Dimensions
166 x 242 x 62mm
'Domesday Book' is where English local history starts. Available for the first time in one volume, here is the complete, authoritative translation from the original Latin of 'Domesday Book', together with indexes of places and people and a glossary of terms used.
'Domesday' was compiled in a matter of months in 1086 - just at the end of William the Conqueror's reign. The detailed picture of the English landscape it offers is unparalleled in any country. David Hume, writing in the eighteenth century, called it 'the most valuable piece of antiquity possessed by any nation'.
It is valuable not just in the picture it allows local historians to construct of their area in the eleventh century but also as the foundation document of the national archives. It has also been used down the ages as evidence of title to land: remarkably, it was last consulted for legal precedent in 1982.