The Domesday Book Online - Frequently Asked Questions Landholding Frequently Asked Questions Below are some of the most commonly asked questions about the Domesday Book - please read the information before you contact us with a question, it may be answered here. What is the Domesday Book? The Domesday Book is a great land survey from 1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror to assess the extent of the land and resources being owned in England at the time, and the extent of the taxes he could raise. The information collected was recorded by hand in two huge books, in the space of around a year. William died before it was fully completed. Why is it called the 'Domesday' Book? It was written by an observer of the survey that "there was no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was left out".

The grand and comprehensive scale on which the Domesday survey took place (see How it was compiled ), and the irreversible nature of the information collected led people to compare it to the Last Judgement, or 'Doomsday', described in the Bible, when the deeds of Christians written in the Book of Life were to be placed before God for judgement. This name was not adopted until the late 12th Century. What information is in the book? The Domesday Book provides extensive records of landholders, their tenants, the amount of land they owned, how many people occupied the land (villagers, smallholders, free men, slaves, etc.), the amounts of woodland, meadow, animals, fish and ploughs on the land (if there were any) and other resources, any buildings present (churches, castles, mills, salthouses, etc.), and the whole purpose of the survey - the value of the land and its assets, before the Norman Conquest, after it, and at the time of Domesday. Some entries also chronicle disputes over who held land, some mention customary dues that had to be paid to the king, and entries for major towns include records of traders and number of houses.

However, the Domesday Book does not provide an accurate indication of the population of England towards the end of the 11th century. Find out why, and what the population may have been, here . How was the information collected? Royal commissioners were sent out around England to collect and record the information from thousands of settlements; the country was split up into 7 regions, or 'circuits' of the country, with 3 or 4 commissioners being assigned to each. They carried with them a set of questions and put these to a jury of representatives - made up of barons and villagers alike - from each county. They wrote down all of the information in Latin, as with the final Domesday document itself. Once they returned to London the information was combined with earlier records, from both before and after the Conquest, and was then, circuit by circuit, entered into the final Domesday Book. When was the Book written? The collection of information by the commissioners took place probably in the first few months of 1086, followed by the amalgamation of this and existing information into lengthy drafts.

These were possibly finished by the end of the summer of 1086, with work on abbreviating the records into the Great Domesday ( see below ) probably starting alongside this. By the time of King William's death in September 1087 work had stopped, and could have ceased before this time. Although the Great Domesday Book was left incomplete, the draft of the remaining unabbreviated work (the East Anglian circuit ) remains as the Little Domesday Book ( see below ). Who wrote the Domesday Book? Incredibly the final version of the main Domesday Book volume, all 413 pages of it, was handwritten by one unnamed official scribe, and checked by one other. Despite the speed at which the Book was compiled the text was carefully written in a short form of Latin. Why was it made? With the need to defend England from possible invasion threats from Scandinavia, and costly campaigns being fought in northern France, the vast army William amassed required substantial funding.

The power to raise Danegeld - a uniform tax to pay for the defence of the country - had been inherited from the Anglo-Saxons, and William saw the need for the Domesday Book as a thorough assessment of the potential amount of tax he could raise from his subjects and their assets. The survey also served as a gauge of the country's economic and social state in the aftermath of the Conquest and the unrest that followed it. What materials were used to make it? The main volume, Great Domesday, is written on sheep-skin parchment using black and red ink only (red used for the county titles atop each page, and corrections and alterations). How many places are listed in the Domesday Book? There are 13,418 places listed in the Domesday Book. What areas of Britain did the Domesday survey cover? The Domesday survey covered all of England as it existed in 1086, which included a small part of what is now Wales, some of Cumbria, but excluded the present day Northumbria. The entries for some major towns at the time like the important Winchester and London failed to make it into the book.

How many books make up the whole of the Domesday survey? The survey was intended to be compiled into one complete volume, but the compilation was never fully completed, probably owing to King William's death before the sole scribe could finish his work. However, the information collected from the whole survey was retained and still exists today in 2 volumes: 'Great Domesday' - most of the counties, abridged, and 'Little Domesday' - the 3 counties missing from Great Domesday, in their unabridged form. See more about the two books here . How many pages are there in the Domesday Book? There are 413 pages in Great Domesday ( see above ) and 475 pages in Little Domesday (which shows how much detail was cut out to compile Great Domesday). How many places listed in the Domesday Book still exist? Amazingly almost all of the places mentioned in the Domesday Book can be found on a present day map of England (and Wales), though many of their names have been altered over time from their 11th century versions. Where can I see the Domesday Book?

The original Domesday Book is deemed too valuable and fragile to be exhibited in public and so is kept in private at the National Archives - formerly the Public Records Office - in Kew, London (though it is still used on occasions by students and academics interested in its study). A copy of the document has been made and can be seen in a special exhibition area at the National Archives. For details of how and when to visit see the National Archives website . Why were many places listed in the Domesday Book as 'wasted'? When William and his army invaded in 1066 they continued their conquest campaign towards western and northern England, leaving a fair amount of destruction in their wake. The term 'waste' or 'wasted' appears many times in the Domesday Book, most often describing settlements the army had passed through and left their mark on during their conquest, although the term was also used sometimes for manors simply not paying geld for one reason or another. Why is the Domesday Book still important today? The Domesday Book provides an invaluable insight into the economy and society of 11th century Norman England.

For historians it can be used, amongst other things, to discover the wealth of England at the time, information about the feudal system existent in society (the social hierarchy from the king down to villagers and slaves), and information about the geography and demographic situation of the country. For local historians it can reveal the history of a local settlement and its population and surroundings, whilst for genealogists it provides a useful and fascinating resource for tracing family lines. Through the centuries the Domesday Book has also been used as evidence in disputes over ancient land and property rights, though the last case of this was in the 1960s. Some examples of what can be learnt from the information in the Domesday Book can be found in Life in the 11th Century . I took part in the 'New Domesday' survey in the 1980s - where can I find the information that was collected? Around a million people contributed to a snapshot of modern England in 1986 and the results, including a lot of multimedia, were compiled onto computer disks and put on sale. It ran into problems as the disks were only compatible with a special type of computer which was very expensive to buy.

