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DOMESDAY BOOK. 



DOMESDAY BOOK. 



(IsabeUe, Edifice* Circulairei ; Rondelet,L'Art de Batir ; Fergusson, 

 Handbook of Architecture.) 



DOMESDAY BOOK, the register of the lands of England, framed 

 by order of King William the Conqueror. It was sometimes termed 

 ' Rotulus Wintoniae,' and was the book from which judgment was to 

 bo given upon the value, tenures, and services of the lauds therein 

 described. The original is comprised in two volumes one a large 

 folio, the other a quarto. The first begins with Kent, and proceeds 

 with other counties in the following order : Sussex, Surrey, Hamp- 

 shire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, 

 Cornwall, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, 

 Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hun- 

 tingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Warwick- 

 shire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, 

 Yorkshire, and concluding with Lincolnshire. It is written on 38 '2. 

 double pages of vellum, in one and the same hand, in a small but 

 plain character, each page having a double column ; it contains 31 

 counties. After Lincolnshire (fol. 373), the claims arising in the three 

 ridings in Yorkshire are taken notice of, and settled ; then follow 

 the claims in Lincolnshire, and the determinations of the jury upon 

 them (fol. 375) ; lastly, from fol. 379 to the end there is a recapitulation 

 of every wapentake or hundred in the three ridings of Yorkshire, 

 of the towns in each hundred, what number of carucates and ox- 

 gangs are in every town, and the names of the owners placed in 

 a very small character above them. The second volume, in quarto, 

 is written upon 450 double pages of vellum, but in a single column, 

 and in a large fair character, and contains the counties of Essex, 

 Norfolk, and Suffolk. In these counties the "liberi homines" are 

 ranked separate ; and there is also a title of " Invasiones super 

 Regem." 



These two volumes are preserved, among other records of the 

 Exchequer, in the Chapter House at Westminster; and at the end of 

 the second is the following memorial in capital letters of the time of its 

 completion : " Anno Millesimo Octogesimo Sexto ab Incarnatione 

 Domini, vigesimo vero regni Willielmi, facta est itsa Descriptio, non 

 soluin per bos tres Comitatus, sed etiam per alios." From internal 

 evidence, there can be no doubt but that the same year, 1086, is 

 assignable as the date of the first volume. 



In 1767, in consequence of an address of the House of Lords, 

 George III. gave directions for the publication of this survey. It was 

 not, however, till after 1770 that the work was actually commenced. 

 Its publication was entrusted to Mr. Abraham Farley, a gentleman of 

 learning as well as of great experience in records, who had almost daily 

 recourse to the book for more than forty years. It was completed 

 early in 1783, having been ten years in passing through the press, 

 and thus became generally accessible to the antiquary and topogra- 

 iher. It was printed in fac-simile, as far as regular types, assisted 

 iy the representation of particular contractions, could imitate the 

 original. 



In 1816 the commissioners upon the public record* published two 

 volumes supplementary to Domesday, which now form one set with 

 the volumes of the Record. One of these contains a general intro- 

 duction, accompanied with two different indexes of the names of places, 

 an alphabetical index of the tenants in capite, and an ' Index Rerum.' 

 The other contains four records : three of them, namely, the Exon 

 Domesday, the Inquisitio Eliensis, and the Liber Winton., coutempo- 

 rary with the Survey ; the other record, called ' Boldon Book,' is the 

 survey of Durham, made in 1183, by Bishop Hugh Pudsey. These 

 supplementary volumes were published under the superintendence of 

 Sir Henry Ellis. 



Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham were 

 not included in the counties described in the Great Domesday ; nor 

 does Lancashire appear under its proper name ; but Furness, and 

 the northern part of that county, as well as the south of West- 

 moreland and part of Cumberland, are included within the West 

 Riding of Yorkshire. That part of Lancashire which lies between 

 the rivers Ribble and Mersey, and which at the time of the survey 

 comprehended 6 hundreds and 188 manors, is subjoined to Cheshire. 

 Part of Rutlandshire is described in the counties of Northampton 

 and Lincoln ; and the two ancient hundreds of Atiscross and 

 Existan, deemed a part of Cheshire in the survey, have been since 

 transferred to the counties of Flint and Denbigh. In the account 

 of Gloucestershire we find a considerable portion of Monmouthshire 

 included, seemingly all between the rivers Wye and Usk. Kelham 

 thinks it probable that the king's commissioners might find it 

 impossible to take any exact survey of the three counties northern- 

 most of all, as they had suffered so much from the Conqueror's 

 vengeance. As to Durham, he adds, all the country between the 

 Tees and Tyne had been conferred by Alfred on the bishop of 

 this see ; and at the coming in _of the Conqueror he was reputed a 

 count- palatine. 



The order generally observed in writing the Survey was to set down 

 in the first place at the head of evry county (except Chester and 

 Rutland) the king's name, Rex Willielmui, and then a list of the bishops, 

 religious houses, churches, any great men, according to their rank, who 

 held of the king in capite in that county, likewise of his thains, 

 ministers, and servanta ; -with a numerical figure in red ink before 

 them, for the better finding them in the book. In <>me countic the 



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cities and capital boroughs are taken notice of before the list of the 

 great tenants is entered, with the particular laws or customs which 

 prevailed in each of them ; and in others they are inserted promis- 

 cuously. After the list of the tenants, the manors and possessions 

 themselves which belong to the king, and also to each owner throughout 

 the whole county, whether they lie in the same or different hundreds, 

 are collected together and minutely noted, with their under-tenants. 

