Author: Rex

The announcement last week that the Canadian British Columbian government would cancel its proposed $789 million (Cdn) renovation of the Royal BC Museum came as no surprise. The project which would see a complete rebuild of the museum on a different site with the current structure remaining closed for 8 years. The rebuild was widely criticized and consider a “vanity project” by many. Premier John Horgan stated he heard British Columbians “loud and clear” and that it was the “wrong project at the wrong time”. A poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute said that a full 69% of BC residents opposed the museum renovation plan. More revealing were the many comments from the public on news sites that were outraged at the project. Fortunately, the cancellation did not include the ongoing construction of the Museum’s new $224 million (Cdn) collections center in nearby suburban Colwood. The museum administration has announced that it will continue to engage with the public on what its future direction should be.

What does this mean for the future of museums generally? Does this cancellation have dire warnings for the museum industry? Unfortunately, many of the larger museums (and other institutions like libraries and archives) in urban centers are facing similar circumstances in the future. Many structures housing museums, libraries and archives in the “anglo-domain” were built in the midst of the baby boom era. Many structures were built in the 50s, 60s and 70s which are well over due to be replaced. Many of the buildings contain asbestos for insulation as well as outdated plumbing and wiring. With government funds lacking and the public appetite for new buildings waning, what does the museum industry do to move ahead?

One answer seems to be the “smaller regional model”. In British Columbia’s case, some of the loudest critics of the project were the smaller regional museums who are notoriously short of funding for their own facilities and collections. Several First Nations proposed they would like their artifacts back in their communities in their own museums.

Canada and many other nations in the “anglo-sphere” have all adopted the model of large urbanized centralized museums with much smaller and poorly funded regional cousins. While I’m a big believer in the smaller regional model, it is not without its difficulties. Smaller museums usually have deplorable facilities which would require considerable construction expense to enhance. Also, there are questions as to whether smaller regional museums would be able to bring the scientific and collection management expertise required to administer artifacts. This model still requires the recruitment and training of professional curatorial staff, something very hard to do in smaller centers. Also, there is the small “p” political questions, which regional communities and museums would get funding? What would be the criteria for granting this funding? Which communities would win in the funding criteria and who would lose?

The smaller regional model however, would provide many tourism and related economic benefits to communities that have received very little funding over the past 50 years. It would also bring newness and energy to these communities not seen for many years!

Let’s face it, regardless if the adopted model is large urban or regional, museums done properly are expensive! They require proper construction to protect the artifacts and professional curatorial staff to document and administer the collections.

What does this mean for the museum industry’s future? Future survival will require museums to make a much better business case for why they exist. The business case needs to outline both economic and scientific impacts with a strategy on making these widely known to both the government and public. In a former blog post, I pointed out that “Economic Impact Statements” should be at the ready of museum administrators. This is something that is sorely lacking on the Royal BC Museum website. No where could I find any Economic or Scientific impact statements. In a world with lots of noise, you are required to “toot your own horn” loudly!

Lofty statements of increased “tourism” dollars probably are not going to cut it in the future for any public museum. Real projects need real numbers with an accessible Business Case for both the public and governing authorities!

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The 807th anniversary of the issuing of the Magna Carta passed last week on June 19^th, 2022. While many have argued for centuries that the signing of this document was the beginning of individual and parliamentary freedoms that we see today, it however also has an important role in the shaping of the natural history of the English countryside. Actually, King John didn’t “sign on the dotted line” as it has been shown in books to school children in the past, like the beautifully illustrated children’s book by LadyBird shown here. King John’s Privy Counsellor provided a wax seal with the King’s insignia to stamp and authenticate each copy of the document.

Lost in all the intellectual legal debates surrounding the Magna Carta are two very important components of the charter that had an enormous impact on the future English countryside. These were clauses that dealt with forestry and fishing rights of freemen and nobles.

