Offa and the Mercian Wars by Chris Peers Page A

at Sarre in Kent has led to suggestions that in a few places trade routes may have been lucrative enough to justify the establishment of military camps to guard them and collect tolls (Brooks). But lead and salt probably contributed little to the coffers of the Mercian kings in comparison to the rich deposits of both lead and silver in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, which were securely under West Saxon control. Other valuable metals, such as Welsh gold and the tin for which Cornwall was famous, were also monopolised by Mercia’s often hostile neighbours. The relative scarcity of coin finds has sometimes been used as evidence for Mercian poverty, and although the centre of the country is turning out to have been less of a backwater than was once thought, what metal detectors call ‘productive sites’ are probably still less common there than in the coastal regions where overseas trade was concentrated (Pryor, 2006). This explains the main strategic ambition of all the Mercian kings from the late seventh century onwards. Penda, fighting an essentially defensive war, looked mainly to the north, towards his most formidable enemy, Northumbria. His successors focused rather on the south-east, where London and the ports of Kent, with their connections across the English Channel, promised the means to enrich and develop the new kingdom.
    Mercia and the Tribal Hidage
    One of the most interesting and controversial documents in Anglo-Saxon history may provide us with a unique snapshot of the political situation in central England at the beginning of Penda’s career. The ‘Tribal Hidage’ is preserved in seven later copies, which are generally agreed to derive from an original drawn up in the seventh or eighth centuries. However, scholars continue to argue over its exact date, origin and purpose. It takes the form of a list of political groupings, kingdoms or ‘tribes’ of varying sizes, with an assessment for each in numbers of ‘hides’. In later law codes a hide was theoretically supposed to be 120 acres, or as much agricultural land as one plough team could cultivate in a year. In practice, though, it was a unit of value rather than acreage, equivalent to the territory needed to support a single family or fighting man. Although often reproduced, the Hidage is worth including here because of its likely importance for the military organisation of Mercia throughout our period. (The names are in, as near as possible, their original form using the modern English alphabet, but the assessments have been converted into numerals for ease of reference).
    Myrcna landes
30,000
hides
Wocen saetna
7,000
Westerna
7,000
Pecsaetna
1,200
Elmed saetna
600
Lindesfarona with Haethfeldlande
7,000
Suth gyrwa
600
North gyrwa
600
East wixna
300
West wixna
600
Spalda
600
Wigesta
900
Herefinna
1,200
Sweord ora
300
Gifla
300
Hicca
300
Wiht gara
600
Noxgaga
5,000
Ohtgaga
2,000
    At this point is inserted a total for the above (incorrect) of 66,100 hides.
    Hwinca
7,000
Ciltern saetna
4,000
Hendrica
3,500
Unecung-ga
1,200
Arosaetna
600
Faerpinga
300
Bilmiga
600
Widerigga
600
Eastwilla
600
Westwilla
600
East engle
30,000
Eastsexena
7,000
Cantwarena
15,000
Suthsexena
7,000
Westsexena
100,000
    The grand total of these entries, we are told, is 242,700 hides.
    Whereas the identity of some of these groups is obvious, others are more obscure and some are known only from this single source. Some general principles are, however, immediately apparent. The Hidage does not cover the whole of England in similar detail. Most of Northumbria is missing, and the south and east (the East Angles, South, East and West Saxons, and the ‘Cantwarena’ or inhabitants of Kent) are not analysed below the level of the main kingdoms. (‘Lindesfarona’, incidentally, refers to Lindsey, roughly corresponding to modern Lincolnshire, and not to Lindisfarne in Northumbria.) Central England, by contrast, is divided into about twenty-seven