“ TInquisitio Gheldi,” now in Exeter Cathedral, which is a sort of 
second edition of Domesday, and resembles it in arrangement, 
but contains many names not found elsewhere. It is probably 
known to you that Domesday schedules in each village the 
name of the owner and his tenure, his tenants and their class or 
description, his land, its extent and its nature of cultivation, 
and (where such things existed) the castle, the mill and 
other public buildings. The book is very difficult to'read, and 
antiquaries are far from agreement upon its meaning. The 
spelling is so degraded that one fails to recognise many of the 
names of places, and some of the technical latin words remain 
unexplained. Still the book is the true fount of topographic 
knowledge ; it is here that the Topographer must begin ; and it 
is hence all his story must be traced. Domesday tells us who 
were the earliest Norman owners, and frequently also to what 
great English chiefs they succeeded. Thus it is that William is 
known to have deprived Aluric of Bathwick and to have granted 
it to Geoffry, Bishop of Coutances. In many instances Domesday 
does more, for it records the fact that the king’s immediate 
grantee had parted with his land in parcels almost as soon as he 
got it, and that as he had no power to sell, he had sublet, or as 
it is technically called subinfeuded. Two hundred years afterwards 
records of a similar kind were made; the intervening centuries 
are times of darkness and difficulty to the Topographer, who with 
the chain of evidences in his hand, has to take a sort of leap in 
the dark from off the rock of Domesday, hoping to alight in safety 
upon the Red and Black Books of the Exchequer. I will here 
quote from the preface to the “‘South Yorkshire,” that it is too 
well known to all who have attended to inquiries such as these, 
that the reigns of the sons, grandson and great grandson of the 
Conqueror are ages of obscurity, and that it is not till the reign 
of Henry III. that we have much direct and regular information 
respecting the descent of properties however great. In the dark 
period before that reign we are obliged to collect our information 
