In the 19th century, the name was considered to have been first recorded in 705, as
Hacmunderness. The Domesday Book in 1086 spells it
Agemundrenessa. There are two suggested etymologies for Amounderness. The traditional 19th-century reading was that the name derived from
ac (oak) and
mund (protection), "a ness or promontory sheltered by oaks". This was given currency by Porter. The current view is that the area is named after Agmundr, a
Norse warlord, vassal of
Eowils, Halfdan and Ingwaer, co-kings of
Jorvik, all four of whom died at the
Battle of Tettenhall near
Wednesfield and
Wolverhampton in August 910; Partington's early 20th-century description of "Amounder ... the first Viking who settled in the
Fylde country" now being considered more fanciful than historically accurate. It was usual for the name of hundreds to refer to a "
moot-stow" or meeting place and the element "-ness" (ON, promontory) suggests the Over-Wyre as one distinct possibility. There is some evidence to suggest the line of the Wyre/Calder rivers may have marked a north–south sub-division of the hundred in the early 10th century. In
The Place-names of Lancashire,
Eilert Ekwall supports an early 10th-century coinage citing
A[g]hemundesnes and the late 11th-century
Agmundrenesse. The etymology of Agmundr is
Old West Scandinavian agi- ("awe, terror") or possibly the German
*ag- ("point, weapon point"), with
-mundr, from Old West Scandinavian
*-munduR ("protection"). The name appears in
Old Swedish as
Aghmund and in Old West Norse as
Ogmundr. While the formal title of the warrior was almost certainly
Agmundrholdr, his familiar or lall-name would have been
Mundi. Victorian commentators, such as Porter, often cited a 7th-century grant made at
Ripon by
Ecgfrith of Northumbria and
Æthelwine as proof that Amounderness existed before the 10th century. There is no reference to Amounderness in this text, merely to lands "iuxta Rippel" (next to the
Ribble). The historical misattribution may be due to the 16th-century
antiquarian John Leland who cites Hasmundesham (possibly Amounderness) in his
Collectanea, originally published in 1632, but does so without proper supporting evidence. Amounderness was granted to
Wulfstan I,
Archbishop of York in June 934 by
Æthelstan,
King of England. Once thought a spoil of battle, the area had in fact been purchased by Aethelstan in 926. According to the grant, the extent of Amounderness was much greater than its present-day counterpart being the land "from the sea along the
Cocker to the source of that river, from that source straight to another spring which is called in
Saxon, Dunshop, thus down the riverlet to the
Hodder, in the same direction to the
Ribble and thus along that river through the middle of the channel to the
sea". It is unclear from this description whether
Dunshop refers to the westerly tributary of the river (i.e. the Brennand) or the easterly (i.e.. the Whitendale) but this distinction would have significant territorial implications. Less precisely, Ekwall describes the eastern boundary of Amounderness as "being formed by the fells on the Yorkshire border". This places the boundary within the modern-day
Forest of Bowland where
Dunsop Bridge sits close to the eastern mouth of the Trough of Bowland that straddles the traditional Lancashire-Yorkshire border. After the
Norman conquest of England, this eastern portion of Amounderness became part of the
Lordship of Bowland. However, Thorn argues that "it was only along the river Hodder on the western and south-western edges of the Forest of Bowland that the division between Amounderness and
Craven corresponded in any way to the later boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire". Indeed, he even suggests that Amounderness may have been a "subdivision of Craven" which he describes as "stretching from the Irish Sea over the Pennines to touch the Yorkshire wapentakes of Burghshire and 'Skyrack'" ... the area around the headwaters of the rivers Aire and Wharfe and upper Ribblesdale". In the 10th century, Amounderness would have been strategically important in terms of the Dublin-York axis. Its strategic importance is mirrored on the east coast by
Holderness in the
East Riding of Yorkshire. By the 12th century, Amounderness and Bowland had become two distinct and separate Lordships, each centred on its own seigneurial, later
royal forest. ==Geography==