The Domesday Book
The
Survey of the Counties of England produced for William I in 1086 exists in a number of versions:
Guides to the weights and measures and the
technical terms used in the Domesday Book are given below.
Great Domesday
King William I spend Christmas day at Gloucester, one of the old residences of the Anglo-Saxon kings. He held court for five days and then spent another three days on church business. Then, according to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
After this, the king had much thought and very deep discussion with his council about this country - how it was settled, and with what kind of people. Then he send his men over all England, into every shire, and had them find out how many hundred hides there were in the shire, or what land or cattle the king himself had in the country, or what dues he ought to have each year from the shire. Also he had a record made of how much land his archbishops had, and his bishops, abbots and earls - and though I relate it at too great length - what or how much everybody had who was occupying land in England, in land or livestock, and how much money it was worth. So very strictly did he have it investigated that there was no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed (shame it is to relate but it seeemed no shame to him to do) one ox nor one cow nor one pig was left out, and not put down in his record: and afterwards all these writings were brought to him.
Robert Losinga, Bishop of Hereford, one of William's Councellors, who must have been present at the "deep discussion" in Gloucester, wrote
In this, the twentieth year of his reign, by order of William king of the English, there was made a survey [descriptio] of the whole of England, that is to say of the several provinces of England, and of the possessions of each and all of the magnates. This was done in respect of ploughland and habitations, and of men both bond and free, both those who were cottagers and those who had houses and livestock; and in respect of the services and payments due from all men in the whole land. Other investigators followed the first; and men were
sent into provinces they did not know, and where they were themselves unknown, so that might be able to check the first survey and if necessary denounce its authors as guilty to the king. And the land was vexed with many calamities arising from the collecting of the royal money.
The information was collected at Winchester, corrected, abridged (chiefly by omission of livestock and the 1066 population), and fair-copied by one writer into a single volume [
Great Domesday]. This copying was abandoned on the death of William in 1087. The surveys of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Durham and Northumberland,
and of several towns including London, were not transcribed, and most of Cumberland and Westmorland (not then in England) was not surveyed. The whole undertaking was completed in less than 12 months, though the fair-copying may have taken a little longer. Great Domesday is now preserved in the Public Record Office. Some versions of regional returns also survive: One, the
Inquisito Eliensis, copies out the Commisioners brief. They were to ask
The name of the place. Who held it, before 1066, and now?
How many hides? How many ploughs, both those in lordship and the men's?
How many villagers, cottagers and slaves, how many free men and Freemen?
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 Ely volume also describes the procedure. 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 villagers from each village". It also names four Frenchmen and four Englishmen from each Hundred, who were sworn to verify the detail. The King wanted to know what he had, and who held it. The Commissioners therefore listed lands in dispute, for Domesday Book was not only a tax-assessment. To The Kings grandson, Bishop Henry of Winchester, its purpose was that every "man should know his right and not usurp another's"; and because it was the final authoritative register of rightful possession "the natives called it Domesday Book, by analogy from the Day of Judgement"; that was why it was carefully arranged by Counties, and by landowners within Counties, "numbered consecutively … for easy reference". Domesday Book describes Old English society under new management, in minute statistical detail. Foreign lords had taken over, but little else had yet changed. The chief landholders and those who held from them are named, and the rest of the population was counted. Most of them lived in villages, whose houses might be clustered together, or dispersed amongst their fields. Villages were grouped in administrative districts called Hundreds, which formed regions within Shires or Counties, which survived with minor boundary changes until recently. The local assemblies, though overshadowed by lords great and small, gave men a voice, which the Commissioners heeded. Very many holdings were described by the Norman term
manerium (meaning manor), which varied in size and structure, from tiny farmsteads to vast holdings; and many lords exercised their own jurisdiction and other rights, termed
soca, whose meaning still eludes exact definition.
Lesser Domesday
After the fair-copying which had produced Great Domesday was abandoned, the unabridged entries for Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were copied, by several writers, into a second volume [
The Lesser Domesday], which states "the Survey was made in 1086". This contains far more detail of the individual holdings.
The Cambridgeshire Inquiry, Inquisito Comitatus Cantabrigensis
In the Cambridgeshire Inquiry, usually referred to as ICC, is a record of the proceedings of the shire court of Cambridgeshire when the representatives of its various Hundreds appeared in turn to ratify or give evidence upon the finding of the DB Commissioners; the order in which the Hundreds were called being apparently a topographical sequence of, firstly the southern Hundreds from Northeast to Northwest and, secondly, the Two Hundreds of Ely. No similar record has survived for other counties, although references throughout DB to the testimony of "the men of the Hundred" imply that similar proceedings occured in other shire courts. Since ICC duplicates much of the information found in the DB text, but ordered by Hundred rather than Landholder, if provides an opportunity to check the accuracy of DN against the record of one intermediate stage of its production. In addition, ICC also contains much information omitted from DB, including the names of the jurors of most of the Hundreds, the names of minor pre-Conquest landholders, the names of some places which are anonymous in DB, and statistics of livestock in each holding. Two entries of ICC are omitted entirely from DB.
