The Survey
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the creation of Domesday in these terms:
After this, the King had much thought and very deep discussion with his council about this country - how it was occupied or with what sort of people. Then he sent his men all over England into every shire and had them find out how many hundred hides there were in the shire, or what land and cattle the King himself had in the country, or what dues he ought to have in twelve months from the shire. Also he had a record made of how much land his archbishops had, and his bishops and his abbots and his earls - and though I relate it at too great length - what or how much everybody had who was occupying land in England, in land or in cattle, and how much money it was worth.
So very narrowly did he have it investigated that there was no single virgate of land, nor indeed (it is a shame to relate but it seemed no shame to him to do) one ox nor one cow nor one pig which there was left out, and not put down in his record; and all those records were brought to him afterwards... Then he travelled about so as to come to Salisbury at Lammas; and there his councillors came to him, and all the people occupying land who were of any account over England, no matter whose vassals they might be; and they all submitted to him and became his vassals and swore oaths of allegiance to him, that they would be loyal to him against all other men.
This, like all other references to the Domesday Book was written at least 30 years after the events of 1085/6, and views the whole thing with hindsight. That hindsight knows that William died in 1086, and that the compilation of the Domesday Book was therefore the culminating act of his reign.
The sheer scale of it is huge: at least 62,000 witnesses gave evidence. Moreover, it was not just one exercise. Peel back the veneer and you begin to see that there were several Domesday surveys, spread over William's reign. These were Geld surveys, to do with the payment of Danegeld - tax. The whole idea of the inquests based on jurors' testimonies was to turn up discrepancies between the claims of the landholders and the claims of the juries, which could be exploited to charge fines, and produce a lot of money for the King.
Published: 2001-07-01
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