Tribal Hidage - The Surviving Manuscripts

The Surviving Manuscripts

A manuscript, now lost, was originally used to produce the three known different recensions of the Tribal Hidage: these have been named Recensions A, B and C.

Recension A, the earliest and most complete copy of the Tribal Hidage, dates from 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, a work written in 1034. It is in the keeping of the British Library, reference MS Harley 3271. It was written by several different scribes, at a date no later than 1032.

Recension B, which resembles Recession 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 the two recessions. The differences (for instance Spelman's use of the word hidas) indicate that the text he copied was not Recension A, but a different text, written in Latin. According to Peter Featherstone, the highly edited form of the copied text suggests the possibility that Spelman embellished the Latin text himself.

Recension C has survived in six Latin documents. The texts each contain common omissions and spellings. Four versions, of 13th century origin, formed part of a collection of legal texts and, according to Featherstone, "may have been intended to act as part of a record of native English custom". The other two versions 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.