The record of ICC survives only in one manuscript written in the second half of the 12th century. This is a copy of what appears to have been a damaged record of the proceedings of the shire court in 1086. Due to the damage to its exemplar, the text of ICC for part of the county (mostly concerning the Hundreds of Longstow, Papworth, Northstow, Chesterton, and Ely) is lacking. Some of the missing information can be found in IE.
The Ely Inquiry, Inquisito Eliensis
The Ely Inquiry, usually referred to as IE, is a collection of material relating to holdings of Ely Abbey in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, whose source appears to have been
drafts (now lost) of the returns for three different circuits of the DB Survey. It was put together, for the benefit of Ely Abbey, very soon after 1086, but survives only in three mansuscripts written in the second half
of the 12th century. For Cambridgeshire, IE supplies details of the Ely Abbey holdings in the county in a sequence of Hundreds similar, but not identical, to that in
ICC, followed by summaries of the holdings of Picot the Sheriff, Hardwin of Scales, and Guy of Raimbeaucourt, three laymen who had siezed several of the Abbey's holdings. The IE
Breviate gives summaries of the numbers of ploughs and people in each of the Abbey's holdings, and the
Nomina Villarum lists the numbers of ploughs held by the villagers therein. These are followed by lists of holdings taken from the Abbey and an account of an Inquiry into the Abbey's losses held between 1071 and 1075.
The Exeter Domesday, Liber Exoniensis
For the South-Western counties there exists another set of returns, the Exeter Book. This contains the returns, differently arranged and worded, for Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, with parts of Dorset and one Wiltshire holding (that of William of Mohun). Comparison with the Exchequer version shows that some information is clearly missing in Exon, such as the rest of Wiltshire, a great part of Dorset, and some entries for Devon. The
arrangement is by fiefs, and within these by counties, though the counties do not always appear in the same sequence. Within each county places are often grouped by Hundreds, although without the Hundred name being given, and frequently the Hundreds occur in the same order under different holders. Information is often duplicated, as for example in Cornwall, where the same 11 hides are listed under the holdings of both the King and the Count of Mortain. After the fiefs in Exon there are details for Devon, Cornwall and Somerset of "Appropriated Lands" (
Terræ Occupatæ) which usually repeat information from the main entries. Exon also includes the returns of the tax levied in 1084 for all five counties. A number of imperfect folios show the totals of the holdings in Wiltshire of Glastonbury Abbey, Ralph of Mortimer, Miles Crispin,
Durand of Gloucester, and Gilbert.
Units of Measure used in the Doomsday Book
Land Measure
In Saxon counties, land was measured by the
hide, which was as much land as would support one free family and its dependants. On good land, this might be as little as 60 acres; but up to 240 acres on poor land. The term comes from the Old English
hi(gi)d, from
hiw-, hig-,
household. The measurement was purely for assessing tax, and does not imply there actually were free families on the land. Smaller holdings were measured in the
virgate, one quarter of a hide, while a quarter of a virgate was known as a
furlong.
In Danish counties, the
carucate was used, being the area an eight-oxen team could plough in a day. One-eight of a carucate was a
bovate In Kent the
sulung was used, usually meaning 2 hides. One quarter of a sulung was a
yoke. Vineyards, and occasionally meadow, were measured by the
arpent,
100 square perches. Distances are sometimes expressed in the
League. This was smaller than the present day unit, usually being 1½ miles.
Goods
In addition to the usual weights and measures, there were several specialised units for specific goods;
| measure |
Type of goods |
Amount |
| mitta |
salt |
6 or 8 bushels |
| packload |
dry goods such as salt, corn or fish |
about 240lb. |
| sester |
mostly used for honey |
of variable size, but reckoned as 32 ounces |
| sticha |
eels |
25 |
Money
Money was expressed in the
denarius, the english silver penny, which was the only coin in circulation in 1086. Other units did not correspond to any actual coin: The
solidus was 12d, the
ora 16d or 20d,
the
silver mark 160, and the
gold mark £6.