In an earlier post I outlined how much could be derived from the Doomsday Book about the natural history of England in the middle of the 11^th century. The Doomsday Book was essentially an inventory of what land and physical assets were available to the new English monarch. William and his descendants put the Doomsday Book to good use by beginning to establish “Royal Forests” for exclusive use of the monarch and his family on the best available land. “Royal Forests” were not just wooded areas, but more an enclosed “common” area including meadows, streams, wetlands and even villages. In the enclosed area the King (and his servants) had exclusive access to chase and hunt animals. No one else was allowed to utilize the land and doing so, would probably mean death for the poor person caught trespassing. Under the Norman Kings “Royal Forests” continue to encroach upon the land of both nobles and freemen. It is estimated at the time of King John, an estimated third of England was under “Royal Forest”! Making an intolerable situation as freemen and nobles both utilized these areas for game hunting, fuel for fire and small-scale farming. At the time of King John the “Royal Forests” had become an enormous source of revenue for the crown as it allowed them to feed both their households and armies. The King also “gifted” hunting privileges to many of his favorites, making for truly a class system on who could use the land.

It is no wonder that the nobles insisted on forestry clauses being in the Magna Carta (clauses 44, 47–48 and 53)! The insistence was so strong that the noblemen re-issued the forestry components in the Charter of the Forest in 2017. This charter was sealed by King Henry III, John’s heir. This powerful charter established the patter of “common usage” of the forested areas, specifically allowing commoners to cut wood, forage for food and graze farm animals. Hunting of deer and other animals was still strictly controlled by the nobles.

What does all this mean to the natural history of England? Approximately from the time of the William’s conquest to the reign of King John, close to one third of England’s landscape was inaccessible to no one other than the crown and their favorites. England’s landscape during those two centuries must have become heavily forested by the time of the Magna Carta. As most foresters will tell you, forests will regenerate quickly with the removal of people and agriculture. What this meant for animals that were hunted in the Royal Forests is uncertain, although it is fair to assume from contemporary accounts that Norman kings harvested the forests liberally without much thought to sustainability or conservation.

The second piece of the puzzle of the Magna Carta and the natural history of England has to do with fishing. While the Norman Kings had an impact on expanding woodlands on the English landscape, they probably had the exact opposite effect on fisheries. Many are unaware that at the time of the Norman conquest, the Thames and many other inland river systems used to “teem” with Atlantic Salmon . So much so, that after the Norman conquest it became common for Kings to establish large scale fishing weirs on many of England’s inner river systems, including of course the Thames.

Again, the Norman Kings derived much of their revenue from this practice and fed their households, armies and granted favors to their friends. Fishing weirs were very effective in wholesale capture of fish and eels. However they also had the effect of removing fish for anyone else, not to mention making the river systems impassable for transport. As a result, the English nobles insisted on the following clause in the Magna Carta: “All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast”. The aftermath appears to have been positive, as Atlantic Salmon began to make a re-appearance in England’s inner River systems after 1215. Of course, Atlantic Salmon would later disappear in English rivers to other human causes later in history but that’s another blog post!

Another natural history “aside” about King John is regarding the story of how he “lost his crown jewels”. Many school children have been told the tale of how King John lost his crown jewels in England’s eastern large estuary the “Wash”. The story appears to be both a little bit of fact and a little bit of myth.

Apparently in 1216 John was on a military campaign in the far east of England near the Wash. It is unclear what exactly happened, but while marching to the town of King’s Lynn he appeared to have lost part of his baggage train containing his crown jewels in the strong tidal pools. Some contemporary historians have doubted the story, pointing out that King’s Lynn is in fact approximately 10km from the actual Wash. What they fail to realize is that the Wash at that time was much wider than it is today. So much so that King’s Lynn was a very active port city in this time period. Similar in many ways to Bruges, Belgium during this time frame. Contemporary accounts also document a very treacherous coastline on the Wash with fast moving tidepools that could immediately drown people and horses! England at this time was nearing the end of the great Medieval Warming Period that saw higher coastlines throughout much of the world.

