G. H. Martin (1) (1928–2007)

Oldest record of Anglo-Saxon England - a superb written account at the time of the Norman Conquest: Following their victory at the Battle of Hastings (1066) a wide-ranging, assiduously collected census under-taken by the new rulers of England. Over several years it produced a geographical-economic-social listing of the peoples of England who were being displaced as the prevailing social order & at all levels reduced in class to peasantry. Domesday is made on the orders of Duke William show more (latterly King of England) of Normandy to enable his 10,000 strong cohort of 'conquerors' to collect the taxes & configure the Feudal System that will govern England for centuries & in some ways still affects the geo-political landscape of the nation. No other European country possesses such a unique early History. show less

Fascinating in the way a set of encyclopedias or a dictionary can be...there is no story or plot, being just a tax record of assets, but really absorbing.