What is Tribal Hidage?
[[File:Tribal Hidage (1912 map by Brownbill).jpg|thumb|right|300px|{{Center|Map of the tribes mentioned in the Tribal Hidage}}]] The '''Tribal Hidage''' is generally considered to be a [[:en:wikt:tribute|tribute]] list dated to [[7th century|7th]] or [[8th century]] [[Anglo-Saxon]] [[England]]. It was a list of 35 [[tribe]]s that made up the [[:wikt:majority|majority]] of the peoples living in southern England at that time. Each tribe or [[:wikt:kingdom|kingdom]] on the list had a [[wikt:rounded off|rounded off]] number of [[Hide (unit)|hides]] (units of land measurement). Modern [[historian]]s believe it was created by either [[Mercia]]n or [[Northumbria]]n [[:wikt:overlords|overlords]] to collect tribute from the other groups. == Origins == The Tribal Hidage is an important historical [[document]].<ref name=Hart135>Cyril Hart, 'The Tribal Hidage', ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'', Fifth Series, Vol. 21 (1971), p. 135</ref> The oldest [[:wikt:copies|copies]] available were written in style of the [[11th century]]. This is at a time when many of the names of the earlier [[region]]s had been forgotten. In some cases the list is the only [[:wikt:evidence|evidence]] that a region or people of that name ever existed.<ref name=Stenton295>Frank Stenton, ''Anglo-Saxon England'' (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 295</ref> There were probably older versions of the Tribal Hidage and may have dated back to when [[Penda of Mercia]] dominated Anglo-Saxon England (642–655).<ref name=Brownbill497>J. Brownbill, 'The Tribal Hidage', ''The English Historical Review'', Vol. 40, No. 160 (Oct., 1925), p. 497</ref> Historians are mixed when it comes to where the [[:wikt:document|document]] came from originally. It may have been written by [[Paulinus of York|Paulinus]] for King [[Edwin of Northumbria]].{{efn|Paulinus was the only person at Edwin's court who could read or write. If it was written by him, it would only have been for his own use.<ref>N. J. Higham, ''The Kingdom of Northumbria AD 350–1100'' (Dover, NH: