Papers by Stephen Baxter
The English Historical Review, 2020
This article offers a new interpretation of the Domesday survey, drawing upon a collaborative stu... more This article offers a new interpretation of the Domesday survey, drawing upon a collaborative study of its earliest surviving manuscript, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3500 (Exon). It identifies five principal stages: first, the survey was launched at Gloucester in midwinter 1085; secondly, fiscal information extracted from geld assessment lists was integrated with manorial detail supplied by landholders to create a survey organised on a geographical plan by hundred; thirdly, this hundredal recension was checked by a second group of commissioners at meetings of shire courts, generating a substantial corpus of contested matter; fourthly, the hundredal recension was restructured into circuit returns which grouped together and summarised the holdings of barons who held directly from the king; fifthly, Domesday Book itself was written directly from these circuit returns. Royal assemblies held at Easter, Whitsun and Lammas functioned as deadlines for the second, third and fourth stages res...
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Haskins Society Journal, 2018
S. Baxter, ‘The Domesday Controversy: A Review and a New Interpretation’, Haskins Society Journal... more S. Baxter, ‘The Domesday Controversy: A Review and a New Interpretation’, Haskins Society Journal 29 (2018), 22593
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1066 in Perspective, ed. D. Bates and E. Impey (Leeds, 2018), 2018
S. Baxter, ‘1066 and Government’, in 1066 in Perspective, ed. D. Bates and E. Impey (Leeds, 2018)... more S. Baxter, ‘1066 and Government’, in 1066 in Perspective, ed. D. Bates and E. Impey (Leeds, 2018), pp. 133−55
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The English Historical Review, 2014
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David Baxter, Medieval Bourn: A Cambridgeshire Village in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2008)
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Stephen Baxter, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the Administration of God’s Property’, in Archbishop Wul... more Stephen Baxter, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the Administration of God’s Property’, in Archbishop Wulfstan: Papers from the Novocentenary Conference, ed. M. Townend (Brepols, 2004), pp. 161–205
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Stephen Baxter and C. P. Lewis, ‘Comment identifier les propriétaires fonciers du Domesday Book e... more Stephen Baxter and C. P. Lewis, ‘Comment identifier les propriétaires fonciers du Domesday Book en Angleterre et en Normandie? Le cas d’Osbern fitzOsbern’, in Penser les mondes normands médiévaux, ed. D. Bates and P. Bauduin (Caen, 2016), pp. 207–44
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Stephen Baxter, ‘Lordship and Labour’, in A Social History of England 900–1200, ed. J. Crick and ... more Stephen Baxter, ‘Lordship and Labour’, in A Social History of England 900–1200, ed. J. Crick and E. Van Houts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 98–114
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Stephen Baxter, ‘MS C of the Anglo–Saxon Chronicle and the Politics of Mid–Eleventh–Century Engla... more Stephen Baxter, ‘MS C of the Anglo–Saxon Chronicle and the Politics of Mid–Eleventh–Century England’, English Historical Review 122 (2008 for 2007), 1189–1227
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Stephen Baxter, ‘The Death of Burgheard son of Ælfgar and its Context’, in Frankland: The Franks ... more Stephen Baxter, ‘The Death of Burgheard son of Ælfgar and its Context’, in Frankland: The Franks and the World of Early Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Dame Jinty Nelson, ed. P. Fouracre and D. Ganz (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2008), pp. 266–84
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A defining paradox of the late Anglo-Saxon state is that its strengths made it vulnerable. This p... more A defining paradox of the late Anglo-Saxon state is that its strengths made it vulnerable. This paper identifies some of these strengths and paradoxical weaknesses, and considers how these affected the course of events during three critical phases of the Conquest: the crisis of 1065−1066, the campaigns of 1066, and the period between 1066 and 1071 when the Normans' victory at Hastings was consolidated.
Stephen Baxter, ‘The Limits of the Anglo–Saxon State’, in Der Frühmittelalterliche Staat – Europäische Perspektiven, ed. W. Pohl and V. Wieser (OAW: Vienna, 2009), pp. 503–13
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Stephen Baxter and John Blair, ‘Land Tenure and Royal Patronage in the Early English Kingdom: a M... more Stephen Baxter and John Blair, ‘Land Tenure and Royal Patronage in the Early English Kingdom: a Model and a Case Study’, Anglo–Norman Studies 28 (2006), 19–46
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‘Lordship and Justice in the Early English Kingdom: the Judicial Functions of Soke and Commendati... more ‘Lordship and Justice in the Early English Kingdom: the Judicial Functions of Soke and Commendation Revisited’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine Karkov, Janet Nelson and David Pelteret, Studies in Early Medieval Britain, general editor Nicholas Brooks (Ashgate: Farnham, 2009), pp. 383–419
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Books by Stephen Baxter
Forthcoming with Oxford University Press.
