Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Two brief notes on the texts and indexes
- Table of F numbers by county
- Frequency of legal information across counties and circuits
- Introduction
- Part I Domesday Book and the law
- Chapter 1 The inquest and the mechanics of justice
- Chapter 2 Living in the shadow of the law
- Chapter 3 Disputes and the Edwardian past
- Chapter 4 Disputes and the Norman present
- Part II The texts
- Part III Indexes
Chapter 1 - The inquest and the mechanics of justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Two brief notes on the texts and indexes
- Table of F numbers by county
- Frequency of legal information across counties and circuits
- Introduction
- Part I Domesday Book and the law
- Chapter 1 The inquest and the mechanics of justice
- Chapter 2 Living in the shadow of the law
- Chapter 3 Disputes and the Edwardian past
- Chapter 4 Disputes and the Norman present
- Part II The texts
- Part III Indexes
Summary
For over thirty years scholarly attention has been fixed on those shadowy written records lurking behind Domesday Book. V. H. Galbraith, Peter Sawyer, Sally Harvey, H. B. Clarke, and David Roffe have brought to light the mass of written evidence used in the making of Domesday; and their investigations have sharpened our understanding of the workings of eleventhcentury government and clarified our thinking about the ways in which the survey's mass of detail was collected and compiled in a single year. Less attention, however, has been paid to oral testimony, the great survey's other source of information. The verbal pronouncements of individuals and groups, so commonplace in Domesday, represent intelligence gathered during the inquest itself, and are the places we can hear most clearly the voices of eleventh-century men speaking about the laws and customs of their world. Because the identity of witness-bearing assemblies and individuals can often be discerned, it is also possible to stitch together the political, social, and legal context for the 1086 inquest, for the assemblies that were convened, and for the jurors who gave sworn testimony. By studying both those who bore witness and the pronouncements they made, the continuities of law and legal customs in England are illuminated, as are the many ways in which 1086 stands at one of the great fault lines of English legal history.
Jurors and the inquest
During the great inquest of 1086 large numbers of men gathered, swore oaths, and gave testimony, and some made judgments as well.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Domesday Book and the LawSociety and Legal Custom in Early Medieval England, pp. 11 - 35Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998