Tribal Hidage - The Hide Assessments

The Hide Assessments

The Tribal Hidage is, according to D. P. Kirby's description, "a list of total assessments in terms of hides for 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 the Herefinna, Noxgaga, Ohtgaga, Hendrica and Unecungaga tribes 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. 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 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 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".