Subsequently very few of the disks were sold, and today only a handful remain, all rather worse for wear. A project to extract the information off the best preserved disks and put it on more widely available media has begun, and parts of the project can now be viewed online at the BBC Domesday Reloaded site. For more details about the project and the issues involved see the following articles: BBC - History - British History in depth: The Domesday Book Print this page Introduction The Domesday Book - compiled in 1085-6 - is one of the few historical records whose name is familiar to most people in this country. It is our earliest public record, the foundation document of the national archives and a legal document that is still valid as evidence of title to land. Based on the Domesday survey of 1085-6, which was drawn up on the orders of King William I, it describes in remarkable detail, the landholdings and resources of late 11th-century England, demonstrating the power of the government machine in the first century of the new Millennium, and its deep thirst for information.

It was an exercise unparalleled in contemporary Europe, and was not matched in its comprehensive coverage of the country until the population censuses of the 19th century - although Domesday itself is not a full population census, and the names that appear in it are mainly only those of people who owned land. Used for many centuries for administrative and legal purposes, the Domesday Book is the starting point for most local historians researching the history of their area and there are several versions in print which should be available through good reference libraries. Despite its iconic significance, it has been subjected to increasingly detailed textual analysis by historians who warn us that not everything it says should be taken at face value. Providing definitive proof of rights to land and obligations to tax and military service, its 913 pages and two million Latin words describe more than 13,000 places in England and parts of Wales. Nicknamed the 'Domesday' Book by the native English, after God's final Day of Judgement, when every soul would be assessed and against which there could be no appeal, this title was eventually adopted by its official custodians, known for years as the Public Record Office, and recently renamed the National Archives.

The official who wrote Dialogue of the Exchequer in 1179 wrote that 'just as the sentence of that strict and terrible Last Judgement cannot be evaded by any art or subterfuge, so, when a dispute arises in this realm concerning facts which are written down, and an appeal is made to the book itself, the evidence it gives cannot be set at nought or evaded with impunity'. It was a landmark in the triumph of the centralised written record, once set down fixed forever, over evolving local oral traditions. Top Why was the Domesday Book compiled? According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the decision was taken at William's Christmas court in Gloucester in 1085, and his men were sent: 'all over England into every shire [to] find out how many hides there were in the shire, what land and cattle the king had himself in the shire, what dues he ought to have in twelve months from the shire. Also he had a record made of how much land his archbishops had, his bishops and his abbots and his earls, and what or how much everyone who was in England had....

So very narrowly did he have it investigated that there was no single hide nor yard of land, nor indeed ... one ox or cow or pig which was left out and not put down in his record, and these records were brought to him afterwards'. This survey and audit would clearly establish who held what, in the wake of the Norman Conquest itself This may be an exaggeration of what actually happened, but it does show how the survey was perceived at the time. Some historians have seen the immediate cause lying in an invasion threat from Denmark and Norway and William's urgent need for accurate information about the military and other resources at his disposal. The first general population census of 1801 had a similar requirement behind it at a time when England was threatened with invasion from Revolutionary France. Twenty years after King William's successful invasion of England, and the mass re-distribution of land amongst his followers, it was time to consolidate and define. This survey and audit would clearly establish who held what, in the wake of the Norman Conquest itself; it would also clarify what rights and dues were owed to the King, and would settle the liability of his great barons to provide military resources, in soldiers or cash, for a monarch whose campaigning season never ended.

What doesn't appear in Domesday? The Domesday Book does not cover certain important cities, such as London, Winchester, Bristol and the borough of Tamworth; nor Northumberland and Durham or much of north-west England. For Wales, only parts of certain border areas are included. Neither was it ever fully completed, being abandoned at some stage early in the reign of William Rufus, who succeeded to the throne in 1087. Not every place that existed in 1086 appears in the Domesday Book. We know this from other evidence - such as Anglo-Saxon charters, architectural evidence or the origins of the place-name itself. The place-names found in the Domesday Book are township and estate names, and may include other villages and hamlets that receive no specific mention in the text; for example, the Domesday entry for Shepshed, near Loughborough, includes the settlements of Long Watton, Lockington and Hemington, but they are not specifically mentioned.

Top Great and Little Domesday Domesday was never a single volume but originally two books, Great Domesday and Little Domesday (which was a longer version, covering the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, which was never written up into the main volume). It is now contained within five volumes, having been re-bound in 1984 to improve the prospects for its preservation for another millennium. Great Domesday was mostly written by a single scribe, with the hand of a second clerk appearing, checking his work and adding some notes and further entries. Minor errors were inevitable and led to some inconsistencies for later scholars to worry over. The counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk appear in a more detailed version known as Little Domesday. 'Little' refers to its physical size, not the content, as it is more detailed than Great Domesday, notably in its description of livestock belonging to the manor. Domesday Suffolk, for example, records 434 goats and 2 donkeys. It was the work of several clerks, perhaps as many as seven, and was neatly but hurriedly written, resulting again in minor errors.

Other versions of parts of the Domesday survey, which are not held by the Public Record Office, are the "Exon" Domesday (Somerset, Cornwall and most of Devon), held by some to be written by the same scribe who worked on Great Domesday; the 'Ely Inquest' (Ely Abbey estates) and the Cambridgeshire Inquest (parts of Cambridgeshire). Top How was Domesday Book compiled? It was only possible because England already had a sophisticated administrative system, built up by the Anglo-Saxons, with shire counties, whose boundaries survived with little change until 1974, and a well-functioning tax system. The traditional view is that all major landowners had to send in lists of their manors and tenants, which were compared to existing tax records. Commissioners were then sent out to assess the situation on the ground, questioning local juries in detail. Each was assigned circuits containing two or more counties. Their methods of proceeding do seem to have varied from circuit to circuit so comparative analysis by historians can be misleading. To avoid bias, the juries would have both Normans and native Anglo-Saxons sitting on them.

