FYI...this book isn't titled what it's really about...could be interesting reading though...Char ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Helen" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: [G-M] Domesday Book Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 11:42:45 -0500 RootsWeb: GEN-MAT-L Domesday BookDomesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England, Frederic William Maitland, 1897, 1966. Illustrated softcover, 5x7-3/4, 527 pages, in very good condition, especially for a softcover of this age, with no loose or dog eared pages, highlighting, underlining, only the introduction has some pencilled notations, and the pages are supple, indexed.Per the covers (The book is a lot better than the reviews!-to my way of thinking, really gives a good understanding of how things were in early day England.) "'In Domesday Book and Beyond...Maitland completely rewrote early English social and economic history and provided the truest picture of English institutions prior to 1066 - from the Introduction by Bryce Lyon.'" And from the back cover: "In 1085 William the Conqueror ordered his officials to collect exact descriptions and accounts of the landed estates throughout his new realm. The information collected resulted in the famous record Domesday Book. Frederick Maitland, a legal historian at Cambridge University at the end of the 19th century, realized that Domesday Book was the key to an understanding of England before the Norman Conquest. In Domesday Book and Beyond, which he described as 'Three Essays in the Early History of England', he used a retrogressive method of approaching his material. He began with the Domesday Book and worked backwards, exploring such other documents as he could find, and from this research reconstructed the social and economic organization of Anglo-Saxon society. Domesday Book and Beyond examines the difference between serfs, villeins, sokemen, and liberi homines and the changes in their condition from Alfred the Great to the Norman period.It looks into Anglo-Saxon urban and rural communities and deals with the 'hide' and why it was important to all questions relating to the land. It concerns itself with the effect of Norman feudalism on Anglo-Saxon institutions.and it gives and interprets all the Domesday statistics...since Domesday Book and Beyond was written, nothing has superceded it..." Contents include: Introduction by Bruce Lyon Preface Essay I. Domesday Book: Plan of the Survey The Serfs The Villeins The Sokemen Sake and Soke The Manor Manor and Vill The Feudal Superstructure The Boroughs Essay II. England Before the Conquest: Book-land and the Land-book Book-land and Folk-land Sake and Soke Book-land and Loan-land The Growth of Seignorial Power The Village Community Essay III. The Hide: Measure and Fields Domesday Statistics Statistical Tables Beyond Domesday This book covers so many things - the size of a perche (or land acreage) as it differed among the different shires of England, the teamland acreage among the shires at different periods, the classes - including those omitted from the Book, the lands allotted to the Lords of the villages and the king's men, etc. This is a book that will give great understanding of the world of our ancestors. It does not do much in the way of names - which in that time period were mostly first names only. This book covers a time period of over 900 years ago. $20 media mail postage paid . . _________________________________________________________________ Discover the best of the best at MSN Luxury Living. http://lexus.msn.com/