An ealdorman (modern
alderman) was the prior magistrate of an
Anglo-Saxon shire from
900 to the time of the
Danes. The ealdorman, rendered in
Latin as
dux or (in early
West Saxon charters)
præfectus (which is also the equivalent of gerefa, modern
reeve, from which
sheriff or
shire reeve), was the chief magistrate of a shire (
county) in
Anglo-Saxon England. He commanded the army of the shire(s) and districts under his control on behalf of the king. They were appointees of the king and were originally mostly from the ancient and powerful families, but later were often chosen from among the king's comites (plural of
comes, meaning companion) and many, especially in the early Danish period, were new to high office. The term gradually disappeared as it was replaced by eorl, the Danish term which evolved into the modern
earl, the analogous term of which happens to be
count, from the
French comte, derived from the Latin comes. The ealdormen can be thought of as the early English earls, for their ealdormanries (singular ealdormanry, same meaning as
earldom) eventually became the great earldoms of Anglo-Danish and Anglo-Norman England.
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