A reeve was a type of farm manager. The questions were designed to find out how much each manor owed the king in tax. It also told Williamwho owned what land and how much it was worth. The book lists each manor and its owner and the value of that manor.
The book has three values in it for each manor :. How much it was worth before the invasion of How much it was worth during the invasion and How much it was worth after the invasion. This gives a clear indication of how badly the coastal area of Sussex between Pevensey Bay and Hastings was affected by the Norman invasion.
Other areas in East Sussex faired little better. In all, 13, places were visited and the final record was produced in Winchester by a monk. The survey — where it was carried out — was considered so thorough that one Englishman wrote:. They wrote down all of the information in Latin, as with the final Domesday document itself. Once they returned to London the information was combined with earlier records, from both before and after the Conquest, and was then, circuit by circuit, entered into the final Domesday Book.
When was the Book written? The collection of information by the commissioners took place probably in the first few months of , followed by the amalgamation of this and existing information into lengthy drafts. These were possibly finished by the end of the summer of , with work on abbreviating the records into the Great Domesday see below probably starting alongside this.
By the time of King William's death in September work had stopped, and could have ceased before this time. Although the Great Domesday Book was left incomplete, the draft of the remaining unabbreviated work the East Anglian circuit remains as the Little Domesday Book see below. Incredibly the final version of the main Domesday Book volume, all pages of it, was handwritten by one unnamed official scribe, and checked by one other.
Despite the speed at which the Book was compiled the text was carefully written in a short form of Latin. Back to top How long did it take to write? See 'When was the Book written? With the need to defend England from possible invasion threats from Scandinavia, and costly campaigns being fought in northern France, the vast army William amassed required substantial funding. The power to raise Danegeld - a uniform tax to pay for the defence of the country - had been inherited from the Anglo-Saxons, and William saw the need for the Domesday Book as a thorough assessment of the potential amount of tax he could raise from his subjects and their assets.
The survey also served as a gauge of the country's economic and social state in the aftermath of the Conquest and the unrest that followed it. The main volume, Great Domesday, is written on sheep-skin parchment using black and red ink only red used for the county titles atop each page, and corrections and alterations.
There are 13, places listed in the Domesday Book. Back to top What areas of Britain did the Domesday survey cover? The Domesday survey covered all of England as it existed in , which included a small part of what is now Wales, some of Cumbria, but excluded the present day Northumbria.
The entries for some major towns at the time like the important Winchester and London failed to make it into the book. The survey was intended to be compiled into one complete volume, but the compilation was never fully completed, probably owing to King William's death before the sole scribe could finish his work.
However, the information collected from the whole survey was retained and still exists today in 2 volumes: 'Great Domesday' - most of the counties, abridged, and 'Little Domesday' - the 3 counties missing from Great Domesday, in their unabridged form. See more about the two books here.
There are pages in Great Domesday see above and pages in Little Domesday which shows how much detail was cut out to compile Great Domesday. How many places listed in the Domesday Book still exist? Amazingly almost all of the places mentioned in the Domesday Book can be found on a present day map of England and Wales , though many of their names have been altered over time from their 11th century versions.
Back to top Where can I see the Domesday Book? The original Domesday Book is deemed too valuable and fragile to be exhibited in public and so is kept in private at the National Archives - formerly the Public Records Office - in Kew, London though it is still used on occasions by students and academics interested in its study. William needed to raise taxes to pay for his army and so a survey was set in motion to assess the wealth and and assets of his subjects throughout the land.
First published in , it contains records for 13, settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble and Tees the border with Scotland at the time. The information in the survey was collected by Royal commissioners who were sent out around England. They carried with them a set of questions and put these to a jury of representatives — made up of barons and villagers alike — from each county. Once they returned to London the information was combined with earlier records, from both before and after the Conquest, and was then entered, in Latin, into the final Domesday Book.
As well as valuing assets, this fascinating document gives a valuable insight into land use at the time, the life of local landowners, and even disputes between neighbours. By studying individual entries it is possible to discover that upmarket Hampstead in London had woodland containing pigs and was assessed as being worth 50 shillings.
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