THE ANNOTATION

The notes are essentially a revision and amplification of the annotation provided by various editors for the Phillimore printed edition published between 1975 and 1986:

    John Morris

Middlesex (1975) 
Huntingdonshire (1975) 
Surrey (1975)
Hertfordshire (1976)
Sussex (1976)
Warwickshire (1976)
Staffordshire (1976)
Bedfordshire (1976) 
Nottinghamshire (1977) 
Oxfordshire (1978)
Buckinghamshire (1978)	Frank and Caroline
         Thorn

Cornwall (1979)
Wiltshire (1979)
Northamptonshire (1979)
Rutland (1980)
Somerset (1980)
Worcestershire (1982)
Herefordshire (1983)
Dorset (1983)
Devon (1985)
Shropshire (1986)

With John Moore
Gloucestershire (1982)

With Philip Morgan
Lincolnshire  (1986)

	    Philip Morgan

Derbyshire (1978)
Cheshire (1978)
Berkshire (1979)
Leicestershire (1979)
Kent (1983)

With Caroline Thorn
Lincolnshire (1986)

     Alex Rumble

Cambridgeshire (1981)
Essex (1983)
Suffolk (1986)	    Julian Munby

Hampshire (1982)

   Philippa Brown

Norfolk (1984)

Margaret Faull
and Marie Stinson

Yorkshire (1986)*	
* Copyright problems have prevented the use of the translation and notes for Yorkshire, but cross-references in the notes of the current project are at present still to the notes in the printed Phillimore edition.

It was the policy of John Morris, the originator of the series and its editor, to provide minimal notes. This was largely because he had set himself a schedule which involved publishing county volumes 'at about twelve each year between 1975 and 1979'. Many of Dr Morris' notes were drawn from the text itself, or were comments on Farley's text, or were taken from a very small number of published sources: the bibliography to the Huntingdonshire volume (which, with Middlesex, was the first to be published) contained 4 items. The ratios of pages of text and translation to notes in the volumes edited by John Morris illustrate this well:
1975 Huntingdonshire (64:3); Middlesex (54:3); Surrey (98:4)
1976 Hertfordshire (161:11); Sussex (184:17); Warwickshire (134:8); Staffordshire
		(93:4); Bedfordshire (149:10)
1977 Nottinghamshire (138:4)
1978 Oxfordshire (128:6); Buckinghamshire (153:4).
	These last two volumes were published after his premature death in 1977. Among the 'county editors' who were appointed by John Morris during his final illness, Philip Morgan remained faithful to his ideal editing Derbyshire and Cheshire in 1978, Berkshire and Leicestershire in 1979 and Kent in 1983 with virtually the same ratio of pages of notes to text and translation (18:1). The annotation provided by other county editors was fuller from the outset and in some cases grew with successive volumes. Among the final volumes to be published were Devon (1985) and Shropshire (1986) both edited by Caroline and Frank Thorn in which the ratios of pages of text and translation to notes are respectively 390:299 and 156:143.

THE PROCESS OF REVISION
Since the beginning of this AHRC-funded project in October 2004 all the notes have been scanned, turned into Microsoft Word documents, imperfections and misreadings in the scanning have been rectified and all have been revised with the exception of Yorkshire where copyright has prevented the use of either the translation or the notes. This revision has principally involved:

Corrections
The correction of obvious errors (factual and typographical) in the notes.

Bibliography
All abbreviations, apart from VCH (Victoria County History), have been removed. Books and articles are now cited by short titles, and full details can be accessed in the bibliography. Each book or article should now be cited in the same way throughout.

Translation
A number of translations have been improved or corrected. John Morris' principle that an individual Latin word has a single (and unique) English translation has been more rigorously applied. A number of commonly recurring terms such as 'residences' and 'woodland pasture' have been re-considered (now 'messuages' and 'pasturable woodland') but a number of terms which surprised the scholarly community in 1975 ('villagers', 'smallholders', 'slaves', 'jurisdiction') have been retained. John Morris' professed aim was a translation in 'what the compiler would have written if his language had been modern English'. To this end, a number of translations such as 'wherein' and 'thither' that give the text an unwarranted antique grandeur have been replaced. 

