Customer Reviews

Domesday Book: A Complete Translation (Alecto Historical Editions)

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It takes a particular sort of reader to rejoice at the prospect of an all-new translation of a 900-year-old government-sponsored economic and agricultural census. I'm well acquainted with the Phillimore 35-volume edition published in the 1970s, and I own Finn's guide to it, but this new effort is a lovely piece of work -- and it's portable enough to actually carry around with you. The Alecto translation was itself based on the Victoria History of the Counties of England version, but much improved and updated. This volume also omits the marginalia, which is too bad, but it does interpolate a great many bracketed words to fill the original scribe's frequent elisions. There's also an extremely thorough Index of Places -- but not one of persons, a glaring omission, since so many larger landholders possessed estates throughout a county, or even in numerous counties. Nevertheless, an excellent publication, and at a very reasonable price.

The Penguin Classics edition of the Domesday Book is an English translation of the great survey of England Commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086-1087 ACE. This survey looms large in the study of medieval England after the Normal invasion of 1066, and serves as a baseline for the study of the Black Death in England, as well as the study of the social and economics of 11th century England. Edited by Ann Williams and G.H. Martin, the complete translation is an important resource for the study of medieval Europe. This 1992 Penguin edition is an affordable treasure.

Simply the most boring uninteresting book ever printedInot the fault of this editor by the way, the book was a government document). Although a wonderful window into English history and our heritage of property rights this book is a terribly boring and epically vicious account of nothing, expect a recording of every minor person and land ownership in England. An important piece of western heritage but maybe not bed time reading. Five stars for translation and beauty/presentation.