William wanted everything to follow legal form to legitimise his title which he claimed, not simply by right of conquest but as King Edward the Confessor's legitimate heir. How much had been added to or taken away from the estate What it used to be worth altogether What it is worth now All this was to be recorded three times - as it was in the time of King Edward [before 1066], what it was when King William gave it and as it is now. And it was also to be noted whether more [tax revenue] could be taken than is being taken now.' It also gives the names of some of the jurors showing the Norman and English mix. Compiled at amazing speed for an age without computers or rapid means of communication, and where most of the population could neither read nor write, the returns were then summarized and re-shaped. The scribes followed a set pattern in their organisation of the data. Each county section began with an entry describing all the boroughs, followed by a list of landholders and then a detailed description of their manors, beginning with those held by the king himself and followed by those of the tenants-in-chief, itemised in rank order. Red ink was used for key headings.

Top Who appears in Domesday Book? Most of the names that appear are those of landowners. The king and his family held about 17 per cent of the land, bishops and abbots about 26 per cent and around 190 tenants-in-chief held about 54 per cent. Some holdings were huge, with some twelve barons controlling nearly a quarter of the country but it is not always easy to distinguish between individuals with the same names who may have held lands in the same county or across a number of different counties. Anglo-Saxon names appear mainly as under-tenants of Norman lords. Some 4-5,000 entries relate to Anglo-Saxon lords, such as Aelfric, the pre-Conquest lord of March Gibbon in Buckinghamshire, who, Domesday records, paid his rent 'miserably and with a heavy heart'. Providing definitive proof of rights to land and obligations to tax and military service. Women in Domesday Some women's names appear in Domesday. The most prominent was Judith, countess of Northumbria and Huntingdon, who was King William's niece.

One Aelgar was granted enough land to live on by the Sheriff of Trent in return for teaching his daughter the art of gold embroidery. Others are anonymous, such as the one 'poor woman' of Barfreston in Kent who only appears in the text because she had to make an annual payment of 3 ¾ d, although for what is not recorded. Exceptionally, Asa of Scoreby in Yorkshire is noted as holding her land 'separate and free from the control and power of Bjornulfr her husband, even when they were together'. Now separated, she had withdrawn 'all her own land and possessed it as a lady'. Villani Of the 268,984 individuals described in Domesday, some 40 per cent are listed as villani. This Latin term has been translated in different ways by historians, as villein, villager, and villan. Philip Morgan has described them as "simply members of the vill who held a fixed share of its resources, including a changing pattern of strips within the fields, and owed labour services to the lord's demesne" (land held directly by the lord of the manor).

Some might have farms of as much as 30 acres, but still owe their lords two or three days' work on his land. Below them in the social hierarchy came the bordars who owed more services but held less land and below them the cottars, with even less, perhaps just a few acres and a vegetable garden. Sometimes those with trades - millers, blacksmiths, potters, shepherds and the like - receive specific mention and are named such as Fulchere the Bowman. Others appear with names associated with more personal characteristics, such as Alwin the Rat and Ralph the Haunted. At the bottom of the social pile came the servi or slaves, about 10% of the total population, who had no property rights and could be bought and sold. Often listed with the number of ploughs, it has been assumed that most would have worked as ploughmen, domestic servants and dairymaids.

The holy grail of data: it's Domesday, online | Technology | The Guardian The holy grail of data: it's Domesday, online William the Conqueror's great census is made available free on the internet The holy grail of data: it's Domesday, online William the Conqueror's great census is made available free on the internet Share on Messenger Close 'Not even one ox, nor one cow, nor one pig was left out.' But what William the Conqueror didn't have in the Domesday Book was an easy way of searching its reams of data. It has taken more than 900 years, but at last the internet has provided a solution. An academic at Hull University has produced the world's first complete, freely available online version. Professor John Palmer, whose work on the Domesday Book stretches back 25 years, has transformed its handwritten parchment pages into a database with searchable indexes, a detailed commentary and the ability to organise all its statistics in a tabulated format.

The Domesday Book, the oldest and most famous public record, was based on the 1086 great survey of England which investigated 'how the country was occupied, and with what sort of people... how much each had... and how much it was worth'. It covered 13,418 settlements south of the rivers Ribble and Tees. As with the Last Judgment, all were called to account - hence the name, Domesday, Day of Judgment. There would be nothing like it in England again until the censuses of the 19th century. But for nearly 1,000 years it has been inaccessible to most people and difficult to understand. There are costly CD-Rom translations, and the National Archives provides online searches, but Palmer set out to create a new format to bring the book into the digital age. Whereas the original has information listed under headings, Palmer has coded and tagged terms so they can be automatically retrieved and analysed. His software makes it possible to isolate certain variables and conduct several searches at once. The results can be displayed as a map, table or translated text, or as a combination of formats.

The three-year project was funded by a £250,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Palmer, who worked on the project with his son, Matt, said: 'My interest in Domesday began in about 1980 as a teaching project. My son was getting interested in computing at the same time. It developed into a research <interest for the 900th anniversary in 1986, but computers weren't powerful enough then. In the mid-Nineties, the improvements in computers revived my interest and I managed to get some funding.' Written in Latin, the Domesday Book is the starting point of history for the majority of towns and villages in England. It lists places, landowners and tenants, tax assessments, cultivated land, numbers of oxen and plough teams, property values, legal claims, illegal activity and social classes such as freemen, villeins, smallholders, cottagers, slaves, priests and burgesses. The total value of all property in England in 1086 was calculated at £75,000 - which in today's money would be £1 trillion.

