In recent weeks an extraordinary Twitter argument has broken out concerning how much the railway system in the UK and Ireland owes to the capital provided by the slave trade. On the one hand we have Gareth Dennis (@GarethDennis), the author of what will be referred to in what follows as the “Thread”, who argued “that a significant proportion of slave-owner compensation was reinvested into the railways; that Britain’s railways are a direct legacy of slavery and colonialism; and that this legacy is hopelessly under-explored”. On the other hand there was a strong argument from Christian Wolmar (@christianwolmar) that the Thread’s arguments were overstated and not properly evidenced. He has repeated this in a recent edition of RAILmagazine. This post is concerned with trying to establish how much slave owner compensation might have been used for capital investment in the early railway network in the Great Britain and Ireland.

The Thread uses the quite outstanding UCL web site “Legacies of British Slave-ownership” which attempts to chart where the legacies of slave ownership, and in particular the compensation paid to slave-owners following theSlave Compensation Actof 1837, was used in commercial and social ventures.  The Thread takes the data from this web site for those who had both been compensated, and who also invested in the early railway companies, and a simple addition of the sum invested by these individuals in railway companies in Great Britain and Ireland comes to £5,261,768 (a little less than in the Thread, no doubt due to a minor omission somewhere that I can’t locate, but this is of no consequence to what follows). The implication in the Thread is that this sum comes directly from slave compensation and it is argued that this forms a significant proportion of the railway capital in the early years – for example the cumulative capital by 1840 was £30 million, and thus the total invested by the slave owners was around 1/6^thof the total.  

However, all is not as simple as it looks. Firstly, an inspection of the UCL web entries indicates that a few of the identifications of slave owners with railway investors are not totally firm and that there is some doubt about them. Nonetheless these are unlikely to affect the above figure significantly, perhaps reducing it by a few tens of thousands pounds and no correction will be made. Secondly the web site lists a few payments to trustees, usually of minors. It is a moot point as to whether the future railway investment of these trustees in their own right should be included in the sum. Again, this is not a significant issue and no corrections have been made for it. 

A much bigger issue however is that, as I read it, the UCL web site shows the total investment of individuals in the railways, and that is what the figure of £5,261,768 actually refers to. Many of the slave-owners received far less in compensation than they actually invested in the railways – these figures are given on the pages for individuals in the list. So that figure for capital investment, which the Thread uses as the basis for its arguments, is a very significant overestimate of they investments that were made from slave compensation. For example, consider the three individuals who feature in the Thread. The first, John Moss invested £222,470 in railway concerns, but only received £40,353 in slave compensation; Robert Browne invested £577,260 but only received £797 in compensation; and Thomas Dunlop Douglas invested £396,100 having received £15,907 in compensation. One Robert Pulsford is included in the database as investing £291,000 in railways concerns. However his inclusion is as a result of five unsuccessful claims for compensation and he actually received no compensation at all. Similar discrepancies between total investment and compensation sums can be identified for nearly all the major investors, although the amounts invested for the smaller investors were often very similar to the amount of compensation they received. So the figure of £5,261,768 money that found its way into the railways cannot all be from compensation payments. In fact if one limits the amount of investment for each investor to the amount they received in compensation, the figure falls to £1,134,031 i.e. 21.6% of the original figure.  

But even this is without doubt an overestimate, as not all the compensation money would have been invested in the railways. It might be more realistic to say that the proportion of invested compensation should be the same as the proportion of the total investment to the overall wealth of the investor. The UCL site allows an estimate to be made of this for a subset of those named by giving their recorded wealth at death. The median of the ratio of investment to total wealth at death comes to 10% (excluding those individuals who went bankrupt or suffered major financial distress at the end of their lives). I am of course very well aware that this methodology is more than a little suspect! On this basis however the amount of slave-compensation money that was invested in the railways falls to around £110,000.

On the basis of these figures, the actual amount of compensation that became railway capital was between £0.1 million and 1 million. Whether of not this is significant in terms of the overall capital investment (£30 million by 1840) I will let the reader decide.  But it is best to use as accurate a figure as possible in coming to a view.

The Thread has done the community a service by raising the issue of slave-compensation investment on the railways, which should not be ignored, although it needs to be carefully looked at to investigate whether it was significant in comparison to other investment. In future posts, I intend to look at this issue further – both in relation to those who received large compensation sums and made large investments in the railways (not necessarily those mentioned in the Thread); but also in relation to that area of the Black Country about which I have posted regularly – the parish of Kingswinford – where traces of slave-owner investment can indeed be found if one looks carefully. 

