regional studies

Studies of a regional and local nature are too numerous to be even briefly mentioned here, but a few of them are of national significance. David R. Bates, Bibliography of Domesday Book (1986), provides full listings of county studies published up to 1984

Each of the county sets of the Victoria County History contains a chapter on Domesday Book, most of a high quality and often the best starting point for their area, despite their age. The introductions to each county in the Alecto edition of Domesday Book update, though rarely supersede, the Victoria County History. H.C. Darby's regional volumes of the Domesday Geography, are another important resource, the volumes being: Domesday geography of south-west England; Domesday geography of south-east England; Domesday geography of eastern England; Domesday geography of midland England; Domesday geography of northern England. To these should be added, H. Hallam, Rural England, 1066-1348, which, though indigestible, summarises materials not easily found elsewhere. The volumes of the English Place-Name society, edited by A. Mawer, F.M. Stenton and others are indispensable for any consideration of the evidence of place-names.

A series on the origins of English counties includes Denise Kenyon, The origins of Lancashire (1991); Michael Costen, The origins of Somerset (1992), and Nicholas J. Higham, The Origins of Cheshire (1993). An older series on the making of the English landscape has a broader coverage and individual volumes rarely contain more than part of a chapter on this period, but C.C. Taylor, Dorset (1970), and D.M. Palliser, The Staffordshire Landscape (1976), make some interesting points in relation to Domesday. Other local studies of more than local interest include John Blair, Early medieval Surrey (1991); John Blair, Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (1994); Pauline A. Stafford, The east midlands in the early middle ages (1985); Margaret Gelling, The west midlands in the early middle ages (1992), and Barbara Yorke, Wessex in the early middle ages (1996). Stephen Bassett, The origins of the English kingdoms (1990), is valuable for the longer perspective.

There are a number of important regional studies of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, the more significant of these being M. Altschul, A baronial family in medieval England: the Clares, 1217-1314 (1965); L.H. Nelson, The Normans in south Wales, 1071-1171 (1966); W.E. Wightman, The Lacy family in England and Normandy, 1066-1194 (1966); Barbara English, The lords of Holderness, 1086-1260 (1979); W.E. Kapelle, The Norman conquest of the north: the region and its transformation, 1000-1135 (1979); J. Meisel, Barons of the Welsh frontier, 1066-1272 (1981); and Richard P. Abels, 'Sheriffs, lord-seeking and the Norman settlement of the south-east midlands', Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 19 (1997), pages 19-50.

On the Danelaw, there is a very large literature, too large to list here. The key texts, which are fully referenced, are F.M. Stenton, Types of manorial structure in the northern Danelaw (1910); W.E. Kapelle, The Norman conquest of the north (1979); Cyril Hart, The Danelaw (1992); and Dawn M. Hadley, The northern Danelaw: its social structure, c.800-1100 (Leicester, 2000).