The dozen wealthiest individuals were each richer than any later billionaires in English history, with fortunes ranging from the equivalent of £56bn to £104bn today. Palmer said: 'No English medieval historian can ignore the book because it's such an important source for social and economic medieval history. It's like a giant skyscraper surrounded by mud huts in terms of significance. If you want to know how many pigs there were in each county, the Domesday Book is the best record there is of who owned what, right down to people who owned a few shillings. 'Anyone who looks at it is stunned by the speed and coverage: it was completed within a year and Englishmen were generally in awe of it.

All through the Middle Ages it was used as the permanent record: there were all sorts of appeals to it to resolve property disputes.' · The Domesday Book is available online via Essex University's Arts and Humanities Data Service at esds.ac.uk/findingdata The Domesday Book Online - Home Domesday Book and chest at National Archives Latest: all entries pages updated; site search fixed The Domesday Book was commissioned in December 1085 by William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066. The first draft was completed in August 1086 and contained records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble and Tees (the border with Scotland at the time). The original Domesday Book has survived over 900 years of English history and is currently housed in a specially made chest at The National Archives in Kew, London. This site has been set up to enable visitors to discover the history of the Domesday Book, to give an insight into life at the time of its compilation, and provide information and links on related topics.

Start exploring the site by using the search box on the left, the Quick Links or the main links at the top. If you're after quick information the FAQs page provides answers to some of the most common questions about the Domesday Book. The Domesday Book | Middle Ages The Domesday Book Middle Ages Battles The Domesday Book is one of the most renowned, respected and revered public records ever to have been published. It is also the oldest public record to have survived through the ages. Unlike the modern census records, the Domesday Book was designed not to count the numbers of the population; it was instead designed to record the ownership of land and resources (such as livestock). The Domesday Book was incredibly informative for the time, but it has also provided a huge amount of insights into Britain in the Middle Ages for modern historians. The original Domesday Book, which is more than 900 years old, can still be seen today in The National Archives in Kew. Alternatively, history enthusiasts can also view pages from the Domesday Book online for free.

Domesday Book – Origins and Purpose The Domesday Book was commissioned in December 1085 and a first draft, written in Latin, was delivered in August 1086. This absolutely epic undertaking was carried out at the request of King William I, otherwise known as William the Conqueror. The main purpose of the Domesday Book was to create an accurate and irrefutable document that detailed the ownership of animals and land throughout the country. The Domesday Book portrays a fascinating account of the landholdings and resources of the people living in late 11th-century England. The Domesday Book was also a clear message that signalled the power and strength of the government and its commitment to the hunt for useable data. The Domesday Book comes with a sad irony, in that William I died before the Domesday Book was fully completed. However, this did not prevent the scribes or the government from completing the task. Numerical Facts and Figures The Domesday Book was a staggering accomplishment given the era, and the scale of this information harvesting has not been seen again until the development of the population censuses, which were launched in the 19th century.

The facts and figures behind the records are astonishing. The Domesday Book totals 913 pages, in which more than two million words are written in Latin. A total of 13,418 settlements were reviewed and written about in the Domesday Book. The first draft was delivered in less than 9 months after the book was first commissioned. As you can imagine, the Domesday Book would have been a massive undertaking for the administrators. A huge amount of energy and resources would have gone into the information gathering and recording. Reasons for the Production of the Domesday Book Excerpts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggest that King William I made the decision to commission the Domesday Book at the Christmas court in Gloucester. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that William’s men were sent: ‘all over England into every shire [to] find out how many hides there were in the shire, what land and cattle the king had himself in the shire, what dues he ought to have in twelve months from the shire.’ The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests that the Church was also not to be exempt from the process.

William also: ‘...had a record made of how much land his archbishops had, his bishops and his abbots and his earls...’ William I had one main goal in the collection (and most importantly the recording) of all this data and that was to find out: ‘...what or how much everyone who was in England had...’ What’s incredibly interesting is despite this clear goal and statement a number of cities were completely missed out altogether. However, by knowing exactly who owned what in a large portion of Britain, William could create a powerful, irrefutable document that would tell him: a) who owed him how much money based on the land and resources that they owned, and b) what resources he could call upon should England every be under the threat of war or invasion. Many historians suggest that it was the threat of war from Denmark and Norway that forced William to issue orders for such a monumental undertaking, although this may not have been the case. It may be that William wanted the Domesday Book to be created strictly for financial purposes. It may also have been a demonstration of his ability to organise and rule an entire country.

Most historians however believe that William needed a document to define how his land had been redistributed following his invasion two decades prior to the commissioning of the Domesday Book. Following his invasion, William had redistributed a lot of the land to individuals that had favoured or helped his campaigns. The Domesday Book survey would clarify and confirm the ownership of land and resources, and this information would be extremely beneficial for both financial and militant purposes. Domesday Disappearances – The Lost Locations As mentioned earlier, the Domesday Book was not, by any means, a complete survey of Britain. In fact, there were a number of key cities and towns that were not mentioned in the records. These include: London Cumberland Durham Much of the areas in the north-west England were not mentioned, and only segments of certain border areas along Wales were included in the survey. It is believed that London and Winchester were not included because of their size. The complexity of trying to record the details of ownership within these cities was simply too much. Northumberland, Westmorland and Cumberland were not included because they had not been fully conquered at the time that the survey was conducted.

County Durham was excluded because the Bishop of Durham, William de St-Calais, had the exclusive rights to the tax for this particular region. The omission of other areas such as Tamworth and Bristol has never been fully explained or understood. Smaller locations were also lost in the compilation of the Domesday Book. Rather than being mentioned as individual towns and hamlets they were often included as part of a larger estate. In this sense, the Domesday Book was riddled with holes and discrepancies. However, again, it was by far the most detailed public record that had ever been created in Britain, and it is, to this day a useful and relevant historical document. Great and Little Domesday – The Many Volumes of The Domesday Book Many people assume that the Domesday Book was produced in one giant volume, but this is not the case. Originally, the Domesday Book was made up of two volumes, Great Domesday and Little Domesday. The main volume, Great Domesday was produced by the hand of just one scribe. Occasionally amendments appear throughout the text in the hand of a second clerk.

Little Domesday was produced a little later on, and despite its name it’s actually a more comprehensive and detailed record when compared to Great Domesday. Little Domesday covered the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. It is believed that as many as seven clerks may have worked on the Little Domesday volume. Both Great Domesday and Little Domesday books have errors, which historians have long since mulled over and debated. There are other parts of the Domesday survey that are not held at the National Archives. These include: The Exon Domesday (which covers Somerset, Cornwall and parts of Devon) The Ely Inquest (which covers the Ely Abbey estates) The Cambridgeshire Inquest (which covers parts of Cambridgeshire) The current version that is on display at the National Archives in Kew now includes a total of five volumes. The book was rebound in 1984 to help ensure that the Domesday Book can be preserved for as long as possible.

The Domesday Book – How it Earned Such an Ominous Name The Domesday Book certainly sends like an ominous title for an official survey and record; however, it wasn’t initially given that name by King William I or his team of scribes. An observer wrote a line about the survey that has remained synonymous with the survey and the records. The observer is quoted to have said: "...there was no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was left out". As we know, the Domesday Book excluded a number of key cities and areas, so it can be safe to assume that this statement was a slight over exaggeration of the survey (although it does clearly convey the feelings the comprehensive survey generated from the local populous). This negative perspective of the survey may have contributed to the comparison between the book and the Bible. People compared the Domesday Book to the Last Judgement, or 'Doomsday', described in the passages of the Bible. In this section of the Bible the deeds of Christian souls are said to be written in the Book of Life, and this book would then be used by The Almighty to judge each individual.

It was the incredible and comprehensive scale of the Domesday survey and the irreversible and irrefutable nature of the details and data that was collected and recorded, combined with the quote given above that led to the local citizens to attach the ominous and now permanent nickname to the survey and the book. The Continuing Importance of the Domesday Book It goes without saying that the Domesday Book provides modern historians with invaluable insights into the economical and sociological structure of the country at the time of William’s reign. The Domesday Book has been used to discover the wealth hidden within England at the time, information about the feudal system, which is the social hierarchy from the top of the society (i.e. the king) down to bottom of the society, (i.e. the villagers and slaves). The Domesday Book has also provided valuable information on both the geography and the demographics of Britain at the time. Local historians have been able to use the Domesday Book to reveal the history of local settlements, whilst for genealogists have been able to use the Domesday Book for tracing back the family tree for many individuals.

Of course, given the kind of data that was recorded and stored in the Domesday it has also been used in it’s fair share of disputes over both land and property rights. The last case of the Domesday Book been used in this way was more than 50 years ago in the 1960s. The Domesday Book provides not just an insight in to what once was, but it has and can be used to glimpse into what would be later on into what was then the future. It has helped a huge number of people from all kinds of backgrounds to ascertain crucial information. Put simply, the importance of the Domesday Book is difficult to overstate. Anyone who uses the Domesday Book simply can’t help but acknowledge and appreciate the scale, size and scope of the survey and the beauty of the text that was derived as a direct result of the survey. There is no document in Europe that can compare to the complexity and the huge amount of territory that is covered by the Domesday Book volumes. Issues with the Domesday Book Volumes Of course, the Domesday Books are not without the flaws.

The document may have been irrefutable at the time, but there is no human being alive that is completely infallible. Human error has plagued some of the pages of the Domesday Book. Confusion and corrections have led to incorrect data and records which have proved to be incredibly difficult to rectify. As well as being riddled with genuine numerical mistakes, the Domesday Book is also full of obvious errors and issues. Suffice it to say that the honesty and integrity of the Domesday Book cannot and should not be fully believed. How accurate the Domesday Book was will be impossible to prove, however, it can and should be recognised that the Domesday Book was a huge undertaking, taken on by a very limited group of people that ultimately did the best they could with the resources, technology and personal that was available at the time. Related Articles domesdaybook Metal detecting holidays in England with the Worlds most successful metal detecting club Twinned with Midwest Historical Research Society USA Domesday Book Three of the sites we have permission to hunt are listed in the Domesday book with all the villages, pigs, slaves, houses etc attached on the site entry.

One particular site has 10 pigs in the wood, 1 plough, 2 villages, 2 slaves and 2 houses noted !! This is what they paid tax on. The Domesday Book was commissioned in December 1085 by William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066. The first draft was completed in August 1086 and contained records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble and Tees (the border with Scotland at the time). The original Domesday Book has survived over 900 years of English history and is currently housed in a specially made chest at London's Public Record Office in Kew, London What is the Domesday Book? The Domesday Book is a great land survey from 1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror to assess the extent of the land and resources being owned in England at the time, and the extent of the taxes he could raise. The information collected was recorded by hand in two huge books, in the space of around a year. William died before it was fully completed. Why is it called the 'Domesday' Book?

It was written by an observer of the survey that "there was no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was left out". The grand and comprehensive scale on which the Domesday survey took place and the irreversible nature of the information collected led people to compare it to the Last Judgement, or 'Doomsday', described in the Bible, when the deeds of Christians written in the Book of Life were to be placed before God for judgement. This name was not adopted until the late 12th Century. What information is in the book? The Domesday Book provides extensive records of landholders, their tenants, the amount of land they owned, how many people occupied the land (villagers, smallholders, free men, slaves, etc.), the amounts of woodland, meadow, animals, fish and ploughs on the land (if there were any) and other resources, any buildings present (churches, castles, mills, salthouses, etc.), and the whole purpose of the survey - the value of the land and its assets, before the Norman Conquest, after it, and at the time of Domesday.

Some entries also chronicle disputes over who held land, some mention customary dues that had to be paid to the king, and entries for major towns include records of traders and number of houses. However, the Domesday Book does not provide an accurate indication of the population of England towards the end of the 11th century How was the information collected? Royal commissioners were sent out around England to collect and record the information from thousands of settlements; the country was split up into 7 regions, or 'circuits' of the country, with 3 or 4 commissioners being assigned to each. They carried with them a set of questions and put these to a jury of representatives - made up of barons and villagers alike - from each county. They wrote down all of the information in Latin, as with the final Domesday document itself. Once they returned to London the information was combined with earlier records, from both before and after the Conquest, and was then, circuit by circuit, entered into the final Domesday Book. When was the Book written? The collection of information by the commissioners took place probably in the first few months of 1086, followed by the amalgamation of this and existing information into lengthy drafts.

These were possibly finished by the end of the summer of 1086, with work on abbreviating the records into the Great Domesday (see below) probably starting alongside this. By the time of King William's death in September 1087 work had stopped, and could have ceased before this time. Although the Great Domesday Book was left incomplete, the draft of the remaining unabbreviated work (the East Anglian circuit) remains as the Little Domesday Book (see below). Who wrote the Domesday Book? Incredibly the final version of the main Domesday Book volume, all 413 pages of it, was handwritten by one unnamed official scribe, and checked by one other. Despite the speed at which the Book was compiled the text was carefully written in a short form of Latin. Why was it made? With the need to defend England from possible invasion threats from Scandinavia, and costly campaigns being fought in northern France, the vast army William amassed required substantial funding.

The power to raise Danegeld - a uniform tax to pay for the defence of the country - had been inherited from the Anglo-Saxons, and William saw the need for the Domesday Book as a thorough assessment of the potential amount of tax he could raise from his subjects and their assets. The survey also served as a gauge of the country's economic and social state in the aftermath of the Conquest and the unrest that followed it. What materials were used to make it? The main volume, Great Domesday, is written on sheep-skin parchment using black and red ink only (red used for the county titles atop each page, and corrections and alterations). How many places are listed in the Domesday Book? There are 13,418 places listed in the Domesday Book. How many books make up the whole of the Domesday survey? The survey was intended to be compiled into one complete volume, but the compilation was never fully completed, probably owing to King William's death before the sole scribe could finish his work.

However, the information collected from the whole survey was retained and still exists today in 2 volumes: 'Great Domesday' - most of the counties, abridged, and 'Little Domesday' - the 3 counties missing from Great Domesday, in their unabridged form. See more about the two books here. How many pages are there in the Domesday Book? There are 413 pages in Great Domesday (see above) and 475 pages in Little Domesday (which shows how much detail was cut out to compile Great Domesday). How many places listed in the Domesday Book still exist? Amazingly almost all of the places mentioned in the Domesday Book can be found on a present day map of England (and Wales), though many of their names have been altered over time from their 11th century versions. Why were many places listed in the Domesday Book as 'wasted'? When William and his army invaded in 1066 they continued their conquest campaign towards western and northern England, leaving a fair amount of destruction in their wake.

The term 'waste' or 'wasted' appears many times in the Domesday Book, most often describing settlements the army had passed through and left their mark on during their conquest, although the term was also used sometimes for manors simply not paying geld for one reason or another. Domesday Book - Knowledge Base, HouseofNames.com Domesday Book The Domesday Book, our earliest public record, is a unique survey of the value and ownership of lands and resources in late 11th century England. The record was compiled in 1086-1087, a mere twenty years after the Norman Conquest , at the order of William the Conqueror. William commissioned the survey at Christmas 1085. Ironically it was the only census of England before 1801. "Its name 'Domesday', the book of the day of judgement, attests the awe with which the work has always been regarded.

The earliest names accorded to it 'the King's book' and 'the great book of Winchester', where it was first kept, in the royal treasury, were displaced as early as the twelfth century by a title which recalled the wonder with which the subjugated English had seen their Norman lords called to deferential account." [1] Contents William the Conqueror William commissioned the book because his power was being threatened from a number of quarters: the rebellious North; Denmark; and Norway, during the last years of his reign. However, the book was more than just a fiscal record. It provided a detailed record of all lands held by the king and his tenants and of the resources that went with those lands. It recorded which manors rightfully belonged to which estates, and was also a feudal statement. It revealed the identities of the landholders, who held their lands directly from the Crown, and of their tenants and under tenants. Warwickshire Example [2] The inventory, written in Latin, contains a wealth of information that illuminates one of the most crucial times in history - the Conquest and settlement of England by the Normans .

The original book itself still survives, preserved for centuries at Winchester, the capital of the ancient Saxon Kingdom of Wessex, and is now held in London at the Public Records office. The name "Domesday" refers to the book of the Day of Judgment and as such refers to the reverence the book has always held. But before the name Domesday, the book was called the King's Book and the Great Book of Winchester. The latter reference was coined because of the aforementioned location at Winchester. Great and Little Domesday Book The text consists of two volumes: Great Domesday which is now bound in two parts and the Little Domesday which is now bound in three parts. The Great Domesday describes thirty-one counties while the Little Domesday covers Essex , Norfolk and Suffolk . The names refer only to the size of the volumes, not their importance. Ironically, the Little Domesday is of greater bulk than the Great Domesday because less abbreviations were used and it contains greater information for many of the entries. It is important to note that the Books are not censuses because they record only the head of households.

