Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England

Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England

The greater part of what is in this book was written in order that it might be included in the History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. which was published by Sir Frederick Pollock and me in the year 1895. Divers reasons dictated a change of plan. Of one only need I speak. I knew that Mr Round was on the eve of giving to the world his Feudal England, and that thereby he would teach me and others many new lessons about the scheme and meaning of Domesday Book. That I was well advised in waiting will be evident to everyone who has studied his work. In its light I have suppressed, corrected, added much. The delay has also enabled me to profit by Dr Meitzens Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Germanen[1], a book which will assuredly leave a deep mark upon all our theories of old English history. The title under which I here collect my three Essays is chosen for the purpose of indicating that I have followed that retrogressive method from the known to the unknown, of which Mr Seebohm is the apostle. Domesday Book appears to me, not indeed as the known, but as the knowable. The Beyond is still very dark: but the way to it lies through the Norman record. A result is given to us: the problem is to find cause and process. That in some sort I have been endeavouring to answer Mr Seebohm, I can not conceal from myself or from others. A hearty admiration of his English Village Community is one main source of this book. That the task of disputing his conclusions might have fallen to stronger hands than mine I well know. I had hoped that by this time Prof. Vinogradoffs Villainage in England would have had a sequel. When that sequel comes (and may it come soon) my provisional answer can be forgotten. One who by a few strokes of his pen has deprived the English nation of its land, its folk-land, owes us some reparation. I have been trying to show how we can best bear the loss, and abandon as little as may be of what we learnt from Dr Konrad von Maurer and Dr Stubbs. For my hastily compiled Domesday Statistics I have apologized in the proper place. Here I will only add that I had but one long vacation to give to a piece of work that would have been better performed had it been spread over many years. Mr Corbett, of Kings College, has already shown me how by a little more patience and ingenuity I might have obtained some rounder and therefore more significant figures. But of this it is for him to speak. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 43255
Author: Maitland, Frederic William
Release Date: Jul 19, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English