Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England
Maitland, Frederic William, 1850-1906Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019
Rating 4.6- Word count
- 1.4M words
- Chapters
- 141
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Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England by MaitlandAuthor: Maitland, Frederic William, 1850-1906,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Jul 19, 2013Editor's review
Maitland's Domesday Book and Beyond consists of three long essays on Domesday Book and the social structures of earlier England, a classic in English legal history and early social history. Its strength lies not in narrative fluency but in its meticulous scrutiny of sources to ask how institutions came into being: land tenure, manorial organization, and the boundaries of status between free and unfree persons are all re-examined within the specific texts. Maitland's argument is dense and heavily annotated, and the book is demanding, but for that very reason it remains an unavoidable reference for scholars. General readers should treat it as a demonstration of method rather than an introduction: watch how a historian draws judgments about power and society from a land survey. Best read slowly in a quiet setting, with an introduction or secondary scholarship to help orient oneself.Who it's for
A good fit for
- Students and researchers in English medieval history and legal history
- Advanced readers interested in Domesday Book and land tenure
- History enthusiasts wanting to learn source criticism and institutional-history argumentation
- Scholars needing to cite classic arguments
Not a good fit for
- Beginners with no medieval history background seeking light general history
- Readers who prefer narrative history and lack patience for argument and annotation
- Learners who struggle with English and have no guided reading aids
Reading tips
- First read a reliable introduction or review of the book to grasp the central question of each essay
- Read essay by essay; after each, restate the core argument before revisiting key notes
- Keep background material on Domesday Book at hand to check terminology
- Skim argumentative details on a first pass, grasp the main line of institutional explanation, and read closely on a second
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
Can I read it without a medieval history background?
You can try, but it will be demanding. The argument rests on extensive primary texts and terminology, and without background you may get lost. Read an introductory book on English medieval social history first, or use the book's introduction and secondary studies to clarify the core questions before entering the main text.Are the three essays connected?
The three essays address one set of questions: starting from the land and personal relations recorded in Domesday Book, they trace earlier institutional forms and social structures, echoing one another rather than standing alone. Reading in order makes the progression of the argument easier to follow.Is the book outdated?
Specific conclusions have been continually revised and supplemented by later scholarship, but its influence on framing questions and handling sources endures, and it remains a frequently cited classic in the field. Read it with specific judgments and research method kept separate, and compare it with recent studies.This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Maitland, Frederic William, 1850-1906 AuthorFrederic William Maitland (1850–1906) was a British scholar of legal history, known for his meticulous study of the early legal and institutional history of England. Two of his works are held here: Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England and English Law and the Renaissance. The former consists of essays on Domesday Book and early English history, while the latter discusses the relationship between English law and the Renaissance; both reflect his style of close attention to primary sources and his focus on the evolution of institutions and law. Because the available materials are limited, details of his life such as education and appointments are not elaborated here; readers may come to know his concerns and his command of historical sources through these two works.