In coming to a the definition of the Original Mercia outlined in “The first Mercian Lands”, I included Seisdon Hundred in south Staffordshire within its bounds (figure 1). The reason for doing so was primarily because this area became part of the Mercian Diocese of Lichfield. However there is some rather disparate evidence that at least part of Seisdon hundred was Hwiccan territory at some stage before the formation of the diocese. 

• Topographically, the area is in the catchment of the Smestow and Stour and thus of the Severn itself, as is the case for the other Hwiccan territories. Other parts of Staffordshire are in the Trent catchment.
• There are Domesday linkages between the manors of Tardebigge and Clent in Worcestershire and Kingswinford in Staffordshire – and indeed Clent was for many centuries post-Domesday an island of Staffordshire within Worcestershire.  
• The manors of Kingswinford and Amblecote (in Staffordshire) and Oldswinford (in Worcestershire) were almost certainly once part of the same land unit. 
• The ecclesiastical parish of Oldswinford was split between the manors of Oldswinford in Worcestershire and Amblecote in Staffordshire.
• The large Worcestershire enclave of Dudley has been surrounded by Staffordshire since the Domesday survey.
• The name of the Hundred itself is taken from the village name of Seisdon, which can plausibly be translated as the Hill of the Saxons. This ties in with the now rather dated assumption that the Hwicce represent the northward advance of Saxons up the Severn valley.

Thus a case can be made that the area of Seisdon Hundred was originally Hwiccan territory that was absorbed into the Original Mercia. The reason for this is clear from the map of figure 1 – strategically it is a very important area. The Roman road system centred on Greensforge controls access along the Saltway from Droitwich to the north, access to Shropshire, the borders and Wales, and gives a direct link to Quatford on the Severn, allowing control of river traffic. Three potential roads are shown on the map that are not shown on the larger scale map of figure 8 in the main text – those from Greensforge north east to Wall, from Water Eaton to Metchley and from Metchley to Greensforge. The routes of the first two can be traced in places on the ground (Horovitz, 2005; Bassett, 2001), but the lines shown on the map are purely conjectural. It is however likely that the two routes crossed at Wednesbury. The route between Metchley and Greensforge (Baker, 2013) begins with the Metchley to Water Eaton route but branches from it through the village known as the Portway near Oldbury and then passing though, or to the south of Dudely, to Kingswinford and Greensforge.  Taken together this road network clearly adds to the connectivity of the region and emphasises its strategic importance. 

Figure 1 – Seisdon Hundred

(Red shows boundary of the hundred  – a solid line where it coincides with the county boundary, and a dotted line otherwise; grey shows other county and hundred boundaries; brown shows the pre-1974 county boundary, reflecting the early post-Domesday losses to Shropshire; roads are shown (schematically) in green and rivers in blue).

D Horovitz (2005) “Place names of Staffordshire”, published by D Horovitz, Brewood

S Bassett (2001) “Birmingham Before the Bull Ring”, Midland History, 26, 1, 1-33,

C J Baker (2013)  “Pensnett – its name and origins” Staffordshire History Journal

Table 1 The three recensions of the Tribal Hidage

On the page “The first Mercian Lands”, 1 have drawn on information in the document known as the Tribal Hidage, as part of the investigation into the location of the original Mercian lands. In this short note, I consider this document in a little more detail. Table 1 above gives a summary of the three separate recensions of the Tribal Hidage. The description of the polities from Recension A is given, together with the location where there is general scholarly agreement. As noted in the main text, there are two combined lists – Primary (P) and Secondary (S). The Hidages from the three recensions are then also given. It can be seen that these vary somewhat. The sum of the hidages in all three recensions is given for both lists A and B. In Recension A, a false total is given for the total hidage of 242,700. 

Figure 1. Tribal Hidage. “Firm” locations of regions in the primary and secondary lists  (figure 3 in main text)

(P1- Myrcna lands; P2 – Wocensætna; P4- Pecsætna: P5 – Elmedsætna: P6 – Lindesfarona mid Hæþfeldlande: P7 – Suþgyrwa: P8 – Norþgyrwa: P11 – Spalda; P13 – Herefinna : P14 – Sweordora P15 – Gifla : P16- Hicca: P18- Noxgaga: P19 – Ohtgaga; S1 – Hwinca; S2 – Cilternsætna; S6 – Færpinga; S9 – Eastwilla; S10 – Westwilla; S11 – Eastengle; S12 – Eastsexena; S13 – Cantwarena; S14 – Suþsexena; S15 – Westsexena)

It was noted on “The first Mercian Lands” that the clockwise ordering of the primary and secondary lists seems to be a very deliberate tactic on behalf of the original compiler of the list – see figure 1 above. At the risk of pushing this schema too far, it is worth asking the question if the location of the polities whose locations are not known can be inferred by imposing this clockwise presentation scheme. Thus let us consider those polities in table 1 where no location is given.

