The Wantage Code survives today in Old English within the manuscript known as Textus Roffensis, originating in the early twelfth century and preserved by the medieval bishops of Rochester; and in a Latin translation within Quadripartitus, another compilation work of similar date.

[8][6] In the Quadripartitus tradition the text is extended with the incorporation of the "Laws of London" (IV Æthelred) along with tracts on Pax ("peace") and Walreaf ("corpse robbery").

[14][15] The scholars of the 21st-century Early English Laws AHRC-funded research project in the United Kingdom noted that the code contains what is "perhaps the earliest description of a jury of presentment"[16][17] A provision (3 §1) declared that "[A] court shall be held in every wapentake, and the twelve leading thegns along with the reeve shall go out and swear on the relics which are given into their hands, that they will not accuse any innocent man or shield any guilty one".

[22][14] Within the Wantage Code there are provisions concerning the jurisdiction of the wapentake (Old English: wǣpen(ge)tæc; Old Norse: vápnatak), an area of local administration unique to Anglo-Scandinavian Britain that by the time of Domesday Book was seen as analogous to the West Saxon hundred.

[23][24] These units are found in the area covered by the rural hinterland of the Five Boroughs, what would become Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but also in Yorkshire, County Durham, Northamptonshire, Cheshire and Cumberland.