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The Norman Conquest and its Effects on the Economy, 1066–86. By R. Welldon Finn. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1971. Pp. xiv, 322. $16.50

Mr. Finn's thesis is that the Norman's conquest and suppression of rebellions had a long-term and harmful effect on England's economy. He supports his view with evidence from the Domesday survey of 1086, the results of which were compiled in the famous Domesday Book (DB). Shire by shire, Mr. Finn compares manorial values, the number of plough-teams, and, when possible, other factors, such as the number of villeins or slaves, at three points in English history: before 1066, sometime after 1066, and 1086. Although Mr. Finn has to rely on DB's imperfect data, he reaches novel conclusions. In sixteen shires the conquest apparently caused declines in manorial values ranging from less than 1 percent in Oxfordshire to a cataclysmic 86 percent in Cheshire. The ability of the shires to recover in the two decades after 1066 was very uneven. In about half of the shires for which data exist, values rose from as little as one-half of 1 percent in Berkshire to as much as 38 percent in Norfolk. In the other shires values fell from 5 percent in Gloucestershire to 78 percent in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Mr. Finn plots the distribution and magnitude of the fall on thirty-three area maps; he also uses the patterns that emerge to suggest routes taken by the Norman armies. The publisher's blurb on the dust jacket states that Mr. Finn's study is "rather less specialized" and "of more general interest to students of the period." Actually, this is only partly correct. While the connection between warfare and the fall in manorial values is a simple and exciting thesis, its demonstration and proof are very specialized. This is to be expected. Mr. Finn is a mature researcher. He has devoted four decades to study and publication in British history and other topics, and his essay in 1957 on the sources of the Exchequer Domesday heralded the appearance between 1961 and 1971 of five books, including the one under review, on aspects of the Domesday survey and DB. Mr. Finn is very aware of DB's intrinsic problems. He holds, indeed, that he cannot determine with certainty how the survey got its name, exactly how it was conducted or the results tabulated, or what some of the DB entries mean. While the author is morally certain that his statistical information is correct, he feels compelled to belabor the problems of his sources and how he arrived at his conclusions. The result in The Norman Conquest and its Effects on the Economy, 1066-86 is less a study from which more than a few generalizations can be drawn and more a commentary on small points of Domesday evidence.