Like censuses of today, it was out of date before it was completed as estates changed hands during the survey, rents and of course, livestock which were dutifully listed in many places expectedly changed. The English Translation The text was written in an abbreviated and stylized clerical Latin that would make even the experienced Latin scholar cringe at the task of translation. The first translations appeared in the 19th century and was typically a task done by county historians. The quality varied greatly and as such in the 1960's Domesday scholars agreed that a uniform translation would be in order. Dr. John Morris (1913-1977) of University College, London assembled and led the team of medieval Latinists in 1969. By 1975, the first county volumes were in print. Unfortunately, Dr. Morris did not live long enough to see the completion of the 35 volume set published by Phillimore & Co. Ltd , Showpwyke Hall, Chichester, West Sussex , PO20 6BQ, England. De Williamo tenet Ricoardus iiii hidis in BERMINGEHA.

Terra est vi carucis. In dominio est una./ v. villiani / iiii. bordarii cum .ii. carucis Silva dimidia leuga longditudina. / ii quarentine latitudine. Valuit / valet xx. solidos Vluuin libere tenuit Tempore Regis Edwardi. Translation: From William, Richard holds four hides in Birmingham. There is land for six ploughs, in the demesne, one. There are five villagers and four smallholders with two ploughs. The woodland is half a league long and two furlongs wide. The value was and is twenty shillings. Wulfwin held it freely in the time of King Edward. [2] Use of Forenames It is important to note that there are scattered references to first and last names that were obviously in use at that time throughout the reference. For example, names like Gilbert Tison, Ralph Paynel and Robert Malet were found in Yorkshire . Trade names like Walter the deacon and Walter the crossbowman were already very much in use. Norman influence in names like William de EU and Roger de Lacy are very common.

Terms used in the Domesday Book There are three terms found in the Domesday Book which were used to express the amount of land held by each manor, and how well that land was utilized, so as to estimate the annual rates of taxation upon each lord. Great Domesday [3] These terms are CARUCATES, BOVATES, and PLOUGH. The carucate was equivalent to approximately 120 acres, the bovate represented about 15 acres, and the plough was reckoned to be sufficient for half a carucate of land, or 60 acres. So, if a lord held vast lands, say two carucates, or approximately 240 acres, but only three ploughs, then at any given time one quarter of his land would lie fallow, and could not be worked. Therefore, taxing him on the assumption that all of his arable land was actually producing income would be unfair.

On the other hand, taxing a lord strictly on the basis of how many ploughs he had could use also would be unfair, because there was always the possibility that a lord with extra land might lease some to a neighbor who had more ploughs than land available for those ploughs to work. By recording the amount of land available and the tools with which it was worked, it became a simple matter for a tax collector to visit once a year and estimate how well the lord had done that year and set the taxation rate accordingly. HUNDRED derived from the Danish or Norse word wapentake which literally meant the taking up of weapons that were laid aside after an agreement was first used by the Saxons between 613 and 1017. One hundred held enough land to sustain approximately 100 households, or in other words land covered by one hundred "hides." While this term was not Norman in origin, the Normans were quick to replicate the Saxon term and use it in the Domesday Book . Many of the original hundred names have been given to modern government districts.

The term survives today in England , Wales and South Australia and parts of the United States where counties in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were divided into hundreds in the seventeenth century. SHERIFF derived from the Old English word scir-gerefa, was the royal officer in charge of a shire and responsible for judicial and financial functions that included overseeing the royal estates and custody of royal castles. TENANTS a term derived from the Latin tenere which means to hold denotes a person who held a property but did not retain ownership. This feudal term dates back to before the Domesday Book when land was never privately owned but leased. Undertenants were people who sub-letted part of the tenant's land. TRE was used frequently through the reference. Derived from the Latin "Tempore Regis Edwardi," it literally meant that the land was held "in the time of King Edward I ," or in other words before the Conquest in 1066. VILLAN derived from the Latin word villanus meant villager, the same as the Old English term tunsman. They held a higher position that a BORDER who was a peasant.

Domesday Book Today Like an other census, the Domesday Book was out of date by the time it was complete. Some estates had changed hands and tenants had died or moved. Today, the reference is lie no other; it captures the life and times of an early Britain, right down to the number of livestock held in a a specific area. Most properties are valued in either pounds or shillings, and often rent was listed as in "A certain knight rents it, and pays 10s" [10 shillings.] (page 801) Copies in modern text have recently been republished, and provide an excellent insight into the types of surnames in use at that time. Check your local library or book store for a copy. ^ The Domesday Book, England's Heritage Then and Now (1995) Editor: Thomas Hinde, Colour Library Books ISBN 1-85833-440-3 ^ Swyrich, Archive materials DOMESDAY BOOK. It consists of about 2 million words, written in black and red ink. Its 888 leaves are made of parchment, or the skins of between 500...

- CSMonitor.com Save for later Saved London and Winchester — THE year of the Norman Conquest of England, 1066, is the one date known to every British schoolchild. The brief reign of the last Anglo-Saxon King, Harold, ended at the Battle of Hastings, and William the Conqueror initiated a century of Norman domination. By the end of 1986 it seems likely that another date will also be impressed on Britain's collective memory: 1086, the year in which the survey of some 37 counties, or 13,418 named places, was carried out, decreed by William at his court in Gloucester at Christmas 1085. This comprehensive accounting of who owned what in England, and how much everything was worth, rapidly assumed mythical status. Actually in two parts -- known as ``Great Domesday'' (pronounced ``DOOMS-day'') and ``Little Domesday'' -- the book acquired its ominous-sounding nickname about a century after its compilation.

