A General Introduction to Domesday Book: Two Volumes

by Henry Ellis

Domesday Book, the famous land and population census held during the time of Edward the Confessor (d. 1066) and William the Conqueror, is Britain's oldest public record and the true starting point of English genealogy. Ellis' work is designed to throw light upon the holdings of lands as well as instances of the hereditary descent of land from those who had possession in Saxon times. By far the greatest achievement of the work is the three indexes which comprise alphabetical lists of the names of all landowners and tenants, instancing the counties wherein they held land, the location of the original citation in Domesday Book, and details of their properties, marriages, and heirs. The first index contains over 1,500 names of landowners who held land from William the Conqueror; the second contains 5,000 names of persons entered in Domesday Book as holding lands in the time of Edward the Confessor and through later years anterior to the survey; and the third index includes over 3,000 listings of the under-tenants of land at the formation of the Domesday survey.

1054 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Sir Henry Ellis was an English librarian.

He was born in London and educated at the Mercers' School and St John's College, Oxford, where he acted as an assistant at the Bodleian Library. He was first appointed to a position at the British Museum in 1800, and was chief librarian from 1827 to 1856, although Anthony Panizzi was effectively the administrative head from 1837.

Ellis was knighted in 1833. He edited various works on antiques and wrote an Introduction to Domesday Book.