Great and Little Domesday
Domesday was never a single volume but originally two books, Great Domesday and Little Domesday (which was a longer version, covering the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, which was never written up into the main volume). It is now contained within five volumes, having been re-bound in 1984 to improve the prospects for its preservation for another millennium.
Great Domesday was mostly written by a single scribe, with the hand of a second clerk appearing, checking his work and adding some notes and further entries. Minor errors were inevitable and led to some inconsistencies for later scholars to worry over.
The counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk appear in a more detailed version known as Little Domesday. 'Little' refers to its physical size, not the content, as it is more detailed than Great Domesday, notably in its description of livestock belonging to the manor. Domesday Suffolk, for example, records 434 goats and 2 donkeys. It was the work of several clerks, perhaps as many as seven, and was neatly but hurriedly written, resulting again in minor errors.
Other versions of parts of the Domesday survey, which are not held by the Public Record Office, are the "Exon" Domesday (Somerset, Cornwall and most of Devon), held by some to be written by the same scribe who worked on Great Domesday; the 'Ely Inquest' (Ely Abbey estates) and the Cambridgeshire Inquest (parts of Cambridgeshire).
Published: 2001-05-01
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