The Appendix to the Chronicles of Florence of Worcester supplies us with one or two names of small districts, not commonly found in other authors. One of these is the Mercian district of the Westangles or West Hecan, ruled over by Merewald; in whose country were the Mægsetan, or people of Hereford, who are sometimes reckoned to the Hwiccas, or inhabitants of Worcester and Gloucester[133]. Another, the Middleangles, had its bishopric in Leicester: the Southangles, whose bishop sat at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, consequently comprised the counties down to the Thames. The Northangles or Mercians proper had their bishop in Lichfield. Lastly it has been recorded that Malmesbury in Wiltshire was in Provincia Septonia[134]. ----- Footnote 133: “Civitas Wigornia ... et tunc et nunc totius Hwicciae vel Magesetaniae metropolis extitit famosa.” App. Flor. Wigorn., Episc. Hwicciorum. Footnote 134: Vit. Aldh. Whart. Ang. Sacr. ii. 3, and MS. Harl. 356; but the autograph MS., Ed. Hamilton in Rolls Series, reads rightly _Saxonia_. ----- But we are not altogether without the means of carrying this enquiry further. We have a record of the divisions which must have preceded the distribution of this country into shires: they are unfortunately not numerous, and the names are generally very difficult to explain: they have so long become obsolete, that it is now scarcely possible to identify them. Nor need this cause surprise, when we compare the oblivion into which they have fallen with the sturdy resistance offered by the names of the Marks, and their long continuance throughout all the changes which have befallen our race. The Gás, which were only political bodies, became readily swallowed up and lost in shires and kingdoms: the Marks, which had an individual being, and as it were personality of their own, passed easily from one system of aggregations to another, without losing anything of their peculiar character: and at a later period it will be seen that this individuality became perpetuated by the operation of our ecclesiastical institutions. A very important document is printed by Sir Henry Spelman in his Glossary, under the head _Hida_. In its present condition it is comparatively modern, but many of the entries supply us with information obviously derived from the most remote antiquity, and these it becomes proper to take into consideration. The document seems to have been intended as a guide either to the taxation or the military force of the kingdom, and professes to give the number of hides of land contained in the various districts. It runs as follows[135]: