ABSTRACT
In 1959 Reginald Lennard's important work, Rural England 1086-1135, brought together many years’ work on the English countryside, its society and economy, as revealed by Domesday Book and by the records of the succeeding generation. Some economic historians have found successive surveys of the same manors invaluable; they show what changes were occurring and point to general trends. Mills are one of the subjects on which the officials of 1086 had to collect information, and some six thousand are recorded in Domesday Book. There were some jobs anyone could be expected to do; others called for the specialist. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the process continued, leading in the fifteenth century to the collapse of many of the towns that had existed primarily as centres for providing specialised services. The twelfth-century surveys give the reader detailed glimpse of the communities of rural England.
