ABSTRACT
An English contemporary of Michel de Montaigne, antiquarian and historian William Camden, took to improving the knowledge of his own country when he wrote a county-by-county description of it. This book, entitled Britannia, the first topographical survey of Great Britain, was originally published in Latin in 1586 and then, owing to its popularity, translated into English in 1610. Camden was a very well-educated schoolmaster, and he apparently shared Montaigne’s demand for accuracy. He went to great lengths to collect and compile archives, spent his holidays travelling throughout England and kept up a lengthy correspondence with the ‘the most skilfull observers’ (n.p.), as he explained in his preface.