The name indicates a link in the popular mind between its ``unalterable'' decisions and those expected of the ``Last Judgment.'' Throughout its 900-year existence, Domesday Book has been held in extraordinary awe. It has gone from being a practical document of royal power to a museum piece, though even in modern times it has occasionally been invoked as admissible evidence in courts of law, generally in cases of land dispute. (The most recent land case was in 1960.) Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test? The Victorians invested it with an aura of romance, and a century ago were the first to recognize a Domesday anniversary -- its 800th. But their modest series of lectures and documentary exhibitions was nothing compared with the abundance of exhibitions, events, publications, laser displays, fireworks, balls, conferences, processions, joustings, lectures, trips, commemorations, competitions, fairs, performances, reconstructions of Norman strongholds, walking tours, heritage weekends, medieval mystery plays, investigations of family trees, medieval music concerts, pageants, commemorative stamp issues, souvenirs, resource packets for schools, videos, and computerized investigations going on all over England this year.

Photos of the Day Photos of the day 02/08 But it is not all winsome commercialization. The fact is that, at the center of it all, there lie the rather sober-looking pages of Domesday itself, glass-cased in the specially staged main exhibition at this unique document's permanent London home, the government's Public Record Office. The book has been rebound (partly to make possible a new facsimile edition by Alecto Historical Publications) in tawed pigskin and quarter-cut English oak boards. Instead of being in the traditional two volumes, Little Domesday has been divided into three parts and Great Domesday into two. This has been done, say its guardians, ``for conservation reasons'' -- perhaps to avoid overcompression of the pages. Indignant chronicler The exhibition's organizers have produced some fine entertainment, including modern parchment-makers at work, a tableau of a plowman and his ox, and two intriguing ``animated'' figures. Actually, only their heads are ``alive'' -- a film of actors' faces, emoting impressively, is projected on three-dimensional modeled heads.

One represents William severely announcing his survey; the other is a monk from Peterborough, author of part of the ``Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,'' a commentary on life during that time. Quoting his own written English words, his face is twisted by disapproval of the king's actions. After all, as one of the exhibition's wall texts observes, Domesday Book was ``the obituary of the Anglo-Saxon state.'' ``He sent his men,'' wrote this chronicler, ``all over England into every shire and had them find out how many hundred hides there were in the shire, or what land and cattle the king himself had in the country, or what dues he ought to have in 12 months from the shire. Also he had a record made of how much land his archbishops had, and his bishops, and his abbots, and his earls, and . . . what or how much everybody had who was occupying land in England, in land or cattle, and how much money it was worth.

So very narrowly did he have it investigated, that there was no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed (it is a shame to relate but it seemed no shame to him to do) one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was there left out, and not put down in his record: And all these records were brought to him afterwards.'' There, already, is the Domesday ``awe,'' though his description of its comprehensiveness is certainly exaggerated. The survey concentrates largely on rural England. Two major cities, London and Winchester, were, in fact, omitted. Maybe the king was curious The longstanding myth of Domesday Book's irrefutability is strangely at odds, also, with the fact that much of its detail must have been quickly out of date. Take the entry for Wisley, Surrey, for example (notable because it was one of the few places left with an English, rather than a usurping Norman, tenant-in-chief): Oswald holds WISELEI himself. He held it himself from Earl Harold. Then it answered for 3 hides, now for 1 hides. Land for 2 ploughs.

In lordship 1; 4 villagers and 4 smallholders with 2 ploughs. A church; 2 slaves. A mill at 10s; meadow, 6 acres; a fishery at 5d; woodland at 6 pigs. Value before 1066, 40s; now 60s. Virtually everything in this item would have changed in a very few years. Why did William order the survey made? Historians have promoted a variety of theories (they've had a few centuries to work at it). Today, the tendency is to believe that they all have a point: Domesday was a record of ownership, a feudal statement, a record of the country's assets, and a fiscal statement. Elizabeth M. Hallam, author of the newly published ``Domesday Book Through Nine Centuries,'' adds a further reason -- ``to satisfy the king's curiosity.'' Why not? Dr. Hallam's book is a scholarly discussion of Domesday's history.

She places it in the context of other surveys of its time, but concludes that it still ``has special qualities.'' In France, she points out, no comparable royal survey of any scope was made until 1204, and it was only an outline list taking seven years to complete. Domesday was compiled with exceptional speed: The actual survey is thought to have been completed by the end of 1086. Little Domesday was also finished by then, and Great Domesday, though actually never finished, was left as it now is by the end of 1087. Few fiscal records, Dr. Hallam observes, rise from being merely ``a pragmatic exercise in the gathering of information into a `most venerable monument of antiquity.' '' Winchester's slant on Domesday One of the extra pleasures afforded by all the 1986 ballyhoo about this monument is that it provides an excuse for a visit to the city of Winchester. A delightful exhibition is staged here in the 13th-century Great Hall. Set out like a Norman encampment, this show offers its own slant on Domesday and its times.

It vividly portrays how the Normans replaced the English aristocracy throughout the country. It shows the peppering of the land with Norman castles and the later flowering of magnificent Norman church architecture (take a walk down the road to Winchester Cathedral, and you see noble examples of the style in the transepts and crypt). It presents a tableau of the scribes writing Great Domesday. This, finally, is the point of the exhibition: It was in Winchester that Great Domesday is thought to have been written down. It was certainly kept here from the late 11th to the early 13th century, in the Royal Treasury. So Winchester can claim Domesday as a proud part of its heritage as justifiably as any place in the land. Practical information Exhibitions: ``Domesday 1086 -- 1986'': Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, London, through Sept. 30. ``Domesday 900 Winchester'': The Great Hall, Winchester, through Nov. 1. Books: ``Domesday Book Through Nine Centuries,'' by Elizabeth M.

Hallam (available in the US at the end of May from Thames &amp; Hudson, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110; $24.95). ``The Domesday Book: England's Heritage, Then and Now,'' edited by Thomas Hinde (English Tourist Board, 14.95). ``The Children's Book of Domesday England,'' by Peter B. Boyden (Kingfisher Books, 4.95). ``Domesday: 900 Years of England's Norman Heritage'' (official publication of National Domesday Committee, 3). Next up

Question: In what year was 'The Domesday Book' completed?
Answer: 1086