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40-524: A tribe living in "Spalda" are mentioned in the Tribal Hidage (7th century). Eilert Ekwall regarded this name as etymologically obscure. He suggested that the tribe may have brought this name (Spaldas) from the Continent where there may have been a corresponding place-name. It would presumably be related to the unrecorded Anglo-Saxon spaldan (to cleave) (OHG spaltan ) so the meaning of

80-571: A number of territories south of the Humber, which has been variously dated from the mid-7th to the second half of the 8th century". Most of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy are included. Mercia, which is assigned 30,000 hides, is at the top at the list, followed by a number of small tribes to the west and north of Mercia, all of which have no more than 7000 hides listed. Other named tribes have even smaller hidages, of between 300 and 1200 hides: of these

120-571: A record of native English custom". The other two are a century older: one is flawed and may have been a scribe's exercise, and the other was part of a set of legal texts. Historians disagree on the date for the original compilation of the list. According to Campbell, who notes the plausibility of it being produced during the rise of Mercia, it can probably be dated to the 7th or 8th century. Other historians, such as J. Brownbill, Barbara Yorke , Frank Stenton and Cyril Roy Hart , have written that it originated from Mercia at around this time, but differ on

160-1043: A sub-kingdom of Mercia in what is now Herefordshire ; the Wihtwara , a Jutish kingdom on the Isle of Wight , originally as important as the Cantwara of Kent ; the Middle Angles , a group of tribes based around modern Leicestershire , later conquered by the Mercians; the Hæstingas (around the town of Hastings in Sussex ); and the Gewisse . The four main kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England were: The other main kingdoms, which were conquered and absorbed by others entirely at some point in their history, before

200-519: A tribute list created for Offa, but acknowledges that no proof exists that it was compiled during his rule. Higham notes that the syntax of the text requires that a word implying 'tribute' was omitted from each line, and argues that it was "almost certainly a tribute list". To Higham, the large size of the West Saxon hidation indicates that there was a link between the scale of tribute and any political considerations. James Campbell has argued that if

240-692: Is a list of thirty-five tribes that was compiled in Anglo-Saxon England some time between the 7th and 9th centuries. It includes a number of independent kingdoms and other smaller territories, and assigns a number of hides to each one. The list is headed by Mercia and consists almost exclusively of peoples who lived south of the Humber estuary and territories that surrounded the Mercian kingdom, some of which have never been satisfactorily identified by scholars. The value of 100,000 hides for Wessex

280-584: Is a valuable record for historians. It is unique in that no similar text has survived: the document is one of a very few to survive out of a great many records that were produced by the administrators of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, a "chance survivor" of many more documents, as Campbell has suggested. Hart has observed that "as a detailed record of historical topography it has no parallel in the whole of western Europe". The Tribal Hidage lists several minor kingdoms and tribes that are not recorded anywhere else and

320-404: Is assessed at 100,000 hides. The round figures of the hidage assessments make it unlikely they were the result of an accurate survey. The methods of assessment used probably differed according to the size of the region. The figures may be of purely symbolic significance, reflecting the status of each tribe at the time it was assessed. The totals given within the text for the figures suggest that

360-467: Is by far the largest: it has been suggested that this was a deliberate exaggeration. The original purpose of the Tribal Hidage remains unknown: it could be a tribute list created by a king, but other purposes have been suggested. The hidage figures may be symbolic, reflecting the prestige of each territory, or they may represent an early example of book-keeping. Many historians are convinced that

400-401: Is generally agreed to be the earliest fiscal document that has survived from medieval England. Historians have used the Tribal Hidage to provide evidence for the political organisation of Anglo-Saxon England and it has been "pressed into service by those seeking to interpret the nature and geography of kingships and of 'peoples' in pre-Viking England", according to N. J. Higham. In particular,

440-612: The Herefinna , Noxgaga , Hendrica and Unecungaga cannot be identified, whilst the others have been tentatively located around the south of England and in the border region between Mercia and East Anglia . Ohtgaga can be heard as Jute gaga and understood as the area settled by Jutes in and near the Meon Valley of Hampshire . The term'-gaga' is a late copyist mistranscription of the Old English '-wara' (people/ men of)

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480-417: The 11th century and is part of a miscellany of works; another is contained in a 17th-century Latin treatise; the third, which has survived in six mediaeval manuscripts , has omissions and spelling variations. All three versions appear to be based on the same lost manuscript: historians have been unable to establish a date for the original compilation. The Tribal Hidage has been used to construct theories about

520-857: The 11th century. It is included in a miscellany of works, written in Old English and Latin, with Aelfric 's Latin Grammar and his homily De initio creaturæ , written in 1034, and now in the British Library . It was written by different scribes, at a date no later than 1032. Recension B, which resembles Recension A, is contained in a 17th-century Latin treatise, Archaeologus in Modum Glossarii ad rem antiquam posteriorem , written by Henry Spelman in 1626. The tribal names are given in Old English. There are significant differences in spelling between A and B (for instance Spelman's use of

