As per the last time we talked about the potential size of the English army at Maldon, and we wondered about the "general" fyrd being there, and how many they might be: I have received my copy of the Essex Domesday Book volume: Gads ! that county is big. The only way I can see to an estimation of the total population is to count the households on each page (not including slaves), then count the totals from each page, then multiply by c. 5.6 (to get a total population), then count the number of settlements on the maps and divide the total population by that - to determine c. how many people lived where. This will provide a rough and rather quick picture of how many people could contribute to the battle: I cannot see me doing this the even longer way: tallying the total holdings for each mentioned settlement to arrive at a more accurate population for each: that would be exhaustive detail that I doubt would change the picture much for our purposes.

The nearest settlements to Maldon would have contributed fyrd, to add to Byrhtnoth's household and gathered thegns and their retinues (the so-called "select" fyrd). This will take a while.......