the seas such as the Hibernians to Ireland or the Picts to "Caledonia", Northern Scotland, leaving the island in a divided and weak state.
^ The Ancient Realms of Britain
By the time of Caesar's arrival on the southern shores of Loegria in 55BC, any overarching governance of Britain had largely collapsed, allowing the Roman Legions to easily subjugate the land through divide and conquer. After the downfall of the final British King Cymbeline, and the failed rebellion of Queen Boudicca, the Romans placed the conquered Britain under the imperial province of "Provincia Britannia", extending up to Hadrian's Wall abutting the modern Scottish border. The Romans founded many cities (everywhere ending in -chester, -xeter or -cester) and developed many of the primary roads that we still use today. As Roman power waned and the legions started to return to Italy, the Romans left behind a British population incapable of governing themselves effectively, and apparently incapable of recording their own history properly too. We must again return to the dubious annals of mediaeval historians to understand this formative time for the country. Somewhere in the late 4th century arises the figure of "Old King Cole", a Romano-Briton who rose to become the first High King of the Britons after Rome's retreat. The land is plunged into anarchy soon after however with various British tribes wrestling for control. We then get "King Vortigern", a shadowy figure who allegedly invited the Germanic Prince Brothers Hengist & Horsa to settle in Kent in exchange for helping him defeat enemy tribes. This backfires tremendously, opening the floodgates to thousands of Germanic pagan warriors to invade and settle the British coastline. The Britons fight back but the strength of the Anglo-saxon invaders is overwhelming, that is until the arrival of King Arthur. Arthur famously rallied the Christians of Britain to fight back against the heathen invaders, preventing them from finishing off the Britons and retaking London in the process. His efforts were only stopped due to his death at the Battle of Camlann at the hands of the treacherous Sir Mordred, after which the Anglosaxon advance continued. However the Anglosaxons soon converted to Christianity through the efforts of St Augustine of Canterbury, and proceeded to set up seven independent Christian Kingdoms which came to control all but the fringes of Loegria: this period of history is known as the "Heptarchy".
^ The Kingdoms of the Heptarchy
Its worth discussing these seven kingdoms as they will end up coalescing into England under Alfred the Great in 886. They can be divided into three groups: the Jutes, who arrived first; the Angles & the Saxons. First is the eldest of the seven: Kent. Founded by the aforementioned Jutish brothers Hengist and Horsa, the Kentishmen hailed from what is now continental Denmark and set up their capital in Canterbury. They where also the first to convert to Christianity, hence English Religion has been based out of Canterbury to this day. Next are the three Kingdoms of the Angles: East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia. East Anglia was broadly separated from the bulk of England by a vast area of marshland known as the Fens, which were not drained until the 1600s. They were split into two closely related tribes, which gives us the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk: the "Northern Folk" and the "Southern Folk". They also controlled the Isle of Ely within the Fens, which became an important centre for Christian monkery. Northumbria was originally two separate kingdoms: Deira between the Humber and the River Tees (matching Yorkshire), and Bernicia north of the River Tees. During the beginning of the Heptarchy Period Northumbria was the most powerful Kingdom, and would have probably ended up founding England themselves if it were not for the Viking Raids on their coast beginning with the raid on Lindisfarne (more monkery) in 793. The last is Mercia, the largest of the seven Kingdoms ranging across the whole of Middle England. Mercia's origins are ambiguous but it seems to have been an assimilationist state which absorbed many of the British peoples rather than replacing them. During the middle of the Heptarchy Period "Mercian Supremacy" had Mercia poised to themselves create a united England, but their fortunes were again thwarted by the full-on invasion of the "Great Heathen Army" in 865. Next we have the Saxon Kingdoms of Essex, Sussex and Wessex. The former two were small kingdoms based in their respective modern-day counties. Their borders changed at the whims of their larger neighbours, the areas surrounding London especially. North of the Thames (where London sat) became a middle-ground for trade between the Saxon kingdoms, thus the area was named "Middlesex". The land South of the Thames became the creatively named "South Region" -> So'-Reign -> Surrey. In the end it would be the final Kingdom, Wessex, who would be the ultimate unifier of the seven. Under King Alfred the Great the Anglosaxons collectively repelled the Great Heathen Army with the power of God and burnt cakes, creating the "Kingdom of England" in 927.
