Domesday Book Online
I just read a really intetresting article on BBC News about how the Domesday Book is now available in full online. It amazes me that such an important piece of British history is now available in full for the entire world to see. You can search for villages and towns and then pay to download the information found. I searched for the ‘village’ I live in (it’s more like a small town) and it came up with a result, so I may well pay the £3.50 just so I can have a look at the information contained.
Apparently the entire book (there’s actually 2) has been photographed in high-quality and translated from the original latin - a project that began 25 years ago! One thing that struck me as very interesting is that it took 25 years to make it available online using modern techniques, yet it was written by one poor scribe in just over a year. Whatsmore (I think I just made that word up?) he remains nameless! No one knows the name of the person who physically wrote what is probably *the* most important document in British history!
Domesday Book Online: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday
Domesday Book at WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_book
BBC News Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5242794.stm
[tags]Domesday, Domesday Book, National Archives, History, British History, William the Conqueror[/tags]
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If my memory of junior school history class serves me correctly, then our home village in 1086 was valued at a mighty 75p!!!