King John died shortly after this incident and one of his successors, Henry III was apparently crowned with the original crown jewels of Edward the Confessor the last Anglo-Saxon king in 1220. The crown jewels this “lost baggage” actually contained is uncertain. However, it has provided much fodder for treasure hunters over the many years! It also of course provides certain clues to the shape and structure of England’s former coastline.

Of course King John being “King John” reneged on the Magna Carta plunging England into decades of turmoil after his death. However this document and accompanying stories about him provide us with excellent clues as to what the natural history of England was like during the 13^th century!

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In the age of Google maps it may surprise many of you that paper maps are still around. In fact, as of late, paper maps have been making a huge comeback. Part of the reason seems to be nostalgia, but also the fact that you can print maps based on individual needs. Map vendors such as Stanford’s in London can print an individual map for customers based on their desired location and scale that suits their purpose. Unique maps can be printed for such purposes as hiking, biking or nature routes. This has all largely been made possible with the advent of GIS software and Open data allowing the creation of unique mapping tools.

This new technology opens up a huge opportunity for your museum, your community, the local nature park or any other institution that wishes to promote itself and the surrounding area. GIS software and graphic design software can assist in the creation of thematic maps which are defined as “portraying a geographic pattern of a certain subject area”.  There are many types of thematic maps: geologic, demographic, soils, climate public health, and the list goes on and on. Some of them truly are a work of art! Here is one of my favorites, it is a thematic map of the origin of tropical diseases created by Ukrainian cartographer Boris Artzybasheff (courtesy Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library):

Here’s another one of my favorites that displays the geographic origins of 70 dog breeds (courtesy Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library):

Of course, another of my favorites are the thematic maps of the animal kingdom, which I used to stare at for hours as a kid in school! Unfortunately, you don’t see many of these maps nowadays:

Here is another thematic map of Cleveland that got me thinking about local promotion for museums or any other local institutions (courtesy Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library):

This is a stunning map from Cleveland that outlines not only the local points of interest (including the museum) but also the local flora and fauna of interest. What a wonderful way to promote your institution and also show the natural world that you are surrounded by! This could even be a small revenue stream for your institution if you wanted to sell them to your visitors. It would probably be more cost effective to join up with several other institutions in your community to cost share. There are many web-based services that could help you develop your local map. There is also the possibility of hiring a temporary GIS and Graphic design specialist through such services as Fiverr.com or Upwork.com. If you are brave you could learn to use GIS tools and do this on your own! For cheaper options there are open-source tools such as QGIS which has a wealth of “how to” tutorials free for use on YouTube. There have also been many excellent easy to understand and low cost QGIS manuals for purchase. The one that I would recommend for beginners recommend is here.

Start mapping and start promoting yourself in a new and unique way!!

Thank you for reading our Blog Post! This review was written with the assistance of “Grammarly”. Grammarly is an amazing FREE tool that allows anyone to write like a professional! For more information and a free download, click here.

For our Reviews of excellent books on Natural History, Archaeology and Technology, please visit our main website!

Today we have a Review of a fabulous book on the purpose and work of Natural History Museums. Read our review of Lance Grande’s “Curators: Behind the Scenes of Natural History Museums”`