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PASE Domesday forms part of a long-term research initiative which aims in due course to identify ... more PASE Domesday forms part of a long-term research initiative which aims in due course to identify all the landholders named in Domesday Book and to produce a major study of landed society in England in 1066 and 1086. It is principally, therefore, a research tool, but it has been published online in the belief that it will also prove useful to anyone who may be interested in Domesday Book and the people and places it records.
The website comprises two main elements: a database designed to capture every parcel of landed property recorded in Domesday Book and link them to particular people; and profiles of individual landholders. Each profile includes maps, tables, and a prose analysis which explains the rationale behind the identification of a person and, where possible, draws on other records to reconstruct the career of a Domesday landholder.
There are several advantages to publishing the profiles online. The website makes the material freely and readily available; it avoids what would otherwise be prohibitive publishing costs; it allows for the profiles to be augmented and revised as research progresses; and it enhances clarity by allowing users to follow our detailed analytical work in visually intuitive ways.
This second edition of PASE Domesday replaces the first edition, which was published online between 18 August 2010 and 22 July 2016. It identifies a total of 17,144 'persons' in Domesday Book (some of whom consist of more than one landholder).
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Book Reviews by Stephen Baxter
His main propositions are these. William the Conqueror did not commission Domesday Book. The thre... more His main propositions are these. William the Conqueror did not commission Domesday Book. The threat of invasion and the strain on resources created by the need to billet a large mercenary army in England caused him to commission the Domesday inquest at Christmas in 1085. This inquest took place the following year and produced a survey of royal resources and a geld survey, and also a survey of the tenurial resources of tenants-in-chief and their tenants. Prior to 1086, the land which tenants-in-chief held in demesne had been exempt from the geld, and the purpose of the inquest was to identify this land with a view to taxing it. All the records from the inquest were brought to the king. There followed some hard bargaining between the king and his barons: in return for the loss of geld exemption on their demesne, the tenants-in-chief received certain concessions concerning the service they owed to the king, and their requirement to billet mercenaries was also lifted. The production of Domesday Book was an entirely separate and later exercise. Domesday Book was 'unrelated to the concerns which launched the inquest in 1085. It seems to have been compiled, probably under the supervision of Rannulf Flambard, from the records of the inquest after 1089 and is best interpreted as a response to the revolt, and consequent tenurial chaos, of 1088' (p. ix).
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Papers by Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter, ‘The Limits of the Anglo–Saxon State’, in Der Frühmittelalterliche Staat – Europäische Perspektiven, ed. W. Pohl and V. Wieser (OAW: Vienna, 2009), pp. 503–13
Books by Stephen Baxter
The website comprises two main elements: a database designed to capture every parcel of landed property recorded in Domesday Book and link them to particular people; and profiles of individual landholders. Each profile includes maps, tables, and a prose analysis which explains the rationale behind the identification of a person and, where possible, draws on other records to reconstruct the career of a Domesday landholder.
There are several advantages to publishing the profiles online. The website makes the material freely and readily available; it avoids what would otherwise be prohibitive publishing costs; it allows for the profiles to be augmented and revised as research progresses; and it enhances clarity by allowing users to follow our detailed analytical work in visually intuitive ways.
This second edition of PASE Domesday replaces the first edition, which was published online between 18 August 2010 and 22 July 2016. It identifies a total of 17,144 'persons' in Domesday Book (some of whom consist of more than one landholder).
Book Reviews by Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter, ‘The Limits of the Anglo–Saxon State’, in Der Frühmittelalterliche Staat – Europäische Perspektiven, ed. W. Pohl and V. Wieser (OAW: Vienna, 2009), pp. 503–13
The website comprises two main elements: a database designed to capture every parcel of landed property recorded in Domesday Book and link them to particular people; and profiles of individual landholders. Each profile includes maps, tables, and a prose analysis which explains the rationale behind the identification of a person and, where possible, draws on other records to reconstruct the career of a Domesday landholder.
There are several advantages to publishing the profiles online. The website makes the material freely and readily available; it avoids what would otherwise be prohibitive publishing costs; it allows for the profiles to be augmented and revised as research progresses; and it enhances clarity by allowing users to follow our detailed analytical work in visually intuitive ways.
This second edition of PASE Domesday replaces the first edition, which was published online between 18 August 2010 and 22 July 2016. It identifies a total of 17,144 'persons' in Domesday Book (some of whom consist of more than one landholder).