Hundreds and Wapentakes
The form of the names of hundreds and wapentakes has been standardized so as to distinguish between those names that are taken from places still extant, those whose location is known, but which are no longer on modern maps, and those which only occur in Domesday or documents directly related to it.

Place-Names
Changes have been made to some place-names as a result of new identifications or to bring them into line with the forms found on current Ordnance Survey maps; see {Name Policy}.

Personal Name-Forms
A considerable number of the forms of personal names have been changed as part of a continuing process to bring more consistency to the entire name stock of Domesday Book; see {Name Policy}.

Identification of Individuals
Some people have been further identified. When the identification comes from the person's occurrence in other documents or in other Domesday counties, this is shown in the translation between asterisks within square brackets. Where, for example, a fief holder is given a byname or title in the Landholders' List at the beginning of a county but not in his fief, or where the text has 'He also holds', referring to a person named in a previous entry, this further identification is indicated by ^  ^. Where there is no documentary evidence for the identity of an individual, but it seems likely that a number of persons with the same first name are one and the same, this has been indicated in the translation by putting the name of one of the estates held by that person between chevrons < >. See {Name Policy}. 

Other Changes
Certain changes have been necessary in the conversion of the notes to a searchable electronic version, such as to the wording of lead words for the notes, to that of cross-references and to punctuation. 

Additional Notes
A number of additional notes have been written on a variety of subjects, but mainly to explain changes or corrections made in the course of re-editing.

Cross-References
The cross-referencing within and between counties has been considerably increased. Each reference to a note now has a word attached to it (for example: see LEC 3,1 woodland note) to allow for rapid and exact electronic pinpointing.

Introductions and Appendices
For the counties that have not been fully revised an Introduction has been produced from various parts of the notes to the Phillimore printed edition to provide as far as possible a brief account similar to that found in fuller version in the re-edited counties. New sections on the county boundary, the names of hundreds and wapentakes and an Editorial have been included. The layout of any Appendices has been adjusted in some cases and some have been repositioned in the introductions.

FULLY RE-EDITED COUNTIES
In addition to the conversion to electronic format and partial re-editing described above, a number of counties have been fully re-edited. This is part of a process that is intended to continue after the end of the current project. The future work of Dr and Mrs Thorn may be separately published, but will be available for incorporation in the deposited electronic version of the current project, if appropriate arrangements can be made.

Very little is self-explanatory in Domesday and the aim of a full re-edition (as far as the editors can do so) is to supply a sure guide to the interpretation of every aspect of the document and to provide for a wide range of possible users a comprehensive commentary on each Domesday county, compiled from a detailed scrutiny of the manuscript, a minute study of the organization of the county text and its relationship to Domesday Book as a whole and employing a wide range of medieval and modern sources.

THE INTRODUCTIONS
Each fully-revised county has an introduction which normally includes essays on:
•	The history of the county
•	Its hidation or carucation
•	The county boundary (in 1086 and noticing later changes)
•	The administration of the shire 
•	The hundreds or wapentakes (including sections on the names of the hundreds; their identification and reconstruction; their boundaries; their courts; their moot-sites; the relationship of the hundred or wapentake to a particular manor; the lordship of the hundred or wapentake and changes in their organization  subsequent to Domesday)
•	Manorial organization
•	Ecclesiastical organization
•	The Domesday format (including sections on the circuit and ruling pattern; the layout and content; the  writing and correction;  places entered in the wrong Domesday county; the standard order of hundreds and of vills; duplicate entries).
•	Special features (including, as appropriate, references to boroughs, castles and forest and other unusual features)
•	Related or 'satellite' texts
•	An editorial section including a note on the identification of places and on the state of revision of the county notes.

THE APPENDICES
The appendices on the related and 'satellite' texts in the Phillimore printed edition have been revised and expanded and new ones produced.

THE NOTES
Related and 'Satellite' Texts
Relevant material from these is incorporated in the translation or in the notes. In the case of the Liber Exoniensis (Exon) every item that adds to or disagrees with the text of Great Domesday is included.