When I like a book, I will provide it a full review and promotion on my main website. However, “Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind” by Kermit Pattison, I will not provide a full review. Not because I don’t think the author does a great job in telling the story, but because I find the contents too distasteful to promote in any way! Call me shallow, but in order for me to really enjoy, promote and review a book, I have to like the individuals described in it. The book really should have been named “Scientist Behaving Badly” because it tells the tale of the ruthless and cutthroat world of paleo-anthropology. The book tells of the ongoing personal battles between rival paleo-anthropologists to hunt for skeletons in the Ethiopian hinterlands The story focuses on Tim White of the University of California who discovered the Ardipithecus skeleton in Ethiopia. According to the book, White truly is a distasteful individual with a huge inflated ego!. This appears to be the case of most of the scientists described in this book. The only redeeming feature that they portray is that they understand the importance of training local Ethiopians in paleo-anthropology and assist in setting up their national museum (which of course they insist on using for their own purposes). They also employ local Ethiopians on many of their campsites.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe competition and debate between individuals is good for a profession. It’s what inspires passion and innovation.  However, if this book is an accurate portrayal of the individuals involved, then I fear for the future of paleo-anthropology. In a time of economic restraint, it’s easy for a small profession like paleo-anthropology to not be “cancelled” but something more like I would describe “passively aggressed” upon! Burn enough bridges and anger enough people and you can see such things as:

·         Academic positions in paleo-anthropology being left “vacant”.

·         University libraries quietly down-scaling their paleo-anthropology collections in favor of other disciplines.

·         Research grants not renewed.

·         Streaming services not picking up documentaries on paleo-anthropology.

·         Potential graduate students moving to a different discipline because of the distasteful individuals involved.

While the scientists involved may be thinking they are advancing themselves and in turn their profession, they are doing the reverse. Who I felt sorry for the most in reading this book was the graduate students who had to work with these individuals. I couldn’t imagine attempting to build a career around such inflated egos!

Take heed paleo-anthropology! Keep it up and your profession could end up like the specimens you study…….!

Thank you for reading our Blog Post! This review was written with the assistance of “Grammarly”. Grammarly is an amazing FREE tool that allows anyone to write like a professional! For more information and a free download, click here.

For our Reviews of excellent books on Natural History, Archaeology and Technology, please visit our main website!

In a previous Blog post I mentioned that I had a strange obsession with Museum Annual Reports. I enjoy browsing through them to get a sense of what makes a good and bad annual report. If I was to write this blog now I would add another “tip” to what makes a great report. I would add the importance of adding an “Economic Impact Statement”. These statements are becoming increasingly important. As local civic “bean counters” casually ask “what purpose does the local museum serve anyways”, It’s important that museum staff have this information at the ready. Too often this information is buried in a financial ledger somewhere in the annual report, bewildering museum members. The American Alliance of Museums suggests answering four questions in a clear and concise Economic Impact Statement:

• • My museum employs _____ (#) people in our community.
  • My museum spends $____ annual budget each year on goods and services in our community.
  • My museum serves _____ (#) visitors each year, including % from out of town.
  • My museum serves _____ (#) schoolchildren each year through school visits to museums.

The Association Alliance of Museums also provides a sample of infographics best used in displaying Economic Impact data.

One of the key metrics that museums usually use as part of their Economic Impact Statement is visitor numbers. Unfortunately, they often get this critical metric notoriously wrong. It’s true that most museums keep accurate numbers of people walking through their doors, however they tend to stop with just that. They rarely collect demographics on visitors. The most critical demographic collected from your visitors should be: “where do you live”? If you can display that many of your visitors come from out of town, it has a direct impact on Hotels, Restaurants, and related services in your community. This should then be a key indicator on your annual report. Not to mention, this information is also critical to future marketing campaigns.

Technology is making this type data gathering much easier. Gone are the days when it took considerable staff time to ask visitors for demographic information. One of the methods to gather information that I would recommend is the use of QR codes. It is now easy to display a QR Code in your museum on a sign that says “Please Help us Out by Answering a Few Questions”. Your guest can then use their smart phone to scan the QR code and quickly answer your demographic survey. Hint: please make certain your survey is really just a few questions! Notoriously long surveys are often abandoned by participants. You will find that if the survey is short and concise, visitors will be more than willing to provide their demographic information. There are several relatively inexpensive online services that can help you with this and Google is much better at helping you to locate them than I am.

