Editing Leicester (section)

==Name==
The name of Leicester comes from [[Old English]]. It is first recorded in Latinised form in the early ninth century as ''Legorensis civitatis'' and in Old English itself in an ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]'' entry for 924 as ''{{lang|ang|Ligera ceastre}}'' (and, in various spellings, frequently thereafter). In the ''[[Domesday Book]]'' of 1086, it is recorded as ''{{lang|ang|Ledecestre}}''.<ref name="dictionary">''The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society'', ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.v. ''LEICESTER'', ''LEIRE''.</ref>

The first element of the name is the name of a people, the ''Ligore'' (whose name appears in ''Ligera ceastre'' in the [[Genitive case|genitive]] plural form); their name came in turn from the river Ligor (now the [[River Soar]]), the origin of whose name is uncertain but thought to be from [[Brittonic languages|Brittonic]] (possibly cognate with the name of the [[Loire]]).<ref name="dictionary" /><ref name="Stevenson1918">{{cite journal |last=Stevenson |first=W. H. |date=1918 |title=A note on the derivation of the name 'Leicester' |journal=The Archaeological Journal |publisher=Royal Archaeological Institute (London) |volume=75 |pages=30&nbsp;f}} {{cite magazine |last=Dudley |first=John |date=1848 |title=Etymology of the Name of Leicester |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qvwRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA580 |magazine=The Gentleman's Magazine |volume=184 |pages=580–582}} citing Wilford, ''Asiatick Researches'' vol. ii. No. 2 (1812), [https://books.google.com/books?id=1N5YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA45 p. 45]:
"The learned Somner says that the river which runs by it [Leicester] was formerly called Leir by the same contraction [from Legora], and it is probably the river Liar of the anonymous geographer. Mr. Somner, if I be not mistaken, places the original own of ''Ligora'' near the source of the Lear, now the Soar".</ref><ref>
Gelling et al. (eds.), ''The names of towns and cities in Britain'', B. T. Batsford, 1970, p. 122.</ref><ref name="tommyB">Thompson (1849), [https://books.google.com/books?id=xBYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA448 Appendix&nbsp;B: Leograceaster—The Saxon Name of Leicester, pp.&nbsp;448&nbsp;f.] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150519033745/https://books.google.com/books?id=xBYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA448|date=19 May 2015}}; Thompson (1849), [https://books.google.com/books?id=xBYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA7 pp.&nbsp;7&nbsp;f] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150517173320/https://books.google.com/books?id=xBYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA7|date=17 May 2015}}.</ref>

The second element of the name is the Old English word ''ceaster'' ("(Roman) fort, fortification, town", itself borrowed from Latin ''[[castrum]]'').<ref name="dictionary" />

A list of British cities in the ninth-century ''[[Historia Brittonum|History of the Britons]]'' includes one ''{{nowrap|Cair Lerion}}''; Leicester has been proposed as the place to which this refers (and the [[Welsh placenames|Welsh]] name for Leicester is ''{{lang|cy|Caerlŷr}}''). But this identification is not certain.<ref>Andrew Breeze, '[http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/jlo/vol5/iss1/1 ''Historia Brittonum''<nowiki/>' and Britain’s Twenty-Eight Cities] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028121043/https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/jlo/vol5/iss1/1/ |date=28 October 2019 }}', ''Journal of Literary Onomastics'', 5.1 (2016), 1–16 (p. 9).</ref>

Based on the Welsh name (given as ''Kaerleir''), [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] proposed a king [[Leir of Britain]] as an [[eponymous founder]] in his ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]'' (12th century).<ref name="Geoffrey2:11">[[Geoffrey of Monmouth|Geoffrey]], [[s:History of the Kings of Britain/Book 2#11|Vol.&nbsp;II, Ch.&nbsp;11]].</ref>{{efn|"After this unhappy fate of Bladud, Leir, his son was advanced to the throne, and nobly governed his country sixty years. He built, upon the river Sore a city, called in the British tongue Kaerleir, in the Saxon, Leircestre."}}