Domesday Book

The Domesday Book (or simply Domesday ), in French Book of the Last Judgment , is the recording of the great inventory of the England finished in 1086, carried out for William the Conqueror, the equivalent nowadays of a national Recensement. The Conqueror needed information on the country which it had just conquered to be able to manage it. Whereas it passed Christmas to Gloucester in 1085, the Conqueror “having spoken lengthily with his advisers, sent men by all England… in order to discover… what - or how much - each landowner had out of ground and cattle, and how much it was worth” (Anglo-Saxon Chronique). One of the goals of this statement was to know which had what, in order to tax it. The decision of the controllers was final - all that this book in connection with the owner said, or of the estimate of its property, was the law and there was no possible call. It was written in Latin, although some words vernacular S were included/understood to translate the indigenous terms without equivalent formerly employed into Latin. Moreover, the text was extremely shortened.

When one indicated this book under the title of Domesday (equivalent in means English of modern the Doomsday ) at the 12th century, it was with the intention to stress the final character and on the authority of this one (the analogy refers to the Christian créence of a Jour of the judgment).

In August 2006, the English Public records made available a version of the Domesday Book In line and English. (See external bonds below).

See also: Division of England in 1066 - Anglo-Norman Baronnage

Domesday Book

In fact, Domesday Book consists of two independent works: one, known as Little Domesday (“Small Domesday”) includes/understands information in connection with the Norfolk, of the Suffolk and Essex. The other, known as Great Domesday (“Large Domesday”) relates to the remainder of the England, except the territories in north which later will become the counties of Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland and the County of Durham (partially because some of these territories were under Scottish control). There is no census of London nor of Winchester; some other cities have also escaped with the inventory. The omission of these two major cities is probably due to their size and their complexity; Cumberland, which was militarily occupied only some time after the investigation, is absent for this reason even; in the same way, only the Prince-bishop Guillaume of Saint-Calais was in right to tax Durham. The omission of the other counties is not explained completely.

In spite of its name, “ Little Domesday ” is in fact bulkiest of the two collections: it is more detailed and provides the enumeration of the livestock. It was suggested that Little Domesday represented a first stage of the census, at the conclusion which the authorities considered to be impossible, or at least inappropriate, continuing the Great Domesday in a similar way.

In the two books, the inventory of the resource is classified according to the Fief S, and not according to the geography. Instead of appearing under the “hundreds” (i.e. the “ Gallo-Roman centuries ”, or rural districts) and cantons, the properties appear under the names of the local barons, i.e. those which hold the territory directly of the crown in royalty.

In each county, the list opens on the possessions of the king himself (which had to be the subject of a separate inventory); then there are those of the clergy and the religious orders; then those of the laic owners in capite (the barons ); and finally those of the women, the servants of the king ( servientes ), of some thegns angles who preserved property, etc

In certain counties one or more villages are listed separately; in some others the clamores (disputed documents of title) pareillement were pareillement treated separately: but this description applies more particularly to the first volume; in “Great Domesday”, the system is more confused, the less succeeded execution.

In addition to the completely rural properties, which constitute the large majority of the inventory, the book contains interesting articles on the majority of the cities, probably because of the feudal Droits which were taken there by the crown. These taxes include/understand the old common laws, the right of ost, the right of market and fair, the right of Monnaie and so on. The Crown also perceived many taxes in kind (like the honey supply) near the boroughs, of the counties and the many old seigniories which belonged to the king.

One finds in the first collection of invaluable indications on the history political, personal, ecclesiastical and social. But they are generally only simple allusions or of the comments of circumstance. E.A. Freeman used the majority for its work of it on the Conquête Norman.

The project of 1985

To mark the nine hundredth birthday of this book in 1985, a new edition Multimédia was compiled and published in 1986. It included all the information of the original plus the contemporary pronunciations of the names of the places, the charts and much of photographs color.

It was produced in partnership between Acorn, Philips and BBC. The Disc of the BBC on the Community project Domesday or national Disque was published on two discs laser with format (LV-ROM) of Philips. Acorn launched a version of microcomputer BBC able to read this format of disc.

In 2002 there were great fears which the disc becomes illegible because the computers able to read this format became rare (and readers able to reach the discs, even rarer and fragile). However the BBC announced later that project CAMILEON (a partnership between the Université of Leeds and the Université of Michigan had developed a system able to reach the discs and their information by using a technique of emulation. (Unfortunately, this program is not yet freely accessible, because of problems of royalties).

The investigation

We learn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronique that the principle of this census was discussed and determined in 1085, and of the Colophon of the book, one knows that the investigation was finished in 1086. But the book ( liber ) although compiled since the results of this investigation, must be méticuleusement separate about it; it is not either certain that it was formatted the year when an inventory was made.

For the implementation of the census, each county was visited by a group of royal officers ( legati ), who held a public survey, probably in the large assembly known as the court of the county, where the representatives of each village came just like the local lords. The survey unit was the “ centurie ”, (a subdivision of the county which was then an administrative entity), and the result of each centurie was guaranteed by twelve administrators who testified under oath to his integrity - the half among them English and the other Norman ones.

