The Domesday Book

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Domesday Book, a vast survey of the land and property of much of England and Wales completed in 1086. Twenty years after the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror sent officials to most of his new territories to compile a list of land holdings and to gather information about settlements, the people who lived there and even their farm animals. Almost without parallel in European history, the resulting document was of immense importance for many centuries, and remains a central source for medieval historians.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Stephen Baxter 2 episodes
  Reader in Medieval History at Kings College London
• Elisabeth van Houts 2 episodes
  Honorary Professor of Medieval European History at the University of Cambridge
• David Bates No other episodes
  Professorial Fellow in Medieval History at the University of East Anglia

Reading list

• William the Conqueror
  David Bates (The History Press, 2004) Google Books →
• The Normans and Empire
  David Bates (Oxford University Press, 2013) Google Books →
• A Social History of England 900-1200
  J. Crick and E. van Houts (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2011) Google Books →
• Normandy and its Neighbours 900-1250: Essays for David Bates
  D. Crouch and K. Thompson (eds.) (Brepols Publishers, 2011) Google Books →
• The Norman Conquest: A Very Short Introduction
  George Garnett (Oxford University Press, 2009) Google Books →
• Domesday Book Through Nine Centuries
  Elizabeth Hallam (Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1986) Google Books →
• Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066-1166 - I. Domesday Book
  Katharine Keats-Rohan (Boydell Press, 1999) Google Books →
• Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 - II. Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum
  Katharine Keats-Rohan (Boydell Press, 2002) Google Books →
• Domesday: The Inquest and the Book
  David Roffe (Oxford University Press, 2000) Google Books →
• Conceptualizing Multilingualism in Medieval England c.800-c.1250
  E. M. Tyler (ed.) (Brepols Publishers, 2012)

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Programme ID: b040llvb

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040llvb

Auto-category: 942 (Medieval history of England and Wales)