560-630: The 8th century, Mercia achieved hegemony over the other surviving kingdoms, particularly during the reign of Offa the Great. Alongside the seven kingdoms, a number of other political divisions also existed, such as the kingdoms (or sub-kingdoms) of: Bernicia and Deira within Northumbria; Lindsey in present-day Lincolnshire ; the Hwicce in the southwest Midlands; the Magonsæte or Magonset,

600-562: The Tribal Hidage in his first volume of Glossarium Archaiologicum (1626) and there is also a version of the text in a book written in 1691 by Thomas Gale , but no actual discussion of the Tribal Hidage emerged until 1848, when John Mitchell Kemble 's The Saxons in England was published. In 1884, Walter de Gray Birch wrote a paper for the British Archaeological Association , in which he discussed in detail

640-451: The Tribal Hidage is unknown. Over the years different theories have been suggested for its purpose, linked with a range of dates for its creation. The Tribal Hidage could have been a tribute list created upon the instructions of an Anglo-Saxon king such as Offa of Mercia , Wulfhere of Mercia or Edwin of Northumbria — but it may have been used for different purposes at various times during its history. Cyril Hart has described it as

680-591: The Tribal Hidage originated from Mercia, which dominated southern Anglo-Saxon England until the start of the 9th century, but others have argued that the text was Northumbrian in origin. The Tribal Hidage has been of importance to historians since the middle of the 19th century, partly because it mentions territories unrecorded in other documents. Attempts to link all the names in the list with modern places are highly speculative and resulting maps are treated with caution. Three different versions (or recensions ) have survived, two of which resemble each other: one dates from

720-490: The Tribal Hidage was perhaps used as a form of book-keeping. Frank Stenton describes the hidage figures given for the Heptarchy kingdoms as exaggerated and in the instances of Mercia and Wessex, "entirely at variance with other information". A manuscript, now lost, was originally used to produce the three recensions of the Tribal Hidage, named A, B and C. Recension A, which is the earliest and most complete, dates from

760-480: The antiquity of Spelman's document and used historical texts (such as Bede 's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ) to assess its date of origin. He proposed locations for each tribe, without attempting to locate each one, and suggested that some Anglo-Saxon peoples were missing from the document. Birch, in his paper An Unpublished Manuscript of some Early Territorial Names in England , announced his discovery of what became known as Recension A, which he suggested

800-444: The document has been seen as invaluable for providing evidence about the Mercian state and those peoples that were under its rule or influence. Heptarchy The Heptarchy is the name for the division of Anglo-Saxon England between the sixth and eighth centuries into petty kingdoms , conventionally the seven kingdoms of East Anglia , Essex , Kent , Mercia , Northumbria , Sussex , and Wessex . The term originated with

840-447: The existence of seven kingdoms, the term is just used as a label of convenience and does not imply the existence of a clear-cut or stable group of seven kingdoms. The number of kingdoms and sub-kingdoms fluctuated rapidly during this period as competing kings contended for supremacy. In the late 6th century, the king of Kent was a prominent lord in the south. In the 7th century, the rulers of Northumbria and Wessex were powerful. In

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880-420: The figures in the Tribal Hidage and used his own calculations to conclude that the figures were probably exaggerated. John Brownbill advised against using Latin versions of the document, which he described as error-prone. He determined that the Old English manuscript was written in 1032 and was a copy of an original Mercian manuscript. Chadwick attempted to allocate each tribe to one or more English shires , with

920-449: The identity of the Mercian ruler under whom the list was compiled. Wendy Davies and Hayo Vierck have placed the document's origin more precisely at 670-690. There is near universal agreement that the text originates from Mercia, partly because its kings held extensive power over other territories from the late 7th to the early 9th centuries, but also because the list, headed by Mercia, is almost exclusively of peoples who lived south of

960-906: The late 9th century, when Stamford became one of the Five Boroughs of the East Midlands under Danish control. This article related to the history of the United Kingdom or its predecessor states is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tribal Hidage Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Tribal Hidage

1000-696: The letter forms of 'w' wynn and the long-tailed ' r ' being read as 'g'. A number of territories, such as the Hicca , have only been located by means of place-names evidence. The list concludes with several other kingdoms from the Heptarchy: the East Angles (who are assessed at 30,000 hides), the East Saxons (7,000 hides), Kent (15,000 hides), the South Saxons (7,000 hides) and Wessex, which

1040-468: The list is of Northumbrian origin, which would account for the inclusion of Elmet and the absence of the Northumbrian kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia . Mercia would not have been listed, as "an early mediaeval king did not impose tribute upon his own kingdom": it must have been a list produced by another kingdom, perhaps with an altogether different purpose. N. J. Higham has argued that because

1080-438: The list served any practical purpose, it implies that tributes were assessed and obtained in an organised way, and notes that, "whatever it is, and whatever it means, it indicates a degree of orderliness, or coherence in the exercise of power...". Yorke acknowledges that the purpose of the Tribal Hidage is unknown and that it may well not be, as has been commonly argued, an overlord's tribute list. She warns against assuming that

