Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• hért c.1141×94 Spec

• villa de Hert c.1170 RD 1200 FF c.1217×26 GD 1235(p),1242×3 Ass 1288 c.1310 Spec 1313 Ct 1314 RPD 1315 Spec

• manerium de Hert 1316 RPD 1330 Ct 1344etfreqto1512 IPM 1368 Halm 1438 Finc 1472 Rav

• Herte 1235 Ass

• villata de Herte 1242×3 1283 Pont

• manerium de Herte 1306 RPD

• manerium de Hert' 1306 RPD

• le maner de Hert' & Hertrepol' 1314 Spec 1406 Pont

• Harte 1312 RPD 1321 GD 1539 Guis 1566 Ct 1597 Wills 1621 IPM 1770 BakerBaker

• (Manor of) Hart 1438×9 Vis 1590,1596 Wills 1609 IPM 1698 Eldon 1723×4 Hud

• the Town Township & Territories of Hart

Etymology

This simple name has caused considerable difficulty. D. H. Haigh in The Anglo -Saxon Sagas , London 1861, 20ff., proposed the theory that Hart was the site of Heorot , the hall of Hrothgar in the OE  epic poem Beowulf , identifying the hill-stream and mere of the poem with a large pool long since drained called Bottomless Carr and the How Beck which used to flow from it. This theory never gained acceptance but in his Essay on the Place -Names , J. R. Boyle simply accepted the explanation OE  heort 'a hart'. NbDu was unable to decide between heorot 'stag' and heorte 'heart'. In the first case he supposed the loss of a second element on the grounds, presumably, of the absence in English of any parallel for a p.n. consisting of a simplex animal name, but adding a reference to the epic Heorot “supposed to be so called from the antlers on the gable”; in the second, citing the introduction in O. Rygh's Norske Gaardnavne , 1898, he drew attention to the use in Norwegian p.ns. of hjarta noting that “names like Herten are supposed to have been given from fancied resemblance of the site to a heart”, and added “it may be noted that names such as Hjartøen and Hjartholmen are often reduced to simple Hjert ”. Ekwall, too, was troubled by the proposition that the origin of the p.n. was a simple animal name; “a banqueting hall”, he wrote, Studies1 78, “might be called 'the hart' from its gables, but hardly a village”. His own solution was the suggestion that Bede's Heruteu , usually identified with Hartlepool, did not refer simply to the headland at Hartlepool but was applied to the low-lying land adjoining the headland as well. He goes on, also the present Hart parish was probably included, and the division into the present parishes of Hart and Hartlepool is no doubt of later date. Either we may assume that the original village of Heruteu was on the slope above the low- lying land on the sea, and that the monastery of Heruteu was built nearer the sea. Or else the original village was at Hartlepool, but it was removed some way inland, when the old village and the monastery were destroyed by the Danes.

Unfortunately there is no material evidence to support these speculations and it is difficult to see in what sense OE  ēg 'an island' could have been applied to the site at Hart which is neither an island of dry ground surrounded by marsh nor a hill jutting into flat land. From an onomastic point of view it would be simpler to assume that the relationship between Hartlepool and Hart was that between Herut-eu and Hert , i.e. between a site called 'Stag island', i.e. the island at or belonging to 'Stag', and a settlement called 'Stag'. The difficulty remains, however, of the absence of any parallel to a simplex animal p.n. outside literature. (In the New World, however, for a whole range of reasons such formations are not uncommon, e.g. Anaconda MT, Bear AZ, Buffalo NY, The Camel AZ, Caribou (several), Eland WI, Red Dog CA).

Nevertheless, the only certain point is that, however it has come about, the documentary evidence clearly points to the form Hert apparently representing the simplex animal name heorot . Ekwall suggested that Hert was a back-formation from the district name Hert - hērness (v. supra p. 6) from OE  Hertē -hērness 'the jurisdiction of Hart', in which Herté would be the normal development of Bede's Heruteu .The normal development of Hertē -hērness would be Hert-herness , Herterness and ultimately Herteness , forms vulnerable to the processes of folk etymology leading to false analysis as if Hert Hērness whence the village name Hert , and Herter-ness whence the ME  form Herter-pol for Hartlepool q. v .