Who appears in Domesday Book?
Most of the names that appear are those of landowners. The king and his family held about 17 per cent of the land, bishops and abbots about 26 per cent and around 190 tenants-in-chief held about 54 per cent. Some holdings were huge, with some twelve barons controlling nearly a quarter of the country but it is not always easy to distinguish between individuals with the same names who may have held lands in the same county or across a number of different counties.
Anglo-Saxon names appear mainly as under-tenants of Norman lords. Some 4-5,000 entries relate to Anglo-Saxon lords, such as Aelfric, the pre-Conquest lord of March Gibbon in Buckinghamshire, who, Domesday records, paid his rent 'miserably and with a heavy heart'. Providing definitive proof of rights to land and obligations to tax and military service.
Women in Domesday
Some women's names appear in Domesday. The most prominent was Judith, countess of Northumbria and Huntingdon, who was King William's niece. One Aelgar was granted enough land to live on by the Sheriff of Trent in return for teaching his daughter the art of gold embroidery. Others are anonymous, such as the one 'poor woman' of Barfreston in Kent who only appears in the text because she had to make an annual payment of 3 ¾ d, although for what is not recorded. Exceptionally, Asa of Scoreby in Yorkshire is noted as holding her land 'separate and free from the control and power of Bjornulfr her husband, even when they were together'. Now separated, she had withdrawn 'all her own land and possessed it as a lady'.
Villani
Of the 268,984 individuals described in Domesday, some 40 per cent are listed as villani. This Latin term has been translated in different ways by historians, as villein, villager, and villan. Philip Morgan has described them as "simply members of the vill who held a fixed share of its resources, including a changing pattern of strips within the fields, and owed labour services to the lord's demesne" (land held directly by the lord of the manor). Some might have farms of as much as 30 acres, but still owe their lords two or three days' work on his land. Below them in the social hierarchy came the bordars who owed more services but held less land and below them the cottars, with even less, perhaps just a few acres and a vegetable garden. Sometimes those with trades - millers, blacksmiths, potters, shepherds and the like - receive specific mention and are named such as Fulchere the Bowman. Others appear with names associated with more personal characteristics, such as Alwin the Rat and Ralph the Haunted.
At the bottom of the social pile came the servi or slaves, about 10% of the total population, who had no property rights and could be bought and sold. Often listed with the number of ploughs, it has been assumed that most would have worked as ploughmen, domestic servants and dairymaids.
Published: 2001-05-01
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