Under Wessex the new England was divided into "shires". Many of these followed the borders of the previous kingdoms (those mentioned above), but the vast lands of Wessex and Mercia in particular had to be divided further. This process, known as shiring, allocated an Earl to each major settlement and its hinterland. These became the vast array of counties we have across England today, such as "Warwickshire", "Nottinghamshire", or "Cambridgeshire". We have a few exceptions in the West Country, where a high proportion of the population was still Britonnic. Devon is named for the Dumnonii tribe, while Dorset and Somerset and named for the Saxon SETtlers in Dorchester and Somerton respectively. There were also several counties which have now been lost, such as "Hexhamshire" in Northumberland, "Winchcombeshire" in Gloucestershire and "Hallamshire" in Yorkshire. Due to the rather loose form of governance the Saxons preferred, the borders of each county were often not well defined, just being the "hinterland" of different economic centres. This all changed in 1066 and the arrival of the strict feudalism of Frankish state-building.
^ The Traditonal Counties (You'll have to zoom in)
William the Conqueror was an entrepreneurial figure, his invasion of England being a form of military investment and thus it was absolutely vital that he recoup his financial investment if he was to maintain his power. In 1086 he commissioned the Domesday Book to take a full inventory of his possessions. Every household in England was accounted for, and the borders of each county well and truly defined. Each county was also further divided into several "hundreds": an area of land capable of (and liable to) providing one hundred soldiers for the army at the King's behest. The nature of Norman feudalism was to be static, and static it was as the counties of England remained much unchanged for the best part of one thousand years. The exception to this is at the borderlands, where English control gradually expanded first into Cornwall, then Wales, then Ireland. As they went the new lands were shired in the English fashion, creating counties across the entirety of the British Isles (Scotland independently shired their own land in the 13th century).
Eventually the titles of nobility were detached from the actual governance of the counties, and two new positions were created. Tax-raising and general governance was undertaken by the "shire reeve" or "sheriff", while the raising of militiamen was the duty of the royally appointed "Lord Lieutenant". These positions still technically exist today, but are overshadowed by the reforms of the 19th century. This started with the "Great Reform Act of 1832". A reaction to both the industrial revolution and the increasing importance of democratic parliamentary politics, the reform set out the manner by which members of parliament are chosen, dividing each traditional county into equally sized parliamentary constituencies. This was further developed with the "Local Government Act of 1888", which devised locally elected councils for each county, thus the "county council" was born. However, the quickly changing demographics of Victorian Britain lead to the formation of "Borough Councils" for towns and cities of over 50,000 people, which would be given power independent from their county council to upkeep infrastructure such as transportation, sanitation and crime prevention. This system worked well, and provided flexibility to change with population growth while retaining the traditional county system, but successive changes in the early 1900s lead to the system becoming more and more complex and costly. By WWII many overlapping layers of local government existed, albeit still within the framework of the original county system. And so, in what most consider an overcompensation and unfruitful exercise in simplification, PM Edward Heath passed the "Local Government Act of 1972", totally reforming the system of local governance. The concept of a county remained, but the borders were redrawn with many of the historic counties being divided, renamed or outright removed, such as the lost counties of Huntingdonshire or Westmorland. Furthermore new counties were created with uninspired names such as "Greater Manchester", "Tyne & Wear", or the awful "West Midlands". This attempt at simplification was unsuccessful. The variance in the size, demographics and needs of each new county made a "one-size-fits-all" system unworkable, and so over the next several decades more and more caveats were introduced to permit for these differences. The government had also underestimated the pride in which Englanders placed in their home counties, and several campaigns to restore the previous borders were successful (such as with the restoration of Rutland or the disestablishment of the baffling "County Avon").
^ The Distribution of Modern Systems of Local Government
Today we have all but returned to the confusing mess of the earlier system, if not moreso with the added lasting presence of the old county system which still lives on in the minds of the populace. But generally a county can choose one of three forms of local government (in England that is, since devolution local government in Scotland, Wales & Ireland have become their own unwieldy beasts). Unitary Authorities are the simplest: one powerful county council that controls all aspects of the county. These are generally suitable to counties with a broadly homogeneous populace. Non-Metropolitan County Councils are for larger counties with a mix of demographic areas. These can further split themselves into Non-Metropolitan District Councils which have varying levels of limited reach over smaller regions. Finally Metropolitan County Councils are for urban areas like Manchester or Birmingham and have more power for radical infrastructure projects. London is a special case, of course, with its Borough Councils, as are the Isles of Scilly (who actually retain the pre-1974 system for some reason). The City of London does whatever it wants to as well of course. And then there are also many areas in which separate systems prevail, such as with policing, water or electricity. As with many reforms in Britain, a new idea that may seem sensible and would probably work in Germany or France, runs into unexpected levels of resistance from every level of society from the general populace up to the elite, usually just on the grounds of a general opposition to reform. This sentiment is forever the Englishman's greatest trait and his Achilles heel, providing us with a system so complex that even those in government have no idea how it all works. Will the system ever be solved? Personally I hope not.
