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The Domesday Book: England's Heritage, Then & Now

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This beautiflly illustrated book presents England's geography and heritage from a unique persepctive: the Domesday Book. The book starts with an essay on the Domesday Book, complete with keys to reading and understanding an entry in the Domesday Book. The main part of the book is divided into 37 counties. Each section begins with a general survey of the county followed by short essays on individual areas that were chosen for their social and geographical diversity. The essays are tied to their original Domesday entries. A county gazeteer follows which lists the Domesday settlements alphabetically by their modern spelling. Each entry summarizes the Domesday information and includes, wherever possible, information on the settlement's history and present status. The book includes over 12,500 entries, hundreds of photographs and line drawings, a glossary and mini biographies of almost 200 major landholders at the time the survey was taken. A wonderful book for medieval history lovers!

The book contains a very good summary of each English Shire covered by the Domesday Survey. Each Shire contains map and a focus on several towns, as well as, a list of all place names found in the survey. There is also a glossary of terms, a list of important personages, and plenty of pictures of landscape and architecture.

One of the first items that William I of England (known as William the Conqueror or William the Bastard, depending on your point of view) had on his to-do list was to figure out how much his new subjects owed him in taxes. This required a census of much of England and parts of Wales, and was completed in 1086, the year before William's death. (I'll bet census-taker was a much more interesting job, back then). The results became known as the Domesday Book.

In August 2006 a complete online version of Domesday Book was made available for the first time by the United Kingdom's National Archives, if you prefer to do your searching online. This book is interesting in that it compares particular land-holdings then and now. The original Domesday book is now held in London at the Public Record Office.

This isn't a book that can be read straight through, but it can be browsed with pleasure. Be sure to read the introduction before plunging into the local histories. At the very least, you'll need to know what a hide of land is. Although much of the Domesday record is focused on land, taxes, and disputes over ownership, there are also brief glimpses of how people lived both before and after the Norman conquest.