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Domesday Book

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain)

   A line drawing entitled 'Domesday Book' from Andrew Williams's Historic
   Byways and Highways of Old England.
   A line drawing entitled 'Domesday Book' from Andrew Williams's Historic
   Byways and Highways of Old England.

   Domesday Book (also known as Domesday, or Book of Winchester) was the
   record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for
   William the Conqueror. The survey was similar to a census by a
   government of today. William needed information about the country he
   had just conquered so he could administer it. While spending the
   Christmas of 1085 in Gloucester, William "had deep speech with his
   counsellors and sent men all over England to each shire ... to find out
   ... what or how much each landholder had in land and livestock, and
   what it was worth." ( Saxon Chronicle) One of the main purposes of the
   survey was to find out who owned what so they could be taxed on it, and
   the judgment of the assessors was final — whatever the book said about
   who owned the property, or what it was worth, was the law, and there
   was no appeal. It was written in Latin, although there were some
   vernacular words inserted for native terms with no previous Latin
   equivalent and the text was highly abbreviated. When the book took the
   name "Domesday" ( Middle English spelling of Doomsday) in the 12th
   century, it was to emphasize its definitiveness and authority (the
   analogy refers to the Christian belief of a Last Judgment).

   In August 2006, a complete online version of Domesday Book was made
   available for the first time by the The National Archives.

Domesday Book

   Domesday Book is really two independent works. One, known as Little
   Domesday covers Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. The other, Great Domesday
   covers the rest of England, except for lands in the north that would
   later become Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland and County Durham
   (because some of these lands were under Scottish control at the time).
   There are also no surveys of London, Winchester and some other towns.
   The omission of these two major cities is probably due to their size
   and complexity, Cumberland is missing because it was not conquered
   until some time after the survey and the Prince-Bishop William of St.
   Carilef had the exclusive right to tax Durham; the omission of the
   other counties has not been fully explained. Parts of the North East of
   England were covered by the 1183 'Boldon Book', which listed those
   areas liable to tax by the Bishop of Durham.

   Despite its name, Little Domesday is actually larger — as it is far
   more detailed, down to numbers of livestock. It has been suggested that
   Little Domesday represents a first attempt, and that it was found
   impossible, or at least inconvenient, to complete the work on the same
   scale for Great Domesday.

   For both volumes, the contents of the returns were entirely rearranged
   and classified according to fiefs, rather than geographically. Instead
   of appearing under the Hundreds and townships, holdings appear under
   the names of the local barons, i.e. those who held the lands directly
   of the crown in fee.

   In each county, the list opened with the holdings of the king himself
   (which had possibly formed the subject of separate inquiry); then came
   those of the churchmen and religious houses; next were entered those of
   the lay tenants-in-chief (barons); and last of all those of women, of
   the king's serjeants (servientes), of the few English thegns who
   retained land, and so forth.

   In some counties, one or more principal towns formed the subject of a
   separate section; in some the clamores (disputed titles to land) were
   similarly treated separately. This principle applies more specially to
   the larger volume; in the smaller one the system is more confused, the
   execution less perfect.

   Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk,
   Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of the towns,
   which were probably made because of their bearing on the fiscal rights
   of the crown therein. These include fragments of custumals (older
   customary agreements), records of the military service due, of markets,
   mints, and so forth. From the towns, from the counties as wholes, and
   from many of its ancient lordships, the crown was entitled to archaic
   dues in kind, such as honey.

   The information of most general interest found in the great record is
   that on political, personal, ecclesiastical and social history, which
   only occurs sporadically and, as it were, by accident. Much of this was
   used by E. A. Freeman for his work on the Norman Conquest.

The survey

   From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it is known that the planning for the
   survey was conducted in 1085, and from the colophon of the book it is
   known that the survey was completed in 1086. It is not known when
   exactly Domesday Book was compiled, but the entire work appears to have
   been copied out by one person.

   Each county was visited by a group of royal officers (legati), who held
   a public inquiry, probably in the great assembly known as the county
   court, which was attended by representatives of every township as well
   as of the local lords. The unit of inquiry was the Hundred (a
   subdivision of the county, which then was an administrative entity),
   and the return for each Hundred was sworn to by twelve local jurors,
   half of them English and half of them Normans.

   What is believed to be a full transcript of these original returns is
   preserved for several of the Cambridgeshire Hundreds, and is of great
   illustrative importance. The Inquisitio Eliensis, the Exon Domesday (so
   called from the preservation of the volume at Exeter), which covers
   Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, and the second volume of
   Domesday Book, also all contain the full details which the original
   returns supplied.

   Through comparison of what details are recorded in which counties, six
   "circuits" can be determined.
    1. Berkshire, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex
    2. Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire (Exeter Domesday)
    3. Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire,
       Middlesex
    4. Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire,
       Warwickshire
    5. Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire,
       Worcestershire — the Marches
    6. Derbyshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire,
       Yorkshire

Purpose

   For the object of the survey, we have three sources of information:
     * The passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which tells us why it was
       ordered:

          "After this had the king a large meeting, and very deep
          consultation with his council, about this land; how it was
          occupied, and by what sort of men. Then sent he his men over all
          England into each shire; commissioning them to find out "How
          many hundreds of hides were in the shire, what land the king
          himself had, and what stock upon the land; or, what dues he
          ought to have by the year from the shire." Also he commissioned
          them to record in writing, "How much land his archbishops had,
          and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots, and his earls;" and
          though I may be prolix and tedious, "What, or how much, each man
          had, who was an occupier of land in England, either in land or
          in stock, and how much money it were worth." So very narrowly,
          indeed, did he commission them to trace it out, that there was
          not one single hide, nor a yard of land, nay, moreover (it is
          shameful to tell, though he thought it no shame to do it), not
          even an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was there left, that was not
          set down in his writ. And all the recorded particulars were
          afterwards brought to him."

