Over the last 50 years Ann Williams has transformed our understanding of Anglo-Saxon and Norman society. In this collection, leading scholars in the field revisit themes that have been central to her work, and open up new insights into the workings of the multi-cultural communities of the realm of England in the early Middle Ages.

The Domesday Book is one of our major sources for a crucial period of English history; yet it remains difficult to interpret. This provocative new book proposes a complete re-assessment, with profound implications for our understanding of the society and economy of medieval England. In particular, it overturns the general assumption that the Domesday inquest was a comprehensive survey of lords and their lands, and so tells us about the economic underpinning of power in the late eleventh century; rather, it suggests that in 1086 matters of taxation and service were at issue and data were...