Domesday Book

This article is about the 11th century census. See BBC Domesday Project for the multimedia project.

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 (partly 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 to the fact that it was not conquered until some time after the survey; the omission of the other counties has not been fully explained.

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 holding 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 (barones); 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 apart. But this description applies more specially to the larger and principal 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 that the survey was completed in 1086. It is not known when exactly Domesday Book was compiled.

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 had then an administrative entity), and the return for each Hundred was sworn to by twelve local jurors, half of them English and half 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, five "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

• The passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which tells us why it was ordered:

• 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.

• The national land-tax (geldum), paid on a fixed assessment,
• Certain miscellaneous dues, and
• The proceeds of the crown lands.

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 normally records only the Christian name of an under-tenant, it is vain to seek for the surnames of families claiming a Norman origin; but much has been and is still being done to identify the under-tenants, the great bulk of whom bear foreign names.

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 addition. 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, where it can be seen in a glass case in the museum. In 1869 it received a modern binding. The ancient Domesday chest, in which it used to be kept, is also preserved in the building.

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 indexes 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), and
4. The Boldon Book- a survey of the bishopric of Durham a century later than Domesday.

Although unique in character and of priceless value to the student, even 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 between it and later records a gulf that is hard to bridge.

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

See also