Survey of English Place-Names

Historical Forms

• in regione (quae uocatur) Loidis c.730 Bedeii,14,iii,24

• in þæm londe þe Loidis hatte c.890 OEBede

• Loidis 12 HH

• Loidam 11 LifeofStCadroe(Skene)

• Leodes c.800 HB

• Ledes 1086 DB c.1090 Dugdiv 1403 YDiii 12 YChvi,viii 1109–40 Bodl4 1133–43 Pat Steph Kirkst 1464 YCh c.1154 HCY 1166–77 YCh 1177 P 1180–91 Kirkst 1190,1194 Abbr 13 FF 1205 Pat 1226 1232

• Ledes iuxta Kirkestall 1280 Ass3

• Ledes by Rothewell 1470 Pat

• Leddis 1090–1100,1100–8 YChvi

• Leddes 1109–14,1121–38,a.1129 Hy1 BM 1517 WillY 1528 TestLds

• Ledis, Ledys c.1175–85 YCh 1205 Kirkst 1312 Calv 1316 Vill 1548 PRRth

• Ledez 1441 DiocV

• Liedes 1181–9 BM 1191 P

• Leades 1597 SR

• Leedes 1240–50 Bodl18 1500 TestLds 1570 WillY 1597 SessnR

• Leeds 1518 Testv 1545 YDviii 1578 WillY 1641 Rates

• Leides, Leydes 1541,1549 TestLds 1546 FF 1554 MinAcct

Etymology

Leeds is clearly a pre-English name and various proposals have been made for its origin. Förster (ES lvi, 220 ff) has shown that Loidis represents the intermediate stage in the OE i -mutation of ō , and the later forms Ledes , Liedes (with AN -ie -representing a close -ē -) are normal developments of this. In tracing the name back, we can be certain that the PrOE  form at the time of adoption was *lōdis - and this precludes Sir Ifor Williams's derivation from Welsh  lloedd 'dirty' (Canu Aneirin , Cardiff 1938, 311), v. esp. Jackson 327–8; and it does not favour Förster's derivation from a Brit  *lotissa , related to OIr  loth 'bog, swamp', Lat  lutum 'dirt, mire'. In fact, as K. Jackson points out in Antiquity xx, 209–10, the lotissa which Förster postulates from the Gaulish Lotusa should be lutissa , for Lotusa is a Vulgar Latin spelling of Lutōsa , the R. Loze; lutissa would have produced early OE  Luidis , later Lydes . But whilst Ekwall's suggestion of a British root from IE  *plōd - (cognate with ModE  flood ) is possible phonologically, evidence for its use in the Celtic languages is wanting. On the other hand, Jackson's own suggestion (l.c.) is that Loidis , from PrOE  *lōdis , goes back to Brit  *Lāt -, Lādensēs (late Brit  *Lōd -, *Lōdēses ); this was probably a folk-name, later a district-name, in -ensēs rather than a river-name in -issa , though the presumed base lāt - was used as a river-name meaning something like 'the boiling one' or 'the violent one' and survives in Welsh  llawd , Ir  láth 'heat (in animals)', possibly also 'ardour, passion'; *lāt - must have been a former name of the R. Aire.According to this theory Leeds originally meant 'folk dwelling on a river called Lāt -' and then 'the district occupied by this folk'; the district extended to Ledsham and Ledston (49, 50supra ); cf. also Elmet 1supra and Introd.