Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• Heortigtunes 880–5 BCS553 c.1000

• Hertitona 1086 DB

• (H)ertinton 1175,1179 P

• Herctone 1281 DA

• Harton 1565 ParReg

• Hurton towne 1566 DA

• Hertilanda, Hirtilanda 1167 P 1169 France

• Hertland 1196 P

• Hertiland 1198 AC 1285 FA

• Hurtelaund 1287 Pat

• Hurtelonde 1291 Tax

• Hurtilonde 1354 Exon

Etymology

The manor of Heortigtun probably took its name from the present Hartland village. The name Hertiland may well have arisen from the desire to find a more appropriate name for the very large manor and parish (17,000 acres) which centred around it. Blomé (27) and Karlström (PN in -ing 14) suggest that the first element is OE  heort -(i )eg , 'stag island,' but it is impossible to see how the term 'island' even in the wider sense 'peninsula' can ever have been applied to any part of the town or hundred of Hartland. Alternatively Blomé suggests that we have OE  heortīe , gen. sg. of heort -ēa , 'stag stream.' Harton might be named from the little stream on which it stands, but it is difficult to see how that little stream could have given name to the large area covered by the name Hartland. Alfred's Heortigtun may be a bad spelling for Heortingtun (cf. such spellings in Karlström (op. cit. 9–10) and the Pipe Roll forms), and all the i -forms be interpreted as from earlier ing -ones, though the uniform and early loss of the ng would be remarkable.If that, however, is the correct explanation, we must take it that Heort was the one time lord alike of the village and of an appendent territory roughly identical with the later hundred.Cf. Hartington (Db). Heort is found as a pers. name in the Burton Cartulary in the early 12th cent. Cf. also OGer  Hiruz (Förstemann PN 845) and Hurscott infra 351.