• Westerna (P3). Scholars usually identify this as one of the Magonsaete in south Shropshire / Herefordshire, somewhere in Wales, or the region around Chesire. Higham would see it as representing the tribute payment of the Welsh Overkingship from somewhere in Gwynedd. It does not seem to the author that the Magonsate is a possibility as this kingdom seems to have been established late in the 7^thcentury i.e. after the Tribal Hidage was compiled. The clockwise rotation would best place this polity in Wales or the Cheshire region. My preference would be to see it as the Western half of the Civitas of the Cornovii that was ultimately to become the kingdom of Powys, which fits best with both the name and the clockwise rotation.
• East and West Wixna (P9 and P10). Within the Fenland there seems to be a subsiduary clockwise rotation, at least based on those polities identified by Oosthuizen.  If this is the case then the East and West Wixna would lie somewhere on the Fenland margin between the Gwyre and the Spalda. This is not however consistent Oosthuizen’s analysis.
• Wigesta (P12). The clockwise rotation within the fens would place this to the south and west of the Spalda.
• Wiht gara (P17). This is taken by most scholars to be the Isle of Wight. The present author finds this very difficult to believe, as it lies within the primary list, but is separated from all the other polities in that list by those in the secondary list.  In the author’s view this probably represents a typographical error, with the original name being confused for the (more familiar) name for the Isle of Wight. The clockwise rotation would see this region in the Bedfordshire area. 
• Noxgaga (P18) and Ohtgaga (P19).It has already been argued on “The first Mercain Lnds”, that the clockwise rotation places these two sizeable entities in the Northanptonshire /Leicestershire area.
• Hendrica (S3).The Ciltern sætna and Hendrica together have an assessment of 7000 or 7500, suggesting they are subdivisions of one unit. If so this would obviously place the Hendrica in the Chilterns area, which is consistent with the clockwise rotation of the secondary list.
• Unecunga-ga (S4).This name is clearly corrupt and no convincing location seems to have been proposed.  Again, the clockwise rotation would suggest that it be placed somewhere in the Oxfordshire area.
• Arosætna (S5). Conventionally, this polity is identified as being in the valley of the River Arrow in Worcestershire and Warwickshire. However there is no indication elsewhere that this area was ever anything other than part of the Hwicce, and I find it difficult to accept this identification. The clockwise rotation would again suggest that this be placed somewhere in the Oxfordshire region.
• Bilmiga (S7) and Widerigga (S8). Various locations have been suggested for these entities, including the area of Lincolnshire to the west of the Wash, and regions in Eastern Northamptonshire. Both these suggestions however cut across the boundary between primary and secondary lists i.e. between the Midlands and Southern Overkingships. The clockwise rotation would see them best placed in the south Midlands area perhaps in Buckinghamshire or Hertfordshire. 

It has been noted above that the hidage values are generally expressed in terms of a duodecimal system for the smaller polities, and in units of 7000 for the middle sized polities. The larger kingdoms seem to have punitive assessments of 30,000 or 100,000. One must approach these numbers with a very great deal of caution and be very wary of giving them too great a significance. In an early study of the Tribal Hidage,Russell (1947)give an interpretation of the significance of the numbers in a tour de force of somewhat dubious arithmetic and remarkable assumptions of copyists errors to show hidden additions and totals throughout the list. What he actually demonstrates is the remarkable flexibility of the duodecimal system to provide all sorts of totals and subtotals from any subset of numbers. However there are perhaps two numbers that do have some significance – the figure of close to 36000 of the primary list of the Tribal Hidage (excluding the original Mercia), and the approximate 144,000 total of the primary and secondary lists excluding Wessex. Both these numbers have rich biblical symbolic meanings, which would have been well appreciated by later copyists, and in particular latter might be thought to emphasize the totality of the tribute being paid by the Midlands and Southern overkingships. These numbers are not of course exact, but there is perhaps some indication that those who later edited the lists attempted to make the additions more precise.  For example Recension C removes a 100 hides from the 900 for the Wigesta, which would reduce the overall total for the primary list (excluding the original Mercia) to 36,000 – although he also removes 600 from the Pecsaete and 598 (!) from the Herefina, which destroys this calculation. A similar change of 100 hides would also bring the overall total for the two lists to 144,000 (excluding Wessex), although this is again obscured by other minor changes (which are possibly copyists errors). It is not argued here that the numbers in the list should be seen as having any particular significance – but rather that later editors and compilers thought that this might be the case and tried to make them fit to what they believed were appropriate numbers. 

