41 
many of them for demesne, probably only lately subtenanted 
lands, to be settled by legal process, and for some items of which 
the hundredmen themselves were held responsible at their audit, 
for example in the Hundred of Abediccha. This digest is on 
parchment sheets of the same size and form as the Domesday 
Book, and so far as can be ascertained the two have always been 
kept together. Not that it was very carefully compiled, for in the 
Wiltshire part there are triplications not entirely corresponding 
with each other. Some important hundreds are not entered 
with the rest, but will be found at f. 526, and probably Somerton. 
was lost. 
THE SOMERSET DOMESDAY. 
In the year 1086 the King gave orders for a general survey of 
the whole Kingdom, appointing Commissioners to take the over- 
sight of the several districts into which it was divided. The 
western district included the Counties of Devon, Cornwall,. 
Somerset, Dorset, and Wilts. In eight months the work was. 
completed. The Commissioners were to make their inquisitions 
by hundreds, taking in rotation the several manors in each 
hundred. A jury was summoned consisting of the Sheriff of the 
County and others, adding the Lord of the Manor, the reeve, the 
priest (if any), and some of the principal tenants. No doubt the 
smaller manors had to content themselves with juries chiefly 
made up from their neighbours. The manor itself was the unit 
of taxation, consisting of a house with a varying quantity of land 
attached, separately rated ; and the tax was demanded at the 
manor house. If the manor had under-tenants, it was the duty 
of its bailiff to collect from them, and pay the King’s officer, 
called the hundredman, at the Court House. No evidence seems 
forthcoming to show whether the Commissioners met at the 
County town and summoned juries before them from hundreds 
and manors; or whether they visited each hundred in order. 
