monographs

There are many first-rate scholarly studies of particular political or institutional themes. On the Church, Frank Barlow, The English Church, 1000-1066 (1963) and The English Church, 1066-1154 (1979), are the essential studies for this period; David Knowles, The monastic order in England, 943-1216 (1940), is important for the monasteries.

For lay landholders, Robin Fleming, Kings and lords in Conquest England (1991), and Peter Clarke, The English nobility under Edward the Confessor (1994), provide a long-overdue analysis of landholding before and after the Conquest. On military institutions, C. Warren Hollister, Anglo-Saxon military institutions on the eve of the Norman Conquest (1962) and The military organisation of Norman England (1965) are fairly exhaustive though they cannot be called definitive since the problems with which they deal were contentious and remain matters of controversy. Eric John, Orbis Britanniae (1966), pages 128-53, and Richard P. Abels, Lordship and military obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (1988), offer alternative views of the subject. T.K. Keefe, Feudal assessments and the political community under Henry III and his sons (1983), has some useful material bearing on Domesday, despite dealing with a later period.

The entire question of military organisation and institutions has been the subject of renewed debate in several volumes of Anglo-Norman Studies since 1982. On the wider and related question of English feudalism, there is also continuing controversy and no single work in this field could be said to be definitive. The 'standard' work is F.M. Stenton, The first century of English feudalism (second edition, 1961); but it should be read alongside Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and vassals: the medieval evidence reinterpreted (1994). Military buffs may derive some interest and a little enlightenment from J. Beeler, Warfare in England, 1066-1189 (1966). F. Suppé, Military institutions on the Welsh marches (1994) is particularly useful on the role of castles.

Both before and after the Conquest, England was part of a wider political world which cannot be ignored without danger of misunderstanding aspects of the period and of Domesday Book. W.E. Kapelle, The Norman conquest of the north: the region and its transformation, 1000-1135 (1979), is a difficult but valuable, particularly for the Scandinavian connection. J. Le Patourel, The Norman Empire, is illuminating on the consequences of the link with Normandy.