The Manuscript
Mention is made of all significant scribal additions and corrections by the main scribe of Great Domesday as well as of his errors and confusions. Gaps, erasures and overwriting are indicated and anything written outside the ruled framework of the page. Rubrication and later additions are studied. The work of scribe B is discussed, as are the additions by a handful of other contemporary scribes. Insertions made by later scholars and keepers, such as Arthur Agarde, are mentioned, as are the numerous marginal signs and checking marks. In places where the poor state of the manuscript has rendered a place-name or assessment figure illegible, the two main thirteenth-century abbreviations (the Abbreviatio and the Breviate) have been checked, as they have also been when the intention of the main scribe is unclear. The manuscript of Great Domesday has been consulted on numerous occasions for all this.

Facsimiles
Cases where the Ordnance Survey and Alecto facsimiles are unclear or appear to differ from the manuscript itself are indicated.

Farley 
Errors in Farley's magnificent 1783 printed version are noted, as are the significant errors in Ellis' 1816 printed edition of the Liber Exoniensis.

Latinity
The Latin is read closely to see if the published translation is technically correct and also conveys the right sense. This involves close examination of the cases of nouns and the tenses, voices and moods of verbs, as well as the syntax of phrases and clauses. Other possible expansions of the highly abbreviated Latin are discussed. The VCH and Alecto translations are quoted where they seem to be wrong or offer a plausible alternative.

Content and Layout
There is discussion of the method and forms in which the main scribe of Great Domesday recorded material in each county - his choice of terms, inclusion of unusual details, their position in the entry etc. - and how these agreed or disagreed with his procedure in other counties in the circuit and in Great Domesday as a whole. His punctuation is also discussed when it throws light on the interpretation of the content. His practice in all this is compared with that found in his sources, such as the Liber Exoniensis, and in other texts closely related to the Domesday Survey.

The Fief
There is a brief biography of the fief-holder if he or she is an individual or a brief history of the institution if the holder is a church. In the latter case the lead note identifies the heads of the church, if known, during the period from 1066 to 1086.
	The structure of the fief as given in Domesday is examined: whether it is organized by hundred (or wapentake), or whether lordship land is entered first and then sub-infeudations, and whether the latter are organized by hundred (or wapentake) or by subtenant. This arrangement is compared with that of any satellite texts. Added or misplaced entries are noted. The resulting order is compared with a possible county template to see if the hundreds or wapentakes are in essentially the same order in several fiefs.

Hundred or Wapentake Headings 
Erroneous heads in the text are discussed and reasons given for the insertion of missing heads.

Place-Names
It is noted if the Domesday name-form is anomalous among the forms gathered by place-name scholars for the place. Any element in the name that might have a bearing on Domesday is discussed (for example, Shrewton (WIL): 'sheriff's tun'). It is stated whether the proposed identification passes the tests of (1) plausible derivation from the Domesday form; (2) its location in the hundred or wapentake that Domesday states, or which has been proposed as a correction to or an insertion in the text; (3) the later descent of the estate within a family or barony/ honour/ fief, or among the lands of a church; (4) the likelihoods that the resources given by Domesday could have existed at the proposed location.
	Identification thus involves the reconstruction of the hundredal structure of a fief, and use of satellite and other documents, including, for the five south-western counties, the Tax Returns (Geld Rolls).
	Where a place-name is lost or has been overtaken by reservoir construction, quarrying, mining or urban growth, its location, if known, is given by a six-figure grid reference.
	Any elements in the modern place-name (especially affixes) that are related to Domesday are noted.