     * The list of questions which the jurors were asked, as preserved in
       the Inquisitio Eliensis
     * The contents of Domesday Book and the allied records mentioned
       above.

   Although these can by no means be reconciled in every detail, it is now
   generally recognized that the primary object of the survey was to
   ascertain and record the fiscal rights of the king. These were mainly
     * The national land-tax (geldum), paid on a fixed assessment,
     * Certain miscellaneous dues, and
     * The proceeds of the crown lands.

   After a great political convulsion such as the Norman conquest, and the
   wholesale confiscation of landed estates which followed it, it was in
   William's interest to make sure that the rights of the crown, which he
   claimed to have inherited, had not suffered in the process. More
   especially was this the case as his Norman followers were disposed to
   evade the liabilities of their English predecessors.

   The Domesday survey therefore recorded the names of the new holders of
   lands and the assessments on which their tax was to be paid. But it did
   more than this; by the king's instructions it endeavoured to make a
   national valuation list, estimating the annual value of all the land in
   the country, (1) at the time of Edward the Confessor's death, (2) when
   the new owners received it, (3) at the time of the survey, and further,
   it reckoned, by command, the potential value as well. It is evident
   that William desired to know the financial resources of his kingdom,
   and probable that he wished to compare them with the existing
   assessment, which was one of considerable antiquity, though there are
   traces that it had been occasionally modified. The great bulk of
   Domesday Book is devoted to the somewhat arid details of the assessment
   and valuation of rural estates, which were as yet the only important
   source of national wealth. After stating the assessment of the manor,
   the record sets forth the amount of arable land, and the number of
   plough teams (each reckoned at eight oxen) available for working it,
   with the additional number (if any) that might be employed; then the
   river-meadows, woodland, pasture, fisheries (i.e. weirs in the
   streams), water-mills, saltpans (if by the sea) and other subsidiary
   sources of revenue; the peasants are enumerated in their several
   classes; and finally the annual value of the whole, past and present,
   is roughly estimated.

   It is obvious that, both in its values and in its measurements, the
   survey's reckoning is very crude.

   The rearrangement, on a feudal basis, of the original returns enabled
   the Conqueror and his officers to see with ease the extent of a baron's
   possessions; but it also had the effect of showing how far he had
   engaged under-tenants, and who those under-tenants were. This was of
   great importance to William, not only for military reasons, but also
   because of his firm resolve to make the under-tenants (though the "men"
   of their lords) swear allegiance directly to himself. As Domesday Book
   normally records only the Christian name of an under-tenant, it is not
   possible to search for the surnames of families claiming a Norman
   origin; but much has been done, and is still being done, to identify
   the under-tenants, the great bulk of whom bear foreign Christian names.

   To a large extent, it comes down to the king's knowing where he should
   look when he needed to raise money. It therefore includes sources of
   income but not sinks of expenditure such as castles; unless their
   mention is needed to explain discrepancies between pre-and
   post-Conquest holdings. Typically, this happened in a town, where
   separately-recorded properties had been demolished to make way for a
   castle.

Subsequent history

   Domesday Book was originally preserved in the royal treasury at
   Winchester (the Norman kings' capital). It was originally referred to
   as the Book of Winchester, and refers to itself as such in a late
   edition. When the treasury moved to Westminster, probably under Henry
   II, the book went with it. In the Dialogus de scaccario (temp. Hen.
   II.) it is spoken of as a record from the arbitrament of which there
   was no appeal (from which its popular name of Domesday is said to be
   derived). In the Middle Ages its evidence was frequently invoked in the
   law-courts; and even now there are certain cases in which appeal is
   made to its testimony.

   It remained in Westminster until the days of Queen Victoria, being
   preserved from 1696 onwards in the Chapter House, and only removed in
   special circumstances, such as when it was sent to Southampton for
   photozincographic reproduction. Domesday Book was eventually placed in
   the Public Record Office, London; it can be now seen in a glass case in
   the museum at The National Archives, Kew which is in the London Borough
   of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. In 1869 it received a
   modern binding. Most recently, the two books were rebound for its ninth
   centenary in 1986, when Great Domesday was divided into two volumes and
   Little Domesday was divided into three volumes. The ancient Domesday
   chest, in which it used to be kept, is also preserved in the building
   at Kew.

   The printing of Domesday, in "record type", was begun by the government
   in 1773, and the book was published, in two volumes, in 1783; in 1811 a
   volume of indices was added, and in 1816 a supplementary volume,
   separately indexed, containing:
    1. The Exon Domesday — for the south-western counties
    2. The Inquisitio Eliensis
    3. The Liber Winton — surveys of Winchester early in the 12th century
    4. The Boldon Buke — a survey of the bishopric of Durham a century
       later than Domesday.

   Photographic facsimiles of Domesday Book, for each county separately,
   were published in 1861-1863, also by the government. Today, Domesday
   Book is available in numerous editions, usually based per county and
   available with other local history resources.

   Although unique in character and invaluable to the student, scholars
   are unable to explain portions of its language and of its system. This
   is partly due to its very early date, which has placed a gulf between
   Domesday Book and later records which is difficult to bridge.

   To the topographer, as to the genealogist, its evidence is of primary
   importance, as it not only contains the earliest survey of each
   township or manor, but affords, in the majority of cases, the clue to
   its subsequent descent.

   In August 2006 the contents of Domesday went on-line, with an English
   translation of the book's Latin. Visitors to the website will now be
   able to search a place name, see the index entry made for the manor,
   town, city or village and, for a fee, download the appropriate page.

   In 1986, the BBC released the BBC Domesday Project, the results of a
   project to create a survey to mark the 900th anniversary of the
   original Domesday Book.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
