DomesdayTextbase
(version 1b)

The DomesdayTextbase is based upon the translation of Domesday Book published by Phillimore and Co. in 39 volumes between 1975 and 1986, as amended for the electronic edition published by Phillimore in 2000 as Domesday Explorer, created by myself, Matthew Palmer and George Slater. For the present project, the translation has been revised by Dr Frank and Mrs Caroline Thorn in accordance with a more rigorous application of the principles laid down by the original editor, John Morris (see further Annotation.rtf).
	As its name implies, the DomesdayTextbase is not simply an electronic transcription of the translated text of Domesday Book. Considerable value has been added, principally in the form of half-a-million codes to enhance retrieval and analysis. Until a new edition of Domesday Explorer is published, however, there is no software capable of exploiting this functionality so much of the coding has been stripped from the version deposited here. I have, however, left in place the coding which may be useful in normal text searches, indicated by the use of brackets. Simple square brackets are inserts made by the editors of the original printed volumes; the additions here are:
	  _  	missing personal or place-name
	[***]	space in manuscript left by scribe
	?      ?	marginalia
	[=	=]	Landholders inserted into each entry based upon the fief heading
	[*	*]	Individuals accorded a known byname; the basis of my identifications is explained in the file IDs.rtf.
	<	>	Individual accorded an estate name in the absence of a known byname; the basis of my identifications is explained in the file IDs.rtf.
	^[	]^	Information inferred from another part of the text.
	[!1!	!1!]	Not in Domesday Book, from satellite text (Exon.)
	[!2!	!2!]	Not in Domesday Book, from satellite text (Domesday Monachorum)
	[!3!	!3!]	Not in Domesday Book, from satellite text (St Augustines)
	[!4!	!4!]	Not in Domesday Book, from satellite text (ICC)
	[!5!	!5!]	Not in Domesday Book, from satellite text(Ely Inquisition)
	[!6!	!6!]	Not in Domesday Book, from satellite text (Feudal Book of Bury)

Individual entries are identified by their Phillimore reference numbers and the abbreviated county names - slightly modified - used in the published Phillimore indexes for names, paces and subjects (1992).

Folio numbers are recorded between chevrons: <12a>

For copyright reasons, we have not been able to include the text for Yorkshire; a new translation is being prepared.

Word processors can be painfully slow in searching plain text; a text editor such as TextPad (www.textpad.com) is more suitable.

J.J.N. Palmer,
July 2010.