Glossary of terms used in the Doomsday Book
The Domesday Book contains many obsolete words, and translation of these into modern english can present problems. The translations here used cannot be exact; the nearest modern equivalent is given
| translation |
meaning |
DB Latin |
| assart |
To clear land, to turn woodland into arable or pastureland; land so cleared |
assart |
| before 1066 | Tempore regis Edwardi, in King Edward's time | T.R.E. |
| bodyguard | The obligation to provide the king, or a lord, with a bodyguard during a visit | heuuard |
| boor | A cultivator, similar to the Old English (ge)bur, though probably of slightly lower status and on occasion in DB equated with the freed man | burus |
| burgess | Holder of land or a house in a borough | burgus |
| cartage | The obligation to provide mules or draught horses for the King's use | avera |
| cottager | Inhabitant of a cote, cottage, often without land | cotarius |
| customary due | A fixed rent or service payable at regular intervals | consuetudo |
| defence obligation | The obligation for military service or for payment in substitution for personal service | wara |
| escort | The obligation to provide the King with a mounted man for his service or protection | inward |
| farmer | Someone who agreed to pay the King, the Sheriff, or the lord of the manor a fixed sum of money in return for administering and receiving the rents, dues and profits from a manor | firmarius |
| forest | Not necessarily woodland, but land reserved for the King's hunting; usually under Forest Law controlled for the Forester rather than the Sheriff | foras |
| freed man | A former slave, sometimes holding land and ploughs and rendering dues | colibertus |
| freeman | 'Soke man', exercising or subject to jurisdiction; free from many villagers' burdens; before 1066 often with more land and higher status than villagers; | sochemannus |
| frenchman | A french settler, usually a Norman, of similar standing to a freeman | francigena |
| full jurisdiction | German Sache, English sake, Latin causa, affair, lawsuit; the fullest authority normally exercised by a lord | saca |
| go where he will | Landholder free to place himself under the protection of a lord of his own choosing | |
| half-hundred | A small hundredum | diminium Hundredum |
| holding | Either a landholder's total holding, or land held by special grant | feudum |
| honour | A holding, or more often a group of holdings forming a large estate | honor |
| housecarl | Equivalent to a thane in Scandinavian parts of the country | |
| hundred | A district within a shire, whose assembly of notables and village representatives usually met about once a month | Hundredum |
| inland | Equivalent to "in lordship". Such land was often exempt from tax | inland |
| jurisdiction and (payment of) suit | 'Soke', from Old English socn, seeking, comparable with Latin quæstio. Jurisdiction, with the right to receive fines and other dues from those who paid suit to the court of the district in which such soca was exercised; jurisdiction included the right to settle a saca (dispute), and sometimes the terms soca and saca are used in combination to show that the jurisdiction is of the fullest sort | soca |
| livery | To be given rights or ownership of land as a gift from the King | |
| lordship | The mastery or dominion of a lord; including ploughs, land, men, villages, etc, reserved for the lord's use; often concentrated in a home farm or demesne, a "Manor Farm" or "Lordship Farm" | dominium |
| man | To be someone's man, to owe obligations to, usually in the form of labour or service. A woman could be a man in this sense | homo |
| manor | A territorial and jurisdictional holding | manerium |
| mill | A watermill | |
| moneyer | A person licensed to strike coins, receiving the dies from the government, and keeping 6 silver pennies in the pound | |
| outlier | An outlying place, attached to a manor | berewic |
| pannage | Mast, or autumn feed for pigs, which were allowed to graze freely on the acorns and beechnuts on the woodland floor. The right to pannage is still part of some forest laws | |
| plough | A plough, with the oxen which pulled it, usually reckoned as 8 | caruca |
| predecessor | Person whom a tenant had followed in the rightful possession of his holding; also the previous holder of an office | antecessor |
| presentation | A payment for fishing rights | presentationes |
| reeve | Old English gerafa A royal officer | præpositus |
| relief | Money or kind paid to a lord by relatives after a man's death in order for them to inherit | heriot |
| revenue | Old English feorm, provisions due to the King or lord; a fixed sum paid in place of these and of other miscellaneous dues | firma |
| rider, riding-man | Riding escorts for a lord. | radman, radcaitt |
| seat | The principal manor of a lord | caput |
| sheriff | The royal officer of a shire, managing its judicial and financial affairs | |
| slave | A man or woman who owed personal service to another, and was un-free, and not able to move home or work or change allegiance, to buy or sell, without permission | |
| smallholder | Cultivator of inferior status, usually with a little land | bordarius |
| steersman | The commander of a ship | |
| tax | The principal royal tax, originally levied during the Danish wars, normally at an equal number of pence on each hide of land | geldum |
| thane | Person holding land from the King by special grant; formerly used of the King's ministers and military companions | teignus |
| third penny | The local earl's share of fines in shire or hundred courts, often allocated afterwards to a particular manor or church as a regular income | |
| the lord's or household | Belonging to a lord or lordship | dominicus |
| tributary | A person who paid tribute in money rather than in work, | censarius |
| tribute | Old English gafol, tribute or tax to the King or lord | gablum |
| under the patronage of | Relating to the situation in which a free man gave up rights over his land to someone who could guarantee his protection | commendatus |
| under-tenant | Tenant holding land from a main landholder or tenant-in-chief | |
| village or town | Translating Old English tun, town. The later distinction between a small village and a large town was not yet in use in 1086 | villa |
| villager | Member of a villa, usually with more land than a bordarius | villanus |
| wapentake | The equivalent of a Hundred, in the Danish counties of England | wapentac |
| warland | Land which was liable for tax, in contrast to inland | |
| waste | Land which was either unusable or uncultivated, and in any case not taxed. Although sometimes waste was the result of William's wars in the North, it could simply mean land not fit for agricultural use. | |
Go to top of page