1120-530: The location of each of the tribes. The term Tribal Hidage was introduced by Frederic William Maitland in 1897, in his book Domesday Book and Beyond . During the following decades, articles were published by William John Corbett (1900), Hector Munro Chadwick (1905) and John Brownbill (1912 and 1925). The most important subsequent accounts of the Tribal Hidage since Corbett, according to Campbell, are by Josiah Cox Russell (1947), Hart (1971), Davies and Vierck (1974) and David Dumville (1989). Kemble recognised

1160-495: The minor peoples (of 7000 hides or less) possessed any "means of defining themselves as a distinct gentes ". Among these, the Isle of Wight and the South Gyrwe tribes, tiny in terms of their hidages and geographically isolated from other peoples, were among the few who possessed their own royal dynasties. P. H. Sawyer argues that the values may have had a symbolic purpose and that they were intended to be an expression of

1200-588: The noun would be "cleft" or "ravine". However, as there are no ravines in the fenland, all of the above should be treated with caution. Caitlin Green has suggested that the Spaldingas were of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Brittonic origin, due to a significant concentration of British Celtic place names in their territory. The Spaldingas may have retained their administrative independence within the Kingdom of Mercia into

1240-474: The original information cannot be dated and the largest Northumbrian kingdoms are not included, it cannot be proved to be a Mercian tribute list. He notes that Elmet, never a province of Mercia, is on the list, and suggests that it was drawn up by Edwin of Northumbria in the 620s, probably originating when a Northumbrian king last exercised imperium over the Southumbrian kingdoms. According to Higham,

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1280-579: The political organisation of the Anglo-Saxons, and to give an insight into the Mercian state and its neighbours when Mercia held hegemony over them. It has been used to support theories of the origin of the listed tribes and the way in which they were systematically assessed and ruled by others. Some historians have proposed that the Tribal Hidage is not a list of peoples, but of administrative areas. The Tribal Hidage is, according to historian D. P. Kirby, "a list of total assessments in terms of hides for

1320-525: The river Humber. Featherstone concludes that the original material, dating from the late 7th century, was used to be included in a late 9th century document and asserts that the Mercian kingdom "was at the centre of the world mapped out by the Tribal Hidage". Frank Stenton wrote that "the Tribal Hidage was almost certainly compiled in Mercia", whilst acknowledging a lack of conclusive evidence. In contrast to most historians, Nicholas Brooks has suggested that

1360-505: The status of each kingdom and province. To Sawyer, the obscurity of some of the tribal names and the absence from the list of others points to an early date for the original text, which he describes as a "monument to Mercian power". The 100,000 hides assigned to Wessex may have reflected its superior status at a later date and would imply that the Tribal Hidage in its present form was written in Wessex. The very large hidage assessment for Wessex

1400-504: The twelfth-century historian Henry of Huntingdon and has been widely used ever since, but it has been questioned by historians as the number of kingdoms fluctuated, and there was never a time when the territory of the Anglo-Saxons was divided into seven kingdoms each ruled by one king. The period of petty kingdoms came to an end in the eighth century, when England was divided into the four dominant kingdoms of East Anglia , Mercia , Northumbria , and Wessex . Although heptarchy suggests

1440-547: The use of key passages from historical texts. In 1971, Hart attempted a "complete reconstruction of the political geography of Saxon England at the end of the 8th century". Assuming that all the English south of the Humber are listed within the Tribal Hidage, he produced a map that divides southern England into Mercia's provinces and outlying dependencies, using evidence from river boundaries and other topographical features , place-names and historical borders. The Tribal Hidage

1480-462: The values assigned to each people are likely to be specific to the events of 625-626, representing contracts made between Edwin and those who recognised his overlordship, so explaining the rounded nature of the figures: 100,000 hides for the West Saxons was probably the largest number Edwin knew. According to D. P. Kirby, this theory has not been generally accepted as convincing. The purpose of

1520-466: The word hidas ), indicating that the text he copied was not Recension A, but a different Latin text. According to Peter Featherstone, the highly edited form of the text suggests that Spelman embellished it himself. Recension C has survived in six Latin documents, all with common omissions and spellings. Four versions, of 13th-century origin, formed part of a collection of legal texts that, according to Featherstone, "may have been intended to act as part of

1560-577: Was a 10th or 11th century copy of a lost 7th-century manuscript. He methodically compared all the publications and manuscripts of the Tribal Hidage that are available at the time and placed each tribe using both his own theories and the ideas of others, some of which (for instance when he located the Wokensætna in Woking , Surrey ) are now discounted. Maitland suspected that the accepted number of acres to each hide needed to be reconsidered to account for

1600-410: Was considered to be an error by the historian J. Brownbill, but Hart maintains that the value for Wessex is correct and that it was one of several assessments designed to exact the largest possible tribute from Mercia's main rivals. Of the first or primary part of the list contained several recognized peoples: This part of the list seems to have been added: Sir Henry Spelman was the first to publish

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