The whole Estate
It is stated whether the estate is or becomes a chapelry, hamlet, township or Ancient Parish. Any known earlier history (especially from charters and chronicles) is given. Similarly included is the immediate post-1086 history if it helps to understand the Domesday entry. A fuller later history is given where necessary to establish the identity of the place.
	Since a single Domesday name may stand for a considerable area of land and silently include a number of settlements then existing, the extent of the estate and the names of its constituents are given where possible. This involves a consideration of the boundaries of the estate in relation to other administrative units.
	Where a subdivision of an estate is implied or expressly mentioned ('Of this manor, Walter holds 5 hides ...') its identity (and its grid reference) is given if it can be discovered.
	Its Domesday status (manor, outlier, jurisdiction, 'land') is explored and its relation to other Domesday estates in that fief or in others, is examined, especially where there is no stated link.
	The possible origin of the estate as the fragment of some larger unit is explored in the hope that this will throw light on the earlier 'manorial organization' of the county, perhaps as a series of large multiple (royal) estates. 
	Any suggestion of illegal tenure or of the dismemberment or combining of manors is noted and cross-referenced to Fleming, Domesday Book and the Law, with commentary on her interpretation or translation where necessary.
	If the estate appears to be duplicated in part or as a whole elsewhere in Domesday, this is noted.

People
For 1086 tenants-in-chief and their subtenants as well as for1066 holders, the often strange name-form and byname-form is connected with its Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Breton, Norman or French equivalent; von Feilitzen, Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book; Forssner, Continental-Germanic Personal Names in England; Tengvik, Old English Bynames; Fellows Jensen, Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire; Reaney, Dictionary of British Surnames; and Dauzat, Dictionnaire des Noms et Prénoms de France, are routinely cited. Notes on the names represented by every Domesday name-form and how these compare to the names in the Phillimore printed edition and in the Alecto edition, have been provided for over half of the fully re-edited counties. 
	If the individual came from what is now France, the supposed place of origin is given by commune, canton, arrondissement and département.
	 Where an individual can be identified as an office holder (earl, sheriff etc.) or from his occupation (baker, hunter etc) or by his byname, with reasonable certainty from elsewhere in Domesday, from satellite texts or from other documents, especially charters, this information is given. Where the balance of probability is also in favour of an identification, this has been included. Reference has been made to Williams, The English  and the Norman Conquest, Clarke, English Nobility, Sanders, English Baronies; Loyd, Some Anglo-Norman Families; Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, and other books and articles where relevant.
	Salient biographical details are given.
	Where it seems that individuals with the same single name (Alwin, Bernard etc) can be distinguished, but their bynames (if any) are unknown, they are allocated a toponymic reference in chevrons (<>), taken from one of the estates held by them in 1066 or, as a subtenant, in 1086 (occasionally a hundred is used where the location of a holding is not recorded). Where it can be deduced, their status is indicated.

Hidage or Carucage, Ploughs, Ploughlands
Major differences between figures are noted as is any evidence that might bear on the extent of the hide, the size of the plough-team and the antiquity of the assessment in ploughlands. 
	Where part of a plough or its equivalent in oxen is mentioned, the complementary parts or beasts are located in Domesday if they can be. There is discussion of different types of hide and of carucate.

Population
Categories of population including unusual ones (for example 'riders', 'cottage-men', 'ox-men') are defined in relation to each other and by their status, possessions (land and ploughs) and services. The cases where scribes convert one category to another in the various documents related to the Domesday Enquiry are noted.

Resources 
The commoner terms are defined and the resources described. The location of salt-pans mills and fisheries is given when known, and any evidence that resources (such as pasture and woodland) were remote from the manor are given. The renders from mills (monetary and in eels) are discussed and where part of a mill is recorded, the other portions are located if possible. Evidence is gathered to define the various terms used for woodland and the ways in which it is assessed.

Churches 
The superior status of a church (minster, mother church) is given where possible using evidence from within or outside Domesday. Churches known from other sources to have existed in the late eleventh century are mentioned.

Value
Significant changes or discrepancies in value are noted, as is evidence that a manor was 'farmed'. A brief account of 'waste' is given.

Disputes
Where all or part of an estate is subject to a dispute, the nature of the dispute is outlined and the land identified in another fief where possible. Where a county contains separate schedules of disputed land (Clamores, 'Declarations of the Jurors' or, in the Liber Exoniensis, the Terrae Occupatae,) these are linked where possible to the relevant entries in the main text and commentary provided.

Cities and Boroughs 
A brief earlier history of each is given and a detailed commentary provided on the particular customs, payments and laws of each.

Forest
Where 'forest' is mentioned in the text, an attempt is made to relate it to the later known forests and chases of medieval England.

F.R. Thorn
C.M.J. Thorn
June 2007