I know, we usually focus on US documents, but I thought this was pretty cool. The Domesday Book, the UK’s oldest surviving public record, has been made available online by the UK National Archives. The public can now search the 920-year old Book by name of town, city or village. In 2005 it was voted the nation’s finest treasure, yet a recent survey conducted in conjunction with today´s launch revealed that less than 1 per cent of the population have actually been to see the original in The National Archives’ museum.
At Christmas 1085 William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey to discover the resources and taxable values of all the boroughs and manors in England. He wanted to discover who owned what, how much it was worth, and how much was owed to him as King. It was a massive enterprise, and the record of that survey, Domesday Book, was a remarkable achievement.
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this is. . .unique
Not a very clear website. As far as I can see, it is not online. There are links to books for sale and controlled amounts of extracts from the book. Please do correct me if I’m wrong as I do need access to what is supposed to be a national document, but after half an hour there seems to be no link to the book itself.
Hi there. This post was originally from 2006. The Web changes quickly. You could check the Internet Archive’s wayback machine to see if earlier versions of the site included the full book. Otherwise, you’ll need to take it up with UK’s National Archives and ask them why the book is £35 but out of stock and if there’s a digital version freely available.