What one believes being a complete transcription of these original results is preserved for several of the hundreds of the Cambridgeshire, and is of great importance to illustrate. The Inquisitio Eliensis , the Exon Domesday (thus called because volume is preserved at Exeter), and the second volume of the book, also all contain the complete details whose the original result was provided.

Goal

For the object of the census we have three information sources:

passage in Chronic Anglo-Saxon, which indicates why it was ordered,
to us the list of the questions put to the persons in charge, as safeguarded in the Inquisitio Eliensis , and
the contents of the book and the associated recordings mentioned above.

Although those cannot be reconciled in each detail, it from now on is generally recognized that the primary goal of the census was to guarantee and index the revenue duties of the king. The latter consisted especially

the national real estate tax ( geldum ), paid on a fixed evaluation,
Some excises various, and
royalties of the grounds of the crown.

After a great political convulsion like the conquest Norman, and the total confiscation of the land goods which followed, it was interest of Guillaume to guarantee the rights of the crown, of which it affirmed to have inherited, does not suffer in the process. More particularly it was the case of the Norman successors the will not to take account of the obligations of their English predecessors.

This census thus noted the evaluation and name of the new holders of the grounds on which their taxes should be paid. But it made more than that: according to the instructions of the king, it tried to make a national list of evaluation, to consider the value annual of the national territory:

at the time of died of Edouard the Confessor,
when the new owners accepted them,
at the time of the investigation

Later, it calculated, by order, the potential value too. It is obvious that Guillaume wished to know the financial resources of his kingdom, and probably that it wanted to compare them with their existing evaluation, which was very old, although there are traces which it had punctually been modified. Most of the book is used for rather arid details of evaluation and estimate of the rural goods, which were then the only important source of the national wealth. After the establishment of the evaluation of the manor, the register noted the quantity of arable lands, and the number of teams of plowmen (all calculated by group of eight oxen) available to work, with the additional number (if it A there) which could be employed; then river-meadows, timbered, pastures, fisheries (i.e. small stoppings in the brooks), mills, saltworks (so at the seaside) and other subsidiary sources of income; the peasants were enumerated in several classes; and finally the value of the unit, passed and present, is estimated coarsely.

It is obvious that, at the same time in values and measurings, the results of the census are very coarse.

The rearrangement, on a feudal basis, original results (as described above) allowed the conqueror and his officers to see with facility the extent of the possessions of a baron; but it had also the effect to also show far its serfs, and who they were. That was of great importance for Guillaume not only for military reasons, but also because of its tough will to make occupants (although “serfs” of their lords) to swear allegiance directly with him. As Domesday records normally only the first names of people depending on the lord, it is vain to seek for family names of the families claiming itself of an origin Norman; but much was and is still made to identify the serfs, of which the great part bear foreign names.

Transmission of Domesday Book until today

Although single in its kind and of a priceless value for the student, this book will be found disappointing and largely illegible except by a specialist. Even scientists were unable to explain portions of its language and its system. That is partly due to its very early date, the semantic connection compared to those carried out later after a long period is difficult.

But in the Dialogus of scaccario (written under Henri II) one speaks about it as about an absolute reference (from where his popular name of “book of the Last Judgment”, translation of the English title). With the the Middle Ages, its authority was frequently called upon in the courts, and still nowadays there are certain cases in which one consults it.

For the geometrician as for the genealogist, it constitutes an essential documentary source, because not only it provides the oldest reference of the name of a village or a manor, but it gives in the majority of the cases the name of the heirs.

Domesday Book was preserved a long time with the Treasury of the Crown at the castle of Winchester (the capital of the Norman kings). It then was indicated as the Livre of Winchester , and a later edition gives him the title of Liber of Winlonia . When the Treasury was moved in Westminster, probably under the reign of Henri II Plantagenêt, the book accompanied it. Of 1696 until under the reign of the queen Victoria, it was thus preserved in the house of the Chapter cathédral of Westminster, and was left only in particular circumstances, as when one made of it a photozincographic reproduction with Southampton.

It was placed later on in the public Registry office in London. One can today admire it through a window in the museum of the Public records, with Kew. In 1869 it was equipped with a modern binding. For the nine hundred years of the work, in 1986, the two books were again connected, Great Domesday being connected in two volumes and Little Domesday in three volumes. The old trunk where Domesday was preserved is also preserved at the museum of Kew.

The impression of the book, in “recording mode,” was started with the government in 1773, and it book was published, in two volumes in 1783; in 1811 a volume of index was added, and in 1816 an additional volume, indexed separately, container:

the Exon Domesday (for the counties of the western south),
the Inquisitio Eliensis ,
the Liber Winton (census of Winchester at the beginning of the 12th century), and
the Boldon book - a statement of the évêché of Durham one century after Domesday.

The facsimilés photographic ones of the Domesday book, for each county separately, were published in 1861 - 1863, also on the initiative of the government.

See too

Godiva

External bonds (in English)

Domesday Book Online
Domesday Project information - describing the current statute
site of the project CAMiLEON

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