Domesday Book: The Cambridgeshire Portion of the Great Survey of England of William the Conqueror, A. D. 1086 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from Domesday Book: The Cambridgeshire Portion of the Great Survey of England of William the Conqueror, A. D. 1086 Local history, if by that term we understand something more than a disjointed collection of events, or, as is more often the case, shadows of events, begins with the Norman Conquest; before that date we have meagre notices of happenings - usually military - and the fragmentary evidence of archaeology. It is only with the commencement of an adequate series of records that the construction of history, as contrasted with a web of mere a priori theories, becomes possible. We can best realise this important fact by asking ourselves how far we could understand the real meaning of the Norman Conquest, had not time spared the documentary evidence we actually possess; nothing but the bare fact would remain, without any hint as to the nature of the great change. The history of a county, therefore, or of a parish, though it must take note of indications of Prehistoric or Roman or Saxon occupation, really begins with the Domesday records; and it is no rash generalisation to say that in them the historian first finds terra firma. Yet this starting point can, in many cases, be reached only with considerable toil and expense. Apart from the edition of the Domesday Book which is practically inaccessible, facsimiles of the portion of Domesday Book relating to particular counties can indeed be obtained, but are comparatively uncommon and printed texts are only partially available, and even then, in many cases in monumental editions. Moreover, even men of education find themselves at a loss to make use of this material, buried as it is in a mass of barbarous Latin technical terms, until they have by close study mastered the grammar, as it were, of their subject. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Boo