Domesday Book and the Law: Society and Legal Custom in Early Medieval England

Domesday Book is widely known about but, paradoxically, not really well known. Many know about it rather vaguely and think of it as a kind of Norman gazetteer, when really it is a legal document establishing land ownership and values, and so by extension taxation liabilities. It was compiled with typical Norman thoroughness and so has ever since become a primary source for many kinds of historical research. This volume takes a particular aspect and argues that Domesday Book should be read as a legal text, the repository of the most comprehensive, varied and monumental legal material surviving from England...