One other recommendation I would make to museums (and really any public institution) is that if visitor information is something that you are struggling with, then please consider joining the “Visitors Studies Association”. This is an excellent association that focuses on all facets of the visitor experience in museums, zoos, nature centers, visitor centers, historic sites, parks and other informal learning settings. A large portion of its mandate focuses on the subject of data reporting and analytics of the visitor experience. It also holds an Annual Conference and publishes an excellent Journal.

Collecting demographic numbers from visitors can be a pain, especially when there is so much else to do in the museum. However, these simple demographics could lead to your survival when the “bean counters” come calling!

Thank you for reading our Blog Post! This review was written with the assistance of “Grammarly”. Grammarly is an amazing FREE tool that allows anyone to write like a professional! For more information and a free download, click here.

For our Reviews of excellent books on Natural History, Archaeology and Technology, please visit our main website!

I’m in awe and envious of the British Natural History Museum’s new storage facility in Reading, UK! Their new storage facility will be located in the Thames Valley Science Park in collaboration with the University of Reading. It is estimated the Museum will move approximately 27 million specimens to its new facility which is the size of three football pitches! The move will create a wonderful research cluster making collaboration much more efficient with other institutions. The Science Park is also already home to several science, creative and cultural institutions, including the British Museum, the Rutherford Science Centre, Shinfield Studios and Oxford Quantum Circuits. The proximity of the site to Oxford University, Harwell and the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology will also allow for additional potential collaborations. The University of Reading is already host to three other amazing museums: the Museum of English Rural Life, the Cole Museum of Zoology (famously home to Norman the former Circus Elephant) and the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology.

I’m so impressed that the UK government has taken the storage of its most precious Natural History specimens seriously! This will in no doubt be a costly venture, but well worth the investment in the end. It also further enhances the preservation and security of the specimen collection. Security and preservation is something the British Natural History Museum is well acquainted with after the famous case of Edwin Rist, This individual broke into the British Natural History Museum’s Tring storage facility and stole a large amount of bird skins in order to resell the feathers to the fly-tying marketplace. This event is well described in the book “The Feather Thief”, which should be absolutely required reading for any museum curator!

While I’m celebrating the new storage facility for the British Natural History Museum, I can’t help but wonder and worry about the state of storage for smaller regional museums. Time and again I hear and read that smaller regional museums and archives across the world are facing a severe storage crisis. Too often irreplaceable specimens, artifacts and documents are stored in unsuitable and dilapidated conditions in regional museums and archives. When will national governments take their storage concerns seriously?

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For our Reviews of excellent books on Natural History, Archaeology and Technology, please visit our main website!

Natural History museums across the world for the most part are missing out on a tremendous opportunity for their guests and members. It may be bit of a surprise to many Natural History museum patrons that their museum usually also has a library. It is usually reserved for museum staff and is oftentimes stuffed away in some dark and dank room in a basement. If a museum is large enough it may even have a staff librarian or a clerk to maintain it. Why not bring this library material out into the open and make it available for museum guests and members to browse or borrow? Why not make it a display and a part of the exhibits? What better way to increase the knowledge of visitors than to give them access to books and journals on the very topics your museum is advocating for? It would also be an additional service that you could offer your members with their annual fees.

Yes, I understand the complexities of running even a small library and the fact that you will want certain parts of the collection reserved only for staff. Of course, you would also need to take additional care and precautions surrounding any Archival material. However there has never been a more perfect time to offer this service. Open-source library software has made automation much cheaper. (https://koha-community.org/) This is coupled with the fact that self-circulation is also made much easier via open-source software. It may also be an ideal opportunity for a retired librarian to volunteer to administer the library in a smaller museum.

