Domesday Book

We cannot treat the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle uncritically. But the entry for 1085 seeks to explain why William commissioned the Domesday survey and it remains the most satisfactory explanation:�

"In this year men reported ... that Cnute, King of Denmark, son of King Sweyne, was coming hitherward, and was resolved to win this land .... When William, King of England, who was then resident in Normandy ... , understood this, he went into England with so large an army of horse and foot, from France and Brittany, as never before sought this land; so that men wondered how this land could feed all that force. But the king left the army to shift for themselves through all this land amongst his subjects, who fed them, each according to his quota of land. Men suffered much distress this year; and the king caused the land to be laid waste about the sea coast; that, if his foes came up, they might not have anything on which they could very readily seize. But when the king understood of a truth that his foes were impeded, and could not further their expedition, then let he some of the army go to their own land; but some he held in this land over the winter.�

"Then, at the midwinter, was the king in Gloucester with his council, and held there his court five days. And afterwards the archbishop and clergy had a synod three days. ... 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."�

William had in 1082 convicted his own half-brother Odo of mismanagement following Odo's long regency. William's reign had been characterised by threats, rebellions and wars which had been paid for by a high tax burden on the population. Geld requests that had redundant in King Edward's day, and had not been collected since 1051, became both frequent and high. In William's council there was surely discussion regarding his recent, and most significant, imposition of troops across England. There must have been concern amongst his aristocracy at the impact of levels of taxation on the wealth generation capacity of the economy and their own pockets, and Earls and Counts must have compared their revenues and the tax burdens on their lands and recognised that in the twenty years since Edward died the system of land tenure and of taxation had become, if not broken, then in need of codification. Who held what? How much was it worth? Am I paying too much tax? Does he hold that manor fairly? These were surely questions being asked at Gloucester. �

Domesday is not a verbatim record of the findings of the Domesday commissioners. Domesday was about who held land in Norman England, and from whom the holder had acquired this land. It was about understanding whether the land was fairly held or whether there were disputes about the tenure. It was about the assessment for taxation and how the assessment had changed in the two decades since the day that King Edward lived and died. It was about how much wealth was being generated in the Kingdom, whether this wealth was balanced across England's manors in proportion to the tax burden. Ultimately it was about bringing sense and justice to the fiscal and tenurial landscape of England. This is not because of William's sense of fair play but because in a land of powerful barons, each with their own military retinue, William needed to demonstrate good governance; not because William was concerned at the impositions on his peasantry but because he needed to know whether more could be taken.�

It may have been triggered by one threat, that of the Danes, but, as with many historical events that require one trigger, there were several objectives from the survey.�

After his Christmas court in 1085, William appointed commissioners to complete the inquest. Textual analysis of the survey for different shires originally suggested to historians that different teams of commissioners completed the survey for a number of counties. For example, some circuits recorded woodland in terms of pigs paid as rent (like Surrey), others in absolute numbers of pigs supported and still others by the size of the woodland. This orthodoxy has been challenged by some historians who think that the survey of each shire was individual.

A source called Inquisitio Eliensis, from Ely Abbey, was thought for many years to include the original brief given to the Commissioners in the Fenland area. The relative similarity between all Domesday entries across England suggests that that the question list was very similar if not actually identical, but that the commissioners used a certain amount of discretion in determining what they thought was important to record.�Here is the question set from Inquisitio Eliensis:�

"The name of the place; who held it, before 1066 and now?
How many hides?�
How many ploughs, �both in lordship and the men's?�
How many villans, bordars and servi, how many free men (liveri homines) and Freemen (sochemani)?�
How much woodland, meadow and pasture?
How many mills and fishponds?�
How much has been added or taken away?
What the total value was and is?�
How much each free man or Freeman had or has?
All threefold, before 1066, when King William gave it, and now; and if more can be had than at present?"�

The Commissioners took evidence on oath: � "from the Sheriff; from all the barons and their Frenchmen; and from the whole Hundred, the priests, the reeves and six villans from each parish." � Robert Losinga, Bishop of Hereford, reported that King William sent a second team of commissioners to report on the first. �

It now seems clear that the commissioners used a range of existing written resources and supplemented this information by taking evidence from both the jurors in the shire court, each hundred court and the borough courts. In Surrey, there are presentments from the men of the shire, the men of the hundred and the men of Southwark (one of the boroughs).��

There are two views of the construction of Domesday Book. The only view held until 2000 was that the details of the survey were rapidly transcribed by a single clerk into Great Domesday Book (GDB) and presented to William I. In 2000, David Roffe sought to torpedo this established view by identifying several significant reasons why the book was actually the result of a separate exercise undertaken by William the Conqueror's son, William II called William Rufus, following the major revolt of many of the major Norman aristocrats on his accession.

In the traditional view, Domesday was a response to the threat of invasion and the need to secure a sensible basis for geld assessment. In the Roffe view, Domesday is a summary in part of the data gathered by the survey commissioners (as well as existing written records), but its purpose was essentially tenurial to enable William II to establish a sensible basis for the allocation and re-allocation of land after the challenge to his authority.�

Article added: 2008-01-19 @ 2:35 am

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