At the page “The first Mercian Lands” I have argued that a plausible historical context for the establishment of Mercia was the northward expansion of Wessex during the third quartile of the sixth century. This followed, if the general thrust of the various annals and chronicles is taken as reliable for this period, a period of relatively calm between the various ethnic groups in southern England – the peace following the Battle of Mons Badonicus as recorded by Gildas (Higham, 1994). The question then arises as to what caused this renewed military activity on behalf of Wessex. It seems clear to the author that the primary reason for this was the climate upheavals of the 530s and 540s and the associated first pandemic of plague that swept across Europe, which resulted in depopulation and political destabilization. This effect is well documented, and probably resulted from multiple volcanic eruptions with or without some sort of impact event around that time (Degroot, 2016; Newfield, 2016). Yet this effect hardly seems to be considered at all by the academic historical community. The author can see no reason for this, other than a perhaps understandable reluctance to become involved in any way with the more speculative theories outlined in a number of popular works. Yet it seems that the objectivity of these events have a number of implications for academic historians.

• Gildas’s magnum opus De Excidio Britanniaemust have been written before the first climatic catastrophe, which occurred in 535AD according to reliable tree ring evidence. Otherwise he would surely have included it within his polemic against the moral failure of the rulers of his day. 
• The fact that this polemic was in some way validated by major external events (either through coincidence or divine action depending on your point of view), may well have been a major reason why Gildas and De Excidio Britanniaewas held in such high authority by his contempories and subsequent writers.
• The plague hit a weakened Roman population in 542 AD, and would have spread throughout Europe over the next two or three years, judging by the speed of progress of the second pandemic (the Black Death) that has a well established chronology. The Historia Brittonum, regarded by most historians as unreliable for this period, gives the death date, by plague of Maglocunus, one of the rulers castigated by Gildas, as 547AD. This is perhaps three or four years too late, but does (perhaps uncomfortably for some) give an external validation to the Historia Brittonum.
• The Annales Cambriaegives the death date of Gildas as 570AD, which, on the basis of the above, may be a few years too late. Now Gildas writes that he was born in the year of Mons Badonicus and was 44 years old at the time. Thus supposing he wrote De Excidio Britanniaein 534AD, this gives a date for his birth and the battle of 490AD, which is roughly where many historians would locate it, and would give him an age of, something less than 80 at his death, which does not seem impossible.

Thus, at the very least, a consideration of the effects of the global events of the 530s has the potential to cast some light on the chronology of the mid / late seventh century, and to give a little more confidence in the various annals and chronicles from that period.

N Higham (1994) “The English Conquest – Gildas and Britain in the firth century”, Manchester University Press

D Degroot (2016) “Volcanoes, Comet Crashes, and Changes in the Sun: How Sixth-Century Cooling Transformed the World”, 

T Newfield (2016) “The Global Cooling Event of the Sixth Century. Mystery No Longer?”

First published on this site as a web age in June 2020, but republished as a blog post in august 2024 for consistency with other material.

Preamble

The Tribal Hidage, that most enigmatic of early texts, begins its perambulation of the polities in Southern England with a reference to “the first (or original) Mercian lands” (Davies and Vierck, 2010). It is the purpose of this short essay to unpack this phrase, and to see if it is possible to arrive at a coherent description of what was the original Mercia in the early / mid seventh century when, it will be seen, I take the Tribal Hidage to have been composed. We begin by briefly considering some aspects of the Tribal Hidage itself and then move on to a discussion of what can be deduced about early “kingdom” boundaries in the period of late antiquity – although the nature of the different polities discussed may well be very different from one another – through a consideration of detailed reconstructions from studies of regional history, and through consideration of ecclesiastical diocesan boundaries.  We then discuss what might have been the nature of this early Mercian kingdom, through a consideration of the likely transport networks in its confines, and considers the historical events surrounding its establishment. 

Throughout, we will work with what seems to be the developing consensus that it is difficult to separate Anglian, Saxon and British kingdoms on a strict ethnic basis, and most of the polities discussed will be of an ethnic mix, although it is clear that in the period of late antiquity following the withdrawal of the Roman armies, there was an increasing Germanic cultural influence throughout England, perhaps involving a relatively small migration from the Anglian and Saxon homelands. Such an approach seems to be consistent with recent archeological studies, which shows no major discontinuities in agricultural practices or evidence of major warfare in the early settlement period (Oosthuizen, 2017), and with recent genetic studies that show a homogeneous genetic background across most of England, although a genetic boundary between England Wales is apparent, and second level genetic differences can be observed in the South West, and in South Yorkshire (Lesley et al, 2015). 