I am aware of only one Natural History Museum that has done this in the past and that is in Denver. Denver Museum of Nature and Science had a small, beautiful library on their upper floor that allowed visitors to sit, read and browse a well-stocked collection of natural history books! I believe that only members could borrow materials, but from what I could tell many of the visitors were enjoying the book bounty! It’s hard to tell if this library is still available as I can no longer view it on their floor plan. It would be a shame if not: https://www.dmns.org/visit/plan-your-visit-reopening/floor-maps/

A national natural history museum that I plan to re-visit and review this fall is the Canadian Museum of Nature located on Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, https://nature.ca/en/home. While it has a beautiful building to visit, the museum library is closed for public visits and believe it or not, is located across the Ottawa river in Gatineau, Quebec in their collection facility! https://nature.ca/en/research-collections/collections/library-archives In other words, the library is for museum staff. You could try to access the collection via inter-library loan through your home library, however that would eliminate any ability for visitors to browse the collection (unless of course via the online catalogue which just isn’t the same).

I feel the best way to move this idea forward is for members and visitors to begin asking questions of museum staff and the board. Is there a library? Can I browse it? Is there any chance you could move this out into the open? I think if Natural History Museums (or any museums) begin to take this idea seriously and implement it, you will see an entirely new service that benefits all members and visitors! Most of all, these library resources will place more knowledge and awareness in the hands of museum goers, and isn’t this one of the biggest reasons why you exist?

Thank you for reading our Blog Post! This review was written with the assistance of “Grammarly”. Grammarly is an amazing FREE tool that allows anyone to write like a professional! For more information and a free download, click here.

For our Reviews of excellent books on Natural History, Archaeology and Technology, please visit our main website!

When one thinks of Natural History Books, the topic of “Porcupines” often does not come to mind. This ubiquitous creature often does not make it to the top of the list when it comes to writing nature books. Indeed, there has not been much published about this amazing animal. The Library of Congress only has 220 books under the subject “porcupine” and the British Library only lists 28! The vast majority of the books listed are children’s fiction books, usually with a heartwarming tale how a prickly porcupine learns to fit in with other animals that don’t at first accept them. A perfect example of this is “How Do You Hug a Porcupine?” by Laurie Isop, with the book summary: “Can you imagine hugging a porcupine? Sure, it’s easy to picture hugging a bunny or even a billy goat, but where would you begin to try to hug a porcupine? After seeing all his friends hug their favorite animals, one brave boy works up the courage to hug a porcupine, but the porcupine isn’t so sure he wants to be hugged!”

Children’s authors have often used the porcupine as an allegory to show how prickly and not so nice children really are just misunderstood and need affection! This is fine, but what really is needed is more factual information about real porcupines.

 

 

Here is a heartwarming non-fiction book about a porcupine: “How Do You Spank a Porcupine?” by Ronald Rood. Set in Vermont, this heartwarming tale tells the story of the author who rescues an abandoned “porcupette” and raises it in his home. “Piney” chews his way through almost everything in his home, including his neighbor’s ivory umbrella! Piney’s antics are hilarious, and they show how intelligent and gentle these creatures really are. Overall, a great read and its clean and funny content would make it a wonderful book for parents to read to their kids.

Porcupines are amazing creatures and are often misunderstood. Let’s get the word out!

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For our Reviews of excellent books on Natural History, Archaeology and Technology, please visit our main website!

When one thinks of tomes outlining the natural history of England, the Domesday Book is one that doesn’t usually come to mind. However, this great book does include some tantalizing pieces of evidence surrounding the natural history of England in the 11th century.

Every student of history knows how William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey of the lands of his newly conquered domain in 1085. Yet few people know how the survey began at William’s Christmas court in 1085 or why it was important.

The great Domesday survey was designed to bring “stability” to the collection of taxes to his new domain. William’s council of ministers was constantly burdened with the disruption of taxes through many landholding disputes. This was worsened by the fact that many of William’s new subjects did not recognize the Norman principles of feudal obligations. As a result in 1086, William sent to every shire in England Royal Commissioners with a long list of questions such as; who owned the manor, who had owned it before? Who owned the meadow, the forest, or the eel pond? While William did not live long enough to see the completion of the Great Survey, what was returned by his commissioners was a fascinating document that outlines the structure of England’s physical landscape just after the first millennium.

