Domesday Studies: An Analysis and Digest of the Somerset Survey (According to the Exon Codex) - And of the Somerset Gheld Inquest of A. D. 1084, as Collated With, and Illustrated By, Domesday #244360

Even though a Science, Domesday may become popular. There is hardly a man or a youth of English birth and with an English soul, who would not care to know something of the name and state, eight centuries ago, of the place wherein he was born and wherein he lives — something, too, of the relative condition of the class most parallel with that to which he himself happens to belong, To identify this or that locality with some place named in Domes day; to learn, if it be not so named, how and where it was represented or concealed in Domesday: these, then, are matters of popular interest. Most of these identities lie on the surface of mere words. They are well known, we would rather say, widely advertised, and largely believed. But many also are ill-ascertained, many unworthfly accredited, and, beyond these, there are many identities which remain in needless obscurity, a few only which belong to the region of insoluble doubt. To minimize obscurity — to sift to the dregs all questions of difficulty — th ese are processes which can adequately be conducted only by treating Domesday as a Science.