In what follows, an essentially geographical analysis will be presented in an attempt to locate the original Mercia, based on the drawing of boundaries of different types – kingdom boundaries, diocesan boundaries and county boundaries. Most of these are not contemporary with the period under consideration, and there is an implicit assumption that these boundaries reflect underlying and ancient boundaries from late antiquity. Whilst others have followed this route it is a somewhat dangerous course and open (quite rightly) to significant criticism. Also of course the concept of a boundary between peoples may or may not have been of relevance in the period under consideration and this needs to be borne in mind in what follows. These points having been made, we will in what follows use two scales of maps that both show, as the basis for relating to current geography, the pre-1974 county boundaries (see figure 1 for the larger scale of map that will be used). These counties were first defined in the 10^thcentury, and remained relatively stable up to the 1974 re-organisation, although there have been continual minor modifications to boundaries over the centuries. In the area shown in figure 1, this has particularly affected the boundaries of Worcestershire, which became fragmented as a result of transfers of property from secular to ecclesiastical ownership and vice versa, with detached areas in the surrounding counties. These areas are not shown in figure 1 for clarity.  There is one region however where the pre-1974 boundaries are not shown – the county boundary between the south west of Staffordshire and Shropshire – where there was an early (12^thcentury) loss of land from Staffordshire to Shropshire due to the actions of Earl Roger to consolidate all his holdings into Shropshire (Thorn et al, 1986). As this region is particularly pertinent to the discussion that will follow, the Domesday boundaries for this region will be shown in all the maps that follow. 

Figure 2 uses this map to illustrate the river systems in the English Midlands – and in particular the Trent, Severn, Wash and Cheshire basins. It is clear that the county boundaries in general follow river basin boundaries. In the area of interest here, this is particularly the case for the Staffordshire / Cheshire, Shropshire / Cheshire and Staffordshire/ Shropshire boundaries. The southern Severn / Trent basin boundary is also coincident with county boundaries, except in the case of Warwickshire which sits across the watershed between them.  

Figure 1. The base map, showing pre-1974 county boundaries and names 

Figure 2 Rivers and county boundaries 

(Only major rivers and tributaries are shown. The blue filled circles indicate riverine locations of importance to the argument that follows below.)

The Tribal Hidage

The Tribal Hidage exists today in a number of different manuscripts, which are set out and compared by Dumville (1989).  It essentially consists of two lists of kingdoms / polities of various sizes, with hidages attached to each entity. The date of the original document is disputed, with dates from the 620s to the 780s suggested (Corbett, 1900; Hart, 971; Higham 1995). I find the approach taken by Higham (1995), who proposes date in the 620s, the most persuasive, although this does not appear to be the universal view of historians. He suggests that it is in origin a tribute list of Edwin of Deira, dating from 624/5. The primary list is effectively a list of tributes payable to him from what Higham terms the Midlands “Overkingship”, whilst the secondary list was added perhaps a year later to indicate the tribute from the Southern “Overkingship”. The level of hidage seems to be standardized to 7000 for county sized entities, and to multiples of 300 for smaller entities particularly in the region know as Middle Anglia around the Wash and the East Midlands. For the Southern Overkingship entries in the secondary list, there is clearly a punitive element, particularly with the 100,000 hides allocated to Wessex.  

For the current purposes it is the order of the entries that is of most interest. The kingdoms on which most authors can agree are shown in figure 3 for both the primary (P) and secondary  (S) lists.  Original Mercia (P1 on the figure) is placed at the historic centre of the kingdom in south Staffordshire around Lichfield and Tamworth. A number of points arise from this figure.

• There is a well-described clockwise progression in the primary list (and a subsidiary clockwise progression in the Fenland entities – based on the recent wok of Osthuizen (2017) and similarly in the secondary list. The latter list is indeed almost a closed loop. This is so marked, it seems to have been a specific intention on the part of the original compiler of the list. 
• The list includes Elmet, which was incorporated into the Deiran kingdom by Edwin (i.e. before 633) and Lindsey and Hatfield, which were never associated as a dual entity after the reign of Edwin. This argues for an early date for the Hidage (Higham, 1995).
• The list does not include the Magonsaete in the south Shropshire / Herefordshire region, which was certainly in existence by 680 when it was ruled by Merewalh (note the British name), who is described by some as a son of Penda of Mercia. Again this argues for an early date (Pretty, 1989).
• The area of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, which the diocesan boundaries suggest is in Middle Anglia (see below) are not allocated any of the agreed kingdoms on the Tribal Hidage map. This suggests to me that the Noxgaga (P18) and Ohtgaga (P19) at the end of the primary list, both county sized entities, should be located in this area, rather than in the Middlesex / Surrey area suggested by some authors (Hart, 1977). This identification would make the primary list an almost closed loop. 
• This identification identifies the area around which the primary list loops to be in the Nottinghamshire area. This will be seen to be of relevance in what follows. 