The Domesday Book was actually two distinct surveys; The Little Domesday Book surveyed the eastern part of England (Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk) while Great Domesday surveyed the rest of the nation. The surveys were notoriously inconsistent in the recording of landholdings. To make matters worse, Domesday was written in eleventh century clerical Latin that was highly stylized and abbreviated making translation nearly impossible without specialized training. English translations did not even appear in published form until the 19th century. However, even with these issues, Domesday offers the natural historian a wonderful, although somewhat skewed “snapshot” of the scope and scale of the physical environment of England at the time. Here are a few of the gleanings about the physical environment that Domesday provides:

• England’s human population. Although Domesday was not a formal census, the Commissioners were tasked to record the heads of households of villagers, cottagers, slaves, freemen, sokemen, and of course the manorial Lords. An estimate of the total population can be obtained with a type of multiplier. It is also important to note that the City of London, Winchester, and some other English towns were also not included in the survey. This was probably due to their tax-exempt status. Church officials, monks, and nuns were also not included. Even with an estimate, it can be seen from Domesday that the most densely populated areas of rural England at the time we’re in the eastern areas of Lincolnshire, East Anglia, and East Kent (approximately 10 people per square mile). As the surveyors proceeded northward, the population became much more sparse (approximately 3 people per square mile). These estimates show a dramatic decline in population from Roman times when it was thought to have exceeded approximately 4 million people.
• Woods, forests, game-parks, and agricultural land use. Domesday spends a great deal of effort recording the size and scale of agricultural land. It also painstakingly records the size of local woodlands, grazing meadows, pastures, and fisheries. The reasons for this are obvious, William wanted an estimate of potential taxation revenue from agricultural lands but also an idea of the size of potential hunting and grazing rights that could be granted to nobles. Like human population size estimates, land usage is also a “guess” due to the lack of standards in recording area sizes. For example, in some manors land is sometimes described as a unit of measure called a “hide”. The size of “hides” could vary widely between regions of England since it has been speculated that it was an area of land a man needed to feed his family for a year. As a result, a “hide” was smaller in more fertile areas. Woodland, meadow, and pasture land were also sometimes estimated by the size of how many pigs could “free graze” upon it. This of course could also vary widely between fertile and less fertile areas of the country.

Even with the lack of scientific precision in the survey, a good deal of knowledge of the rural landscape at the turn of the millennium England can be constructed. While much scholarly research has been done on Domesday from an economic/political-historical perspective, there has not been much research done on the physical landscape and natural environmental aspects. There are a couple of interesting questions scientists could consider:

• Are woodlands, pastures, and meadows approximately the same size as today?
• How large approximately were the fens, marshlands, and other “unairable land” as compared to today?
• Are there any hints to the number of “wild beasts” that inhabit the hunting areas of England and how does it compare to today’s environment?

Amazingly over 90 percent of the towns and villages listed in Domesday are still there in England today! Here is hoping that more research will be done on this amazing document from the perspective of England’s natural history.

For anyone interested in pursuing this topic further, I would recommend not attempting to read clerical Latin in the original document, but rather invest in or borrow from the library a good “summary” book. Most of the details of this post were taken from an excellent summary book of Domesday called “The Domesday Book: England’s Heritage, Then and Now” by Thomas Hinde (Editor). This stunningly beautiful book provides an overview of each of the towns and manors surveyed. It also goes into a detailed account of the history of the survey and provides an explanation of how Domesday entries were recorded. It also includes some beautiful pictures, maps, and local illustrations for your enjoyment.

Thank you for reading our Blog Post! This review was written with the assistance of “Grammarly”. Grammarly is an amazing FREE tool that allows anyone to write like a professional! For more information and a free download, click here.

For our Reviews of excellent books on Natural History, Archaeology and Technology, please visit our main website!