METHOD OF COMPILATION 19 



Chronicler boasts that he used his influence with the Com- 

 missioners to induce them to omit Crowland, but his tale is 

 doubted. 1 



Besides rearrangement, other changes were made at 

 Winchester. Domesday Book is in two volumes, of which the 

 smaller the second relates to the counties of Essex, Norfolk, 

 and Suffolk. The descriptions of these counties are full of 

 detail : the stock on the demesne, or home farm, is usually set 

 forth, and the details of the encroachments are most vivid. In 

 Suffolk the names of the individual freemen are entered at 

 length, and a comparison of this volume with the Cambridge- 

 shire Inquest suggests that it is a verbatim copy of the original 

 returns (with the omission of the names of the jurors) which 

 have been rearranged in the manner before described. Mr. 

 Round thinks that this was the first volume that was compiled, 

 and that when the authorities saw what a bulky volume would 

 be required if the whole of England were entered in such 

 detail, they decided that the other counties should be treated 

 in a simpler manner, and that much of the detail should be 

 suppressed. 2 All the returns of stock were therefore omitted 

 from the other counties, and consequently the vivid descriptions 

 of East Anglian life are replaced by bald statistics in the rest 

 of England. 



The second volume differs from the first in form also. It 

 contains 450 leaves of vellum, about IOJ inches in height by 7 

 inches in width, with 20 to 28 lines on a page. The first 

 volume has 382 leaves, measuring 14^ inches by 9$, with from 

 50 to 59 lines to a page. The entries in the second volume 

 are written right across the page, while there are two columns 

 to a page in the first volume. " The rubbed and worn look of 

 the first and last pages containing each county appears to 

 indicate that the returns for each county were kept separate 

 for some time before being bound together as they now are." 3 



1 Eyton, Staff., II. <t F. ., 141. 



3 Birch, Domesday Book, 20. 