Figure 3. Tribal Hidage. “Firm” locations of regions in the primary and secondary lists 

(P1- Myrcna lands; P2 – Wocensætna; P4- Pecsætna: P5 – Elmedsætna: P6 – Lindesfarona mid Hæþfeldlande: P7 – Suþgyrwa: P8 – Norþgyrwa: P11 – Spalda; P13 – Herefinna : P14 – Sweordora P15 – Gifla : P16- Hicca: P18- Noxgaga: P19 – Ohtgaga; S1 – Hwinca; S2 – Cilternsætna; S6 – Færpinga; S9 – Eastwilla; S10 – Westwilla; S11 – Eastengle; S12 – Eastsexena; S13 – Cantwarena; S14 – Suþsexena; S15 – Westsexena)

Kingdom and Diocesan boundaries

The work of local historians in various parts of England, who have carried out detailed work on boundaries of sub-Roman, early Anglo-Saxon polities that enables the boundaries of these polities to be drawn in more detail than the Tribal Hidage allows, even though these are to some extent speculative. Here we consider the work of Higham for the Pecsaetna in the Peak (Higham, 1993), Breeze for Elmet in South Yorkshire (Breeze, 2002), Parker for Hatfield in South Yorkshire / North Nottinghamshire (Parker, 1992) and Bassett for the kingdom of Lindsay (Bassett, 1989), All of these authors would, I am sure, have significant caveats for their work, but taken together they form a useful set of data. The boundaries they identify are again shown on figure 4. Higham suggests that the area of the Pecsaete consist of the Cheshire Domesday hundred of Hamestan, the Derbyshire hundred of the same name, plus the Staffordshire hundred of Totmonslow. The area of Hadfield identified by Parker includes not only the area of south Yorkshire that is usually so identified, but also north Nottinghamshire. The boundaries of the Pecsaete and Hatfield are, on this basis separated by a thin strip of Derbyshire (essentially Scarsdale Hundred), and it seems likely that the territory of one or the other of them extended to fill the gap between them. We choose here to extend the region of the Pecsaete into this area, as it will be seen below that a significant diocesan boundary separates Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire.  Elsewhere the region of Elmet identified by Breeze can be seen to border on the Pecsaete, and the area of Lindsey is, following Bassett, taken to include not only the pre-1974 Parts of Lindsey to the north of the River Witham, but also a similar sized area to the south.

Figure 4 Kingdom boundaries in the north Midlands

(red dotted line shows the region of the Pecsaetna assumed in what follows – the red chain dotted line ins the boundary identified by Higham; the green dotted line shows the region of Hatfield; the brown dotted line shows the region of Elmet; the purple dotted line shows the region of Lindsey – with the chain dotted line showing the southern boundary of the Parts of Lindsey)

Now let us move to the consideration of the boundaries of church dioceses, particularly in the English Midlands. Some historians have expressed doubt about how the known medieval boundaries can be extrapolated back to the seventh century, the period under consideration here. This is particularly true of those areas which fell within the Danelaw where a number of dioceses ceased to operate. Nonetheless, they are used here for two reasons – firstly the 10^th century Midland county boundaries follow these diocesan boundaries in many places and this suggests that the latter predated the former, and secondly, in many parts of the Midlands, there seems to be no record of any historical events that could have led to boundary changes. This is indeed the approach followed by Hart (1977) in his consideration of the Tribal Hidage, although he did not follow this approach to its logical conclusion. 

The Mercian diocese came into existence in 655, and in its early days it covered a large region across the English Midlands. The situation changed with the reorganization of Theodore of Tarsus (Archbishop of Canterbury 669-690), who created dioceses based on “kingdoms” – a Lichfield diocese reduced in size for Mercia, Hereford Diocese for the Magonsaete (676), Lincoln diocese for the kingdom of Lindsey (678), Worcester diocese for the Hwicce (680) and Leicester diocese for the Middle Angles (681) (Podmore, 2008). These dioceses, as they existed in the late Anglo-Saxon era, are shown in figure 5, together with the relevant county boundaries (Ordnance Survey, ??).

From this figure it can be seen that the Mercian diocese covers much of west Warwickshire, Staffordshire, part of Shropshire, Derbyshire and the “land between the Mersey and the Ribble”.  Clearly as such it encompasses the areas listed in the Tribal Hidage as Wocensætna and Pecsaetna, as well as whatever polities existed north of the Mersey, which must thus have been incorporated into Mercia sometime between the compilation of the Tribal Hidage (in 625 if Higham’s argument is accepted) and the re-organisation of dioceses in the 670s.

