Abstract

The famous trimoda necessitas charter records a large grant of land to Bishop Wilfrid by Caedwalla of Wessex in c. 685. The consensus of scholars is that the charter is spurious. This judgment is based on William Henry Stevenson's seemingly exhaustive analysis of the charter in his article on the origin of the antiquarian legal term trinoda necessitas. Stevenson found the charter suspicious because of the inclusion of the phrase trimoda necessitas in Caedwalla's subscription