Inside Domesday

Page 4 of 5

• 1. The culmination of the Conquest
• 2. The Survey
• 3. The Danish threat
• 4. The content of the Domesday Book
• 5. Land transfer
• Print entire article

The content of the Domesday Book

The result was Domesday: the most comprehensive survey of land tenure in England ever produced by a medieval king. It tells us all kinds of things, most importantly:

• Who owned the land before 1066.
• Who owned the land at the time of Domesday in 1086.
• How it changed hands.
• What that land was worth, and what manors it was associated with.
• How many peasants (called bordars and villani) tended that land.

This was achieved through judicious use of the Anglo-Saxon 'local government'. Anglo-Norman England was 'governed' by local officers: the sheriff and the reeve, based within the shire. People cooperated with them and took part in the shire courts, because the whole community's very existence depended on the efficient running of the shire.

It was a form of local government, and this is what William depended on. He formed an alliance with the freemen of the shire to run the country, based upon their autonomous local governance, through the agency of the sheriff who formed the natural link between shire and king.

The created a dynamic tension between the lords, the shire and the king, which sometimes erupted into resentment from the earls, as in the revolt of Edwin and Morcar or the Revolt of the Earls in 1075.

It is also possible to see that the Domesday Book commissioners were themselves basically confused about what a manor actually was - we can see their concept of a manor changing throughout the book.

'...the Norman barony had taken over the role of the English thegns...'

What the Domesday Book shows is that the Norman barony had taken over the role of the English thegns in Anglo-Norman England. The two are almost interchangeable: both held land in return for service (mainly military), both had sub-tenants and both owed their ultimate position, and therefore their allegiance, to the king. In many cases, all that had happened was that the barons had been inserted as an extra social layer between the English king and the English thegnly class.

NextPrevious

Published: 2001-07-01