Church

Basic statistics on monastic wealth are conveniently if sketchily listed in David Knowles, The monastic order in England, 943-1216 (1940), pages 702-4. Andrew C. Ayton and Virginia Davies provide a more detailed but compact analysis of the wealth of all ecclesiastical institutions in 'Ecclesiastical wealth in England', Studies in church history, vol. 24 (1987), pages 47-60.

There are many monographs on individual ecclesiastical estates, most of which begin with a survey of the material in Domesday Book. Among the best are F.R.H. du Boulay, The lordship of Canterbury: an essay on medieval society (1966); D.C. Douglas, 'Some early surveys of the abbey of Abingdon', English Historical Review, vol. 45 (1929), pages 618-25; Reginald Lennard, 'A neglected Domesday satellite', English Historical Review, vol. 58 (1943), pages 32-41 (on Bath Abbey); Eleanor Searle, Lordship and community: Battle Abbey, 1066-1538 (1974); C.G.O. Bridgeman. The Burton Abbey twelfth century surveys (William Salt Archaeological Society, 1918); D.C. Douglas, Feudal documents from the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds (1932); A. Ballard, An eleventh century inquisition of St. Augustine's, Canterbury (1920); D.C. Douglas, The Domesday Monachorum of Christchurch, Canterbury (1944); F.M. Page, The estates of Crowland Abbey (1934); Sandra Raban, The estates of Thorney and Crowland (1977); Edward Miller, The abbey and bishopric of Ely (1953); Peter H. Sawyer, Evesham A: a Domesday text (Worcester Historical Society, 1960); J.P. Traskey, Milton Abbey (1958); Edmund King, Peterborough Abbey, 1086-1310 (1973); J.A. Raftis, The estates of Ramsey Abbey (1957); H.P.R. Finberg, Tavistock Abbey (1953); Barbara Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its estates in the middle ages (1977); Christopher C. Dyer, Lords and peasants in a changing society: the estates of the bishopric of Worcester, 680-1540 (1980); and Pamela Taylor, 'The endowment and military obligations of the see of London: a re-assessment of three sources', Anglo-Norman studies, vol. 14 (1992), pages 287-312.

The works in the previous paragraph deal principally with the Domesday estates of the institutions concerned or with satellite texts relating to them. In addition, David Matthew, The Norman monasteries and their English possessions (1962) examines the endowment of alien priories; C. Potts, Monastic revival and regional identity in early Normandy (1997), the development of monasticism in Normandy before the Conquest (1997); and Emma Cownie, Religious patronage in Anglo-Norman England, 1066-1135 (1998), the varied forms and degrees of religious patronage after the Conquest.

Minster churches, and the development of the parochial system, are the subject of a growing body of research to which N.J.G. Pounds, A history of the English parish (2000), provides a guide. The Domesday record of minsters and churches is evaluated in detail in a number of studies by John Blair: 'Secular minster churches in Domesday Book', Domesday Book: a reassessment, edited by Peter H. Sawyer (1985), pages 104-42; 'Local churches in Domesday Book and before', Domesday studies, edited by J.C. Holt (1987), pages 265-78; Minster and parish churches: the local church in transition, 950-1200 (1988); Early medieval Surrey: landholding, church and settlement before 1300 (1991); and Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire (1994). Finally, Richard Morris, Churches in the landscape (1989), is an illuminating study of the physical remains of churches and their settings.