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Beginning of the Office

The Office of Sheriff and the law enforcement, judicial and correctional functions he performs are more than 1,000 years old. The Office of Sheriff dates back at least to the reign of Alfred the Great of England, and some scholars even argue that the Office of Sheriff was first created during the Roman occupation of England.

Around 500 AD, Germanic tribes from Europe (called the Anglo-Saxons) began an invasion of Celtic England which eventually led over the centuries to the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon England as a unified kingdom under Alfred the Great late in the 9th Century. Alfred divided England into geographic units called "shires," or counties. In 1066, William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxons and instituted his own Norman government in England. Both under the Anglo-Saxons and under the Normans, the King of England appointed a representative called a "reeve" to act on behalf of the king in each shire or county. The "shire-reeve" or King's representative in each county became the "Sheriff" as the English language changed over the years. The shire-reeve or Sheriff was the chief law enforcement officer of each county in the year 1000 AD. He still has the same function in Oklahoma in the year 2000 AD. Oklahoma's first constitution, adopted in July 1907, created the Office of Sheriff as an elected official in each county. The concepts of "county" and "Sheriff" were essentially the same as they had been during the previous 900 years of English legal history. Because of the English heritage of the American colonies, the new United States adopted the English law and legal institutions as its owner.