Domesday Book Illustrated: Containing An Account of that Antient Record; As Also, Of the Tenants in Capite or Serjanty therein mentioned...

London: Printed by John Nichols, For Edward Brooke, 1788. First Edition. ”Domesday Book [is] the original record or summary of William I's survey of England. By contemporaries the whole operation was known as “the description of England,” but the popular name Domesday—i.e., “doomsday,” when men face the record from which there is no appeal—was in general use by the mid-12th century. The survey, in the scope of its detail and the speed of its execution, was perhaps the most remarkable administrative accomplishment of the Middle Ages. The survey was carried out, against great popular resentment, in 1086 by seven or eight panels of commissioners, each working in a separate group of counties, for which they compiled elaborate accounts of the estates of the king and of his tenants in chief (those who held their land by direct services to him). From these documents the king’s clerks compiled a summary, which is Domesday Book." (Encyc. Brit.). 8vo. pp. viii, 399, [1]errata. prelims misbound. contemporary calf, gilt back (front joint cracked, corners worn, some foxing to a few gatherings). elala5614