Equally significant are those areas that are not part of the Mercian diocese. Firstly Nottinghamshire has been, from at least 956 when the church was re-established following the Danish conquests, part of the York diocese (Stenton, 1968). At this time the area based on the minster church of Southwell, which was granted to Oskytel, Archbishop of York by King Eadwig.  It seems likely to methat this was simply are-establishment of the pre-conquest status quo. There is a local tradition that the area was first evangelised in the early seventh century by Paulinus operating from York.  Thus, in ecclesiastical terms, Nottinghamshire looks to the north and the Humber, rather than to the Midlands and the diocese of Lichfield. Secondly, the counties of Leicester and Northamptonshire are in the Leicester (i.e. Middle Anglian) diocese. Hart, in his definition of the geography of Mercia, arbitrary labels this area as “outer Mercia” (Hart, 1977), an entity which has no historical context at all. The fact that it is regarded as being in Middle Anglia is consistent with the argument set out above that the Noxgaga and Ohtgaga should be located in this area. 

Figure 5 Diocesan and county boundaries.  

Locating the original Mercia 

An attempt can now be made at locating the original lands of Mercia, about which the Tribal Hidage seems to revolve – see figure 6. The diocesan boundaries and boundaries of other kingdoms would suggest that this region included west Warwickshire, south Staffordshire and south and east Derbyshire. The main unknowns are the location of the northern and western boundaries. With regard to the northern boundary, this has been chosen to exclude the long neck of land between the regions of the Pecsaete and Hatfield, as identified by Higham and Parker, as this seems the more logical geographical boundary. The boundary shown in figure 6 thus forms the southern boundary of the Domesday Scarsdale Hundred.   With regard to the western boundary, the logical place for this would be on the watershed between the Trent and Severn basins. This is followed by the western border of Staffordshire, except for Seisdon hundred in the south, where part of the catchment of the Stour, a tributary of the Severn, is included within Staffordshire and the Domesday county boundary was the River Severn itself. The boundary of the original Mercia is drawn to follow the Staffordshire boundary even in this region for reasons that will become apparent below. The original Mercia thus consists of the Staffordshire Domesday hundreds of Seisdon, Cuttlestone, Pirehill and Offlow (the latter containing Lichfield), the Derbyshire hundreds of Walecross, Appletree, Litchurch and Morleystone and the Warickshire hundreds of Coleshill, Bumblelow, Stoneleigh, Marton and Hunesberi. Many authors have pointed out that this region lacks natural boundaries or defensive positions of any sort, and this will be considered below. But at this point the reason for the name of the kingdom – the borderlands – becomes obvious if this area is considered in terms of the Roman Civitas, the broad areas of which are also shown on figure 7 (it is not being possible to draw these with any precision) together with an indication of the Provincial areas following the reorganization of Diocletian (Jones and Mattingley. 1993). There is coming to be agreement that throughout the fifth and sixth centuries there was some continuity in Civitas level government, at least in the west of England, either through Governors or through kings (Dark, 2000). On the presumption that something similar to these Civitas continued to exist in some form into the late 6^thcentury, it can be seen that the original Mercia sat across the borders of a number of them – the Dobunni in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, who seem to have morphed into the Hwicce; the Cornovii in Shropshire / Chester, who became the Wocensætna, the Corieltauvi in Warwickshire / Leicestershire / Lincolnshire; the Catuvellauni in Northamptonshire / Bedforshire / Buckinghamshire, and, if it actually existed, Lutadorum in the Peak District, who can perhaps be identified with the territory of the  Pecsaete. It would seem that Mercia took land from all of these and straddled the borders of each, and in doing so straddled the borders of at least three of the four late Roman provinces. 

Figure 6. The original Mercia mapped.

Figure 7. The original Mercia and Civitas and Provincial regions

(Civitas names in black, Provincial names in green)

The point has often been made that the original Mercia, whatever its precise location, lacked natural boundaries. However this is probably a misconception. Figure 8 shows the original Mercia as identified above, together with the established Roman road network, which was usable well into Medieval times, and also some conjectural, but likely roman roads. This changes the picture of Mercia significantly. It can be seen that the centre of the kingdom at Lichfield / Wall sits on a major junction of roads, from where small bands suitably mounted and armed could reach all parts of the kingdom very quickly and could establish control over a wide area.  Also at the borders there were at least the locations of Roman towns which could have acted as regional centres – Water Eaton to the west, Greensforge to the south west, Metchley to the south, High Cross to the south east and Derby to the north. Perhaps most importantly this network would also allow control of trade across the whole region – and thus control of major trading routes across England – Watling Street between High Cross and Water Eaton; Ryknield Streets between Derby and Metchley, as well as the northern saltways from Droitwich. To this road network, can be added strategic riverine locations at Sawley – the junction of the Trent, Erewash and Soar, and on the Severn at Quatford, which could thus control major river traffic flows. The latter is the major reason for suggesting that Seisdon hundred in Staffordshire was part of the orginal Mercia, as it gave control over the saltway at Greensforge and the roads to the borders and mid Wales, as well as access to the Severn at Quatford. This interpretation thus sees the original Mercia as very much a commercial enterprise as well as one in kingdom building.

