12 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



Commons in February, 1872, and was not published till July, 

 1875. But although the statistics were collected during those 

 nine months, it does not follow that the digest known as 

 Domesday Book was completed at the Salisbury gemot. 



A careful student will at once observe that the counties 

 can be grouped according to differences in the phraseology 

 employed in recording their statistics. Mr. Eyton has pointed 

 out nine possible groups, and thinks that each group composed 

 a separate circuit, to which a separate body of Commissioners 

 was sent, in the same way as to-day counties are grouped for 

 assize purposes. The suggestion is so natural that it may be 

 at once adopted, especially as, without some such division of 

 labour, it would have been impossible to collect all these 

 statistics within nine months. His circuits are as follows : 



I. Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hants, and Berks. 

 II. Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. 



III. Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham. 



IV. Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester. 

 V. Cambridge, Bedford. 



VI. Northampton, Leicester, Warwick, Oxford. 

 VII. Stafford, Shropshire, Chester. 

 VIII. Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, York, Huntingdon. 

 IX. Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk. 1 



There can be no doubt about the south-eastern and south- 

 western circuits : the language of the Shropshire and Cheshire 

 Commissioners is almost the same as that of the Commissioners 

 for Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford, and it would seem 

 better to group these five shires into a western circuit, extend- 

 ing along the Welsh border ; Stafford appears to fall naturally 

 with Warwick, Northampton, Leicester, and Oxford, into a 

 West-Midland circuit, also of five counties. There is a marked 

 similarity between the Hertford and Cambridge and Bedford 

 Surveys, and an East-Midland circuit could be formed by 



1 Eyton, Notes on Domesday, 10. 