 The king's demesnes, under the title of Terra, Rtyis, always stand 

 first. 



For the adjustment of this survey certain commissioners, called the 

 king's justiciaries, were appointed. In folios 164 and 181 of the first 

 volume we find them designated as " Legati Regis." Those, for the 

 midland counties at least, if not for all the districts, were Remigius, 

 bishop of Lincoln, Walter Giffard, earl of Buckingham, Henry de Ferrers, 

 and Adam, the brother of Eudo Dapifer, who probably- associated with 

 them some principal person in each shire. These inquisitors, upon the 

 oaths of the sheriffs, the lords of each manor, the presbyters of every 

 church, the reves of every hundred, the bailiffs and six villains of every 

 village, were to inquire into the name of the place, who held it in the 

 time of king Edward, who was the present possessor, how many hides 

 in the manor, how many carucates in demesne, how many homagers, 

 how many villains, how many cotarii, how many servi, what free-men, 

 how many tenants in socage, what quantity of wood, how much meadow 

 and pasture, what mills and fish-ponds, how much added or taken 

 away, what the gross value in king Edward's time, what the present 

 value, and how much each free-man or soc-man had or has. All this 

 was to be triply estimated : first, aa the estate was held in the time 

 of the Confessor ; then as it was bestowed by king William ; and 

 thirdly, as its value stood at the formation of the survey. The 

 jurors were, moreover, to state whether any advance could be made 

 in the value. Such are the exact terms of one of the inquisitions 

 for the formation of this survey, still preserved in a register of the 

 monastery of Ely. 



The writer of that part of the Saxon Chronicle which relates to 

 the Conqueror's time, informs us with some degree of asperity, that 

 not a hide or yardland, not an ox, cow, or hog, was omitted in 

 the census. It should seem, however, that the jurors, in numerous 

 instances, framed returns of a more extensive nature than were 

 absolutely required by the king's precept, and it is perhaps on this 

 account that we have different kinds of descriptions in different 

 counties. 



It is not necessary to go more minutely into the contents of this 

 extraordinary record, to enlarge upon the classes of tenantry enume- 

 rated in it, the descriptions of land and other property therewith con- 

 nected, the computations of money, the territorial jurisdictions and 

 franchises, the tenures and services, the criminal and civil jurisdictions, 

 the ecclesiastical matters, the historical and other particular events 

 alluded to, or the illustrations of ancient manners, with information 

 relating to all of which it abounds, exclusive of its particular and more 

 immediate interest in the localities of the country for the county 

 historian. 



As an abstract of population it fails. The tenants in capite, includ- 

 ing ecclesiastical corporations, amounted scarcely to 1400; the under- 

 tenants to somewhat less than 8000. The total population, as far as it 

 in given in the record itself, amounts to no more than 282,242 persons. 

 In Middlesex, pannage (payment for feeding) is returned for 16,535, in 

 Hertfordshire for 30,705, and in Essex for 92,991 hogs; yet not a 

 single swine-herd (a character so well known in the Saxon times) is 

 entered in these counties. In the Norman period, as can be proved 

 from records, the whole of Essex was, in a manner, one continued 

 forest ; yet once only in that coimty is a forester mentioned, in the 

 entry concerning Writtle. Salt-works, works for the production of 

 lead and iron, mills, vineyards, fisheries, trade, and the manual arts, 

 must have given occupation to thousands who are unrecorded in the 

 survey ; to say nothing of those who tended the flocks and herds, the 

 returns of which so greatly enlarge the pages of the second volume. 

 In some counties we have no mention of a single priest, even 

 where churches are found ; and scarcely any inmate of a monastery 

 is recorded beyond the abbot or abbess, who stands as a tenant 

 in capite. These remarks might be extended, but they are suffi- 

 cient for their purpose. They show that, in this point of view, 

 the Domesday Survey is but a partial register. It was not intended 

 to be a record of population further than was required for ascertaining 

 the geld. 



There is one important fact, however, to be gathered from its entries. 

 It shows in detail how long a time elapsed before England recovered 

 from the violence attendant on the Norman Conquest. The annual 

 value of property, it will be found, was much lessened as compared 

 with the produce of estates in the time of Edward the Confessor. In 

 general, at the Survey, the king's lands were more highly rated than 

 t efore the Conquest ; and his rent from the burghs was greatly 

 increased; a few also of the larger tenants in capite had improved 

 their estates; but, on the whole, the rental of the kingdom was 

 reduced, and twenty years after the Conquest the estates were, on 

 an average, valued at little more than three-fourths of the former 

 estimate. An instance appears in the county of Middlesex, where no 

 Terra Regis however occurs. The first column, headed T.R.K., shows 

 the value of the estates in the time of King Edward the Confessor ; 