Figure 8 – Communications networks

(blue indicates probably and possible Roman Roads; red indicates locations within the Original Mercia; green indicates major locations outside this area. Blue circles indicates the riverine crossings at Quatford (in the west) and Sawley (in the east)

Finally the question arises as to whether or not there is a historical context into which the above scenario could fit. Here there is little alternative but to use the evidence of the various chronicles and early histories, and which are open to serious challenges as to their veracity and utility. With that proviso, they are used and viewed as broadly reliable in what follows.

The third quartile of the sixth century was a time of expansion by the kingdom of Wessex, as illustrated in figure 9.  In 568 a Wessex force led by Ceawlin and Cutha, defeated Aethelberht of Kent, and pushed him back towards his homeland. In 571, in a northern advance, Cuthwulf defeated British force at Bedcanford (usually taken as Bedford) taking control of a number of towns in that region.  This was followed in 577 by the battle of Deorham, where three British kings were again defeated by Cuthwine and Ceawlin and three major towns taken – Bath, Glouccester and the capital of the Province of Britannia Prima, Circencester.  Then for 584, for  Anglo-Saxon chronicle reads

Ceawlin and Cutha fought with Britains at the place called Fethanleag and Cutha was killed, and Ceawlin took many townships and countless spoil and returned in anger to his own. 

Here Cutha is a king in Wessex, and Fethanleag has been identified as Stoke Lyne near Bicester in north Oxfordshire – a few miles south of the southern border of Mercia shown in figure 6.  Davies (1977) relates this to an entry for the next year in the Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum which states 

585 Beginning of the kingdom of Mercia, with Crida

If one can make that equation, this suggest that Cutha met his match in an essentially British force that stopped the northern expansion of Wessex, and that this force was led by Crida who then went on to establish the kingdom of Mercia as outlined above, and a dynasty in the form of Crida, Pybba and Penda. Note the partially British name of the latter, which strongly suggests a kingdom of mixed ethnicity.  The dynasty was known as the Iclingas after the (perhaps mythical) ancestor Icel, and the Anglo Saxon Chronicle gives the names of his descendants before Crida as Cynewald and Cnebba. As noted by Myers there are a number of place names that reflect the name Icel across Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, and there is a concentration of names based on Pybba (Pedmore) and Penda (Pendford, Pinvin) in the Worcestershire / south Staffordshire area, suggesting the popularity of these names around there.

The nature of the original Mercia is however still elusive. It may be that Crida’s family of the 580s, simply took the region centred on Wall and held it by force of arms against the neighbouring polities. Dark would suggest that these polities were the remains of the sub-Roman Civitas system, which to the east were clearly (from the evidence of the small polities of the Tribal Hidage in the East Midlands) in the process of dissolution due to internal pressures, and perhaps also the pressure of migrating Saxons from the area around the Wash and the Humber; whilst in the west bureaucratic Civitas governments of the Dobunni and Cornovvii may well have been in their final sharp decline. This suggest the possibility (and it can be rated no higher than that) that the family and their followers were effectively foederatiemployed by these bureaucratic governments to resist the growing pressure of Wessex from the south and the chaos enveloping their eastern borders. If so, then their eventual subjugation by an expanding Mercia might suggest that this was ultimately not a good move. 

In the early seventh century, there does seem to have been a break in the succession, and Bede tells us of another Mercian king – Cearl – who took the refugee and later Deiran King, Edwin, under his protection in around 605. Higham argues that he was the Midlands Overking at the time, able to resists the demands of Aethelfrith in Northumbria for the return of Edwin (Higham, 1995). The fact that Edwin was able to reach Cearl easily, and after Cearl’s death find refuge with Raedwald in East Anglia, strongly suggests that Ceorl’s activity was in the north midlands – perhaps in the south of Nottinghamshire which has been identified as an anomaly in diocesan terms. In this scenario, Cearl would have been of northern Anglian stock, but Bede would have referred to him as king of Mercia, because the region in which his power was centred was Mercian in Bede’s day. Taking this further one can perhaps see the primary list of the Tribal Hidage as a tribute list of Cearl, in which the punative 30,000 hides of the original Mercia reflected a recent takeover from the Icinglas dynasty that was not to prove permanent.  It can also be speculated that Ceorl’s territory was that of the North Mercians mentioned by Bede, with the original Mercia being South Mercia. In taking over Ceorl’s territory, Penda would thus become the first king to “separate the Mercians from the Northumbrians” as also noted by Bede. But here we are in the realms of speculation, and his must be only one of many possibilities of the situation on the ground in the early seventh century.

Figure 9 Anglo Saxon